Insider Gaming has learned that the developers behind MindsEye, Build a Rocket Boy, are planning to announce soon that they have decided to part ways with their publisher, IO Interactive.
According to sources close to the impending news, the decision is driven by Build a Rocket Boy’s desire to bring its publishing in-house and gain more control over its future. That includes faster decision-making, simpler communication, and greater control over the player experience.
As part of the change, it’s said that the upcoming MindsEye x Hitman crossover, which was announced during 2025’s Summer Game Fest, will no longer be taking place. Instead, Build a Rocket Boy will continue focusing on more fixes and content updates to build out MindsEye.
It’s understood that the decision to part ways is Build a Rocket Boy’s, rather than IO Interactive’s.
MindsEye launched on June 10, 2025, to horrible critic reviews, with just 6% of critics recommending the game and receiving mostly negative to mixed reviews on Steam. Prior to the game’s launch and just a couple of weeks earlier, Mark Gerhard, the co-CEO of Build a Rocket Boy, took to Discord in a Q&A to claim that the negative pre-release reception of MindsEye was part of a paid campaign by a third party to make a “concerted effort to trash the game and the studio”.
Build a Rocket Boy remained mainly silent following the game’s release, instead focusing on trying to fix and improve the game. Co-CEO Leslie Benzies reportedly told staff on a call one month following the game’s release that 300 developers were at risk of redundancy, saying the “studio and game’s struggles” were due to “internal and external saboteurs”.
Insider Gaming has contacted IO Interactive for comment, but did not receive one prior to publication. Should one be given, we will update this report.
UPDATE – A new MindsEye trailer from Build a Rocket Boy has removed the IOI Partners logo. You can watch the trailer below:
Both current and former employees at Build a Rocket Boy can contact me securely and anonymously at [email protected] if you would like to weigh in on current events or share your story.
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Tom Henderson is Insider Gaming's Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. When he's not running one of the industry's leading independent video game websites, he's probably playing an FPS like Call of Duty,…
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They probably blamed IO for the game failing, they blamed everyone and everything except themselves, maybe IO just didn’t wanna risk losing money again with them
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