MindsEye boss reportedly claims ‘internal and external saboteurs’ are to blame for the studio’s woes

MindsEye boss Leslie Benzies has allegedly claimed that the troubles facing Build a Rocket Boy are the result of “internal and external saboteurs,” according to a new report.

Benzies, who is best known for his time as the president of Rockstar North, has reportedly broken his silence to staff after the difficult launch of MindsEye, the debut game from his studio, Build a Rocket Boy.

According to a report from IGN, Benzies addressed staff this week, where it’s claimed the studio boss blamed “internal and external saboteurs” on the issues facing both Mindseye and Build A Rocket Boy.  It was reported last month that the studio is facing mass layoffs in the wake of Mindseye’s disastrous launch.

Benzies’ comments come as around 300 staff are reported to have received emails informing them that they are at risk of losing their jobs. According to the report, these same emails have been sent to staff at PlayFusion, a studio that was acquired by Build A Rocket Boy in 2024.

Since the release of MindsEye on June 10, social media has been flooded with videos of the game’s technical issues and bugs. The situation has deteriorated to the extent that PlayStation has been refunding multiple players, a rare occurrence that previously took place during the troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077, before it was pulled from sale entirely.

The studio said it was “heartbroken” during an apology released last earlier this month, saying it was ” fully committed to ensuring all our players have a great experience”.

The game’s Metacritic score currently stands at 38 for the PC version and just 28 for the PS5 version, making it the lowest rated game on Metacritic so far this year and significantly lower than any game on Metacritic last year too.

It isn’t faring much better on Steam, where user ratings are currently listed as ‘Mostly Negative’. Of the 1,833 user reviews submitted for the game so far, 37% are marked as positive.

In an interview with VGC  before the game’s release, MindsEye assistant game director Adam Whiting told us that while Build a Rocket Boy was working on both Everywhere and MindsEye, most of the staff were focused on the latter.

“Whilst we’ve got a big development team, and part of the team was focused on Everywhere for a while, probably a larger part was always focused on MindsEye,” Whiting said.

“A game of this kind of quality and scale needs a lot of artists, needs a lot of coders, needs a lot of everything, right? Needs a lot of love.”