LogInThe eliminations follow MindsEye becoming the worst game of 2025 so far.
Development studio Build A Rocket Boy has confirmed the earlier reports about its plans to lay off an undisclosed number of employees, issuing an official statement to the press stating that they have indeed initiated "a formal consultation process that may result in redundancies."
BARB
For context, IGN reported over the weekend that BARB had initiated a redundancy process, citing an anonymous developer. The outlet noted that under UK law, the standard 45-day consultation process begins when an employer proposes 100 or more job cuts within a 90-day period, meaning the upcoming layoffs could affect over 100 employees, roughly 20% of the studio's entire staff
Following the reveal, the developer stepped forward to confirm that the process has indeed begun in a typical "this is a painful decision for us that hasn't come lightly" corporate statement, acknowledging the upcoming firings and expressing hope that they will help the team focus more on delivering updates and performance optimization for MindsEye. Attached below is Build A Rocket Boy's full statement, as shared by IGN:
"We can confirm that we have had to make the painful decision to notify our hardworking team of some internal changes at Build A Rocket Boy. While we are working to reassign roles for as many of those impacted by these changes as possible, sadly we are initiating a formal consultation process that may result in redundancies. This decision has not been made lightly, and we are committed to handling this process with transparency, fairness, and respect for all employees. We will provide further details to the team over the coming weeks.
The launch of MindsEye has been a significant milestone for Build A Rocket Boy, but we know that we still have a lot more to do to grow our community in the coming years. The challenges we've faced have only strengthened our resolve and, while we are deeply saddened by today's decision and thankful to our incredible team, this shift allows us to focus on delivering ongoing updates and performance optimization for MindsEye, while also ensuring the long-term success of Build A Rocket Boy's future ambitions."
The eliminations follow MindsEye officially becoming the worst game of 2025 so far, with its Metacritic page currently showing a user score of 2.6/10 and a gaming journalist score of 38/100 – making it the lowest-rated title of the year by both metrics.
Among the issues cited by both players and reviewers are MindsEye's broken NPC AI, numerous graphical glitches, poor voice acting, a world that feels empty and barebones, excessive cutscenes, buggy ragdoll physics, clunky mouse-and-keyboard driving controls, lackluster gunplay, a $60 price tag, and – most notably – abysmal optimization, which is mentioned as the biggest problem in nearly every review, even the positive ones.
Although the studio is now working on fixing some of the issues, with the game's 24-hour peak concurrent player count on Steam sitting in the double digits, it sure feels like a futile effort and nothing but a postponement of the game's inevitable abandonment, whether due to Build A Rocket Boy shifting focus to a new project or a complete studio shutdown, depending on how big of a financial catastrophy MindsEye actually was.
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