After quite a few rounds of layoffs, MindsEye studio Construct a Rocket Boy seems to be closing down for good.
MindsEye was launched in June 2025, touchdown a 39 Metacritic rating on PC and a 29 on PS5, making it the worst-rated sport of final yr.
Since then the studio has been embroiled in quite a few controversies, from quite a few layoffs totalling over 400 employees, to co-CEO Mark Gerhard suggesting that one of many most important causes behind MindsEye’s industrial failure was “prison exercise” together with “organised espionage and company sabotage”.
The studio even launched a DLC mission for the sport referred to as Blacklisted, which it mentioned would “share a few of the proof of the sabotage with the neighborhood”, however its launch seemingly didn’t have a lot affect on public opinion or the destiny of the sport.
Now it will seem {that a} additional spherical of layoffs is going down, however this time the precise firm seems to be closing down too.
Members of the ResetEra discussion board noticed that Dan Hawkins – a principal expertise acquisition associate and HR operations supervisor at Construct a Rocket Boy – posted on LinkedIn that he can be staying with Construct a Rocket Boy till “the very finish”, however was additionally searching for work, implying that the corporate is closing quickly.
“With a really heavy coronary heart I elevate my inexperienced banner, together with the remainder of my colleagues at Construct a Rocket Boy,” Hawkins wrote. “I’m ‘Open to Work’ actively searching for a brand new journey. After talking with a whole lot of individuals from our trade affected on this means over the previous few years, I lastly expertise it myself.
“Simply shy of 5 years right here at BARB and one hell of a journey! Being the primary rent into our inner recruitment group, taking the studio from 200 to 550 in a brief time period. It has been an honour to work alongside so many gifted individuals, far too many to say!
“This has been my favourite job of all time. It has been pure chaos at occasions, however I’ve discovered and grown a lot. I’ve been trusted to step up, take duty, make errors and at occasions study the arduous means.
“I will likely be seeing BARB via until the very finish, serving to wrap issues up right here within the HR division. However I’d be very focused on listening to about any alternatives, each inside and out of doors of the video games trade to hitch rising corporations.”
Sources give conflicting information on whether or not the corporate will likely be dissolved
Kotaku has additionally cited sources conversant in the scenario, who’ve advised the publication that the studio is certainly set to shut its doorways. Nonetheless, one other supply advised IGN that even when all employees are let go, the corporate itself is probably not dissolved.
In July former staff protested exterior the workplace of Construct a Rocket Boy in Edinburgh, Scotland as the corporate held an “all-expenses-paid playtest occasion” which they claimed had been seeing followers “tackle testing duties normally carried out by skilled employees”.
“We’re right here at the moment as a result of all of us imagine in a single factor, that sport staff need to be handled with respect,” former worker Isaac Hudd mentioned on the protest. “The 2 CEOs on this constructing will seemingly say they agree, however their actions have proven in any other case.
“Somewhat over a yr in the past, after essentially the most brutal crunch, Construct a Rocket Boy launched MindsEye to the world. As many within the decrease ranges of the corporate predicted, it crashed and burned, leading to Metacritic’s worst sport of 2025.
“As an alternative of taking duty, as an alternative of reassuring or commiserating with the individuals who made their sport, the co-CEOs of this firm went silent. On their eventual return, they introduced layoffs. What adopted was three months of lies, veiled threats and in the end the callous elimination of a minimum of 250 staff. However they didn’t cease there.”
Hudd then criticised the studio’s conspiracy-fuelling DLC, its subsequent additional redundancies, its resolution to host the expenses-paid fan playtest and its resolution to supply one fan a job as an alternative of giving it to a lately laid off worker.
