MindsEye is, in the minds of many, a Grand Theft Auto clone. That’s easy to envision, given that it looks like a GTA game on the surface and it’s made by Build a Rocket Boy, a studio led by Leslie Benzies, former president of Rockstar North and a GTA veteran.
However, one area in which MindsEye falls flat compared to Grand Theft Auto is the game’s length. It was recently confirmed by Benzies that the core campaign for MindsEye can be completed in just 20 hours. The team has promised a ‘continuous new content’, but that 20-hour campaign has some doubting the GTA comparisons.
Small but Mighty
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry, Leslie Benzies took a deep dive into all things MindsEye, promising all manner of deliverables for the future. He said there are plans to add multiplayer and to add a full open-world environment to the game.
That’s enough to push MindsEye even further from the ‘GTA clone’ comments.
The content stream promised by Benzies will consist of both free and paid add-ons, which might not please everyone.
He also took the time to explain why MindsEye isn’t already an open-world game:
I think certain stories are more difficult to present to players in an open world setting. Open world gives you freedom – you don’t necessarily want freedom to portray a story. For MindsEye, it’s a very set time in a character, Jacob Diaz’s, life. You pick up as Jacob when he arrives in Redrock, and then you leave Jacob at a certain point in the future.
And so, it’d be very difficult for us to have an open world in there. It’s horses for courses: it depends what you’re doing. But for Jacob’s story, it had to be a linear game.
His justification for why MindsEye is just 20 hours long followed shortly after:
I think that’s a good length for a game. What you also find through data, is that with big games, people don’t play them all. The majority of people – 60% or 70% of people – don’t actually play games to the end.
So when you’re making something, I would prefer – I’m sure the team would say the same – that you had the whole experience from start to finish, and not create this 200-hour game. Create something that is finishable, but have some side things that will fill out the universe. A lot of the side missions on the play side of MindsEye do fill out the characters’ back stories, or do fill out what was happening in the world.
MindsEye is the debut title from Build a Rocket Boy, and it’ll be released worldwide on June 10. Are you looking forward to Leslie Benzies’ new game? Let me know on the Insider Gaming forum.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
I was rooting for this but Ananta is near and Showa American Story. $60 or more for this is what will hurt it but time will tell hope it’s good.