Build A Rocket Boy, the studio responsible for 2025’s infamous MindsEye, has reportedly laid off more than 170 employees in the last week. This is the third time the studio has laid off staff in the past year.
The report comes from Kotaku, which cites sources indicating that approximately 170 staff members have been let go, bringing the studio’s developer count down to around 80.
The reports are seemingly confirmed by LinkedIn posts from multiple members of staff who are now looking for work. Similar messages were shared by community managers with the MindsEye community in Discord. The affected staff range from level designers and audio designers to QA analysts and the social team.
This comes mere weeks after the April 28 release of MindsEye Update 7.1, which included the new Blacklisted mode, a parody of what BARB claims were real-life attacks against the studio and its debut game.
When laying off staff in March, CEO Mark Gerhard said they’d been researching the “criminal activity” that led to MindsEye’s commercial failure. Shortly after that, MindsEye’s original publisher, IO Interactive, ended the partnership with the studio and canceled the upcoming Hitman crossover DLC.
“That work has taken far longer than expected, but it has now resulted in overwhelming evidence of organized espionage and corporate sabotage affecting MindsEye. Because this matter is moving toward prosecution, we cannot share the full details publicly yet,” Gerhard said at the time.
Early in April, Gerhard stated that a MindsEye update would “share some of the evidence of the sabotage with the community.” Blacklisted is that update, but it seemingly didn’t change the community’s opinions or the studio’s fate.
In a story that sounds like it would take place within MindsEye’s universe, Build A Rocket Boy staff launched legal proceedings against the studio in late April, claiming that management surveilled staff with Teramind AI software, and haven’t shared what data was collected, or how it was stored and used.
MindsEye launched on June 10, 2025, landing a painful 39 Metacritic score on PC. Steam reviews for the game are overall Mixed, but recent reviews are Mostly Positive.
