I’ve just wrapped up the MindsEye mission assembled by Build a Rocket Boy, which was released earlier today. For weeks, this telling tale of a mission built around sabotage, data leaks, and eliminating malicious operators has been the talk of the MindsEye town, because, for the most part, people believe it’s a direct nod at real-world events that have impacted BARB.
The running theory was that BARB would use the mission, named ‘Blacklisted’, to virtually assassinate those who had wronged the company, allegedly undertaking a funded and illegal campaign to cripple and besmirch the firm.
As it turns out, the half-hour mission isn’t all that scandalous.
MindsEye’s Blacklisted Mission is Hitman Rewritten
It’s easy to see how the Blacklisted mission started life as an IO Interactive-backed Hitman crossover. You start by being introduced to Julia Black, a sultry, bodacious assassin with a clear mission: eliminate two bad guys and decimate their campaign of sabotage and wrongdoing.
You work for an ‘agency’ of assassins, and as you progress through Blacklisted, you find multiple opportunities to kill your targets, use disguises to get past guards, and sneak around, choking people out and using a suppressed pistol to deal damage.
There are four endings (with minimal variation) to the thirty-minute mission, and the entire thing holds your hand to no end, prompting you to complete the simplest of tasks with on-screen instructions. It’s actually not a bad introduction to MindsEye, but it’s completely unrelated to the base game, which I reviewed recently.
In February, we reported on the situation that has been unravelling for months at Build a Rocket Boy. Mark Gerhard, the BARB co-CEO, alleges that a smear campaign with a super-sized €1 million budget. It was claimed that this was orchestrated by ‘Ritual Network’, a UK-based influencer organisation.
The only nod to that in Blacklisted is during a short sequence where the narrator informs Julia Black that a ‘ritual network’ has been set up amongst the highest echelons of the criminal ring she seeks to disrupt.
There’s also a loose reference to Cyberboi, a creator who was threatened with legal action regarding his content around the MindsEye controversies. Cyberboi, otherwise known as Cyber Gaming, wears a mask with LED lighting in his videos.
In Blacklisted, you have to chase down, eliminate, and assume the identity of a DJ with a mask adorned with LED lights.
There’s also a twisted, subtle reference to BARB and Rockstar in some way. Early in the mission, you collect intelligence pointing to a proposed distribution network for a dangerous new drug. That network consists of New York, Edinburgh, and Budapest.
New York is where Rockstar Games is headquartered, Edinburgh is the headquarters for Rockstar North, and Budapest is where BARB opened a studio almost ten years ago.
Ultimately, the mission is short-lived, fairly cheap, and super simple. There are a couple of slight nods to BARB’s situation, but at the end of the day, it really does just feel like a reskinned Hitman crossover that ends as quickly as it begins.
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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.
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