After a divisive marketing campaign, fans are eager to see the public reception and review scores for MindsEye.
Build A Rocket Boy teamed with IO Interactive for its first project, MindsEye. The studio was founded by Leslie Benzies in 2016, following his departure from his role as President of Rockstar Games due to a legal dispute with the company.
Benzies was the producer and game designer for GTA V, and also produced nine other GTA games, as well as Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire, and Max Payne 3. Fans were excited to see what the accomplished game developer would do with the new studio, but they will have to wait before seeing an official review.
Is There a Mindseye Review Embargo?
The MindsEye review embargo date is expected to be June 10, on the game’s official launch day.
News outlets reportedly did not receive review copies, but some players managed to obtain physical copies of the game early. Gameplay leaked online one month before release, and the first impressions were negative.
Build A Rocket Boy co-CEO Mark Gerhard argued that everyone saying negative things about the studio’s upcoming game was paid to do so. Gerhard appeared to insinuate that Rockstar was behind the bad press, given the tumultuous history with Benzies, but did not explicitly say that.
The story took another twist on June 3, as two Build A Rocket Boy executives left the company, one week before MindsEye’s launch date. This did not inspire confidence about a smooth release for the game.
Everything came to a head on June 4, as the development team acknowledged early physical copies surfacing in and explained why there weren’t review copies.
“Our entire studio and partners have poured their hearts and souls into this project, and we want everyone to experience the story the same way at the same time on day one, without bias,” Build A Rocket Boy claimed. “This means waiting until the official release date to play through the game firsthand.”
Additionally, the team announced a ‘major’ update to improve physical editions of the game.
“We want to highlight that a major update for physical copies will be coming at release, bringing key improvements to ensure MindsEye plays as we intended and to meet all the characters at their best,” Build A Rocket Boy explained.
What Mindseye Review Scores Can We Expect?
Although a significant update is planned for physical copies on launch day, early indications suggest that MindsEye will not receive a high score on Metacritic once all the reviews are in.
X user, Unknown Reason, claimed they got one of the early physical copies and posted a thread highlighting issues with the game.
“For me, the Gameplay felt like it’s unfinished,” Unknown Reason explained. “There isn’t really any Feedback in shootouts at all. As mentioned before, this needs some work to feel better, especially for an Action Game.”
“Even after getting the Patches (which no one knows if it was truly the Day One Patch at all), the game is fighting against too many problems at the same time,” Unknown Reason explained.
Unknown Reason also criticized the open world for feeling empty, among other performance issues. In saying that, we won’t know for sure how MindsEye is until we get our hands on it for ourselves on day one.
In other gaming news, Gears of War: E-Day has received an official release window, Black Ops 7 was revealed during the Xbox Games Showcase, and Phil Spencer confirmed that a new Forza game is scheduled for release in 2026.
Do you believe that the day one patch will be enough to improve public reception for MindsEye? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Forums.
