Former employees blame MindsEye director Leslie Benzies leadership for title flop
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Key points
- BBC spoke with various BABR employees who offered details on MindsEye’s development process.
- An anonymous former employee claims Beznies had a lack of direction for the title.
- Two former developers Ben Newbon and Margherita Peloso stated their input was ignored by management.
According to former Build a Rocket Boy developers, the failure of MindsEye can be largely attributed to leadership issues, with numerous sources pointing towards director Leslie Beznies’ lack of vision for the title. Build a Rocket Boy, the development studio responsible for MindsEye, reportedly sold 35,000 copies on Steam and 150,000 on PlayStation, a low sales figure for a triple a title.
“Leslie never decided on what game he wanted to make. There was no coherent direction,” an anonymous BARB employee commented. In the original BBC report, the source goes by the alias ‘Jamie.’
The same source told BBC that Beznies had requested new ideas and features to be implemented at too fast a pace to be properly implemented, claiming that the work-style plagued the game from the start.
Ben Newbon, former lead data analyst, stated that “a lot of the points that we were hammering home on were just ignored and just never actioned.” Another developer emphasized the issue with leadership, stating that the studio’s culture discouraged individuals from speaking out.
Whatever Leslie asked of needed to take top priority no matter what the employee was previously working on, resulting in instability and preventing teams from taking ownership of their work, according to Jamie, the former employee utilizing an alias for sake of anonymity. The inflated priority of Leslie’s too-fast-to-implement demands alongside the lack of vision burned out developers; the final product reflects the development circumstances, which were greatly exacerbated by leadership decision.
“This is the worst best game I’ve ever played, so bad that it’s good type of stuff. However I do not recommend this type of garbage,” one reviewer posted on Oct. 20. MindsEye currently has “Mostly Negative” overall Steam reviews in all languages; the English reviews are “Mixed.” The game is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and was released on June 10, 2025.
