IO Interactive CEO says MindsEye disaster means it ‘remains to be seen’ whether it’ll publish other studios’ games again
“Well, that was definitely tough, right?” Hakan Abrak says
The CEO of Hitman developer IO Interactive (IOI) says the disastrous launch of MindsEye has left the company’s future publishing plans in question.
In 2017, IOI performed a management buyout from then-owner Square Enix, making the company fully independent. A few years later it announced that it would be publishing Hitman 3 itself.
IOI’s publishing plans took a step further in 2024 when the company announced IOI Partners, a new venture that would see it publishing games from other developers.
The first game published under the IOI Partners label was MindsEye, the debut game from former Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies‘ new studio Build a Rocket Boy.
However, when MindsEye was released on June 10, social media became flooded with videos of the game’s technical issues and bugs, and reviews – which came late due to review code not being supplied to publications – resulted in a Metacritic score of just 37 on PC and 28 on PS5.
In a new interview with IGN, IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak said the initial talks it had with Build a Rocket Boy was “to support them”, explaining: “We thought they had some great ideas and a great world in the background that they were building, and hopefully they’ll get the opportunity to show more of that in the future. And we just wanted to help them distribute the game.”
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On the backlash following its release, Abrak said: “Well, that was definitely tough, right? It was a tough reception. It wasn’t what they hoped for, and also what we didn’t hope for at IOI Partners. They’re working hard on turning that around to regain the trust of the gamers out there, and they have tons of potential and content they’re working on. So hopefully they’ll succeed with that in the future.”
However, when asked whether IOI still planned to release other studios’ games in the future despite the MindsEye disaster, Abrak suggested it wasn’t a certainty.
“IO Interactive will publish our own games internally,” he replied. “IOI Partners? That remains to be seen.”
IOI’s next game, 007 First Light, will be released on March 27, 2026 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2 and PC. The first gameplay trailer was revealed this week.
