MindsEye director Leslie Benzies blamed saboteurs for game flop

MindsEye director and Build a Rocket Boy studio founder Leslie Benzies reportedly blamed saboteurs within the company for MindsEye’s poor reception, claiming internal and external forces scuttled the launch. 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. The statements were taken from a transcript of the July all-staff meeting, verified by BBC. 

Prior to the game’s launch, the studio co-CEO Mark Herhard made a claim on Discord that all the people who reacted negatively were financed by someone to do so. Both Benzies’ and Herhard’s stories are very different from what ex-Build a Rocket Boy developers told BBC in a report published earlier this week. 

Within the report, an anonymous BARB employee comments that Leslie never decided on what game he wanted to make, resulting in a game with no coherent direction. The same source claims Benzies requested new ideas and features to be implemented at too fast a pace to be properly implemented. 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.

“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.