Build A Rocket Boy’s MindsEye has hit a noteworthy, if dubious, distinction for 2025.
As reported by Insider Gaming, it is the worst rated game of the year. While MindsEye released all the way back in June 10, 2025, neither developer Build A Rocket Boy or publisher I/O Interactive provided advance review copies to games press. As a result, it took this long for enough reviews to come up for it to get metascores.
On MetaCritic, it received a PC metascore of 43, and on PlayStation 5, an even more abysmal 31. It hasn’t received enough reviews for a MetaCritic Xbox score, and it seems unlikely that it will get one, at least at this time. The MetaCritic user score stands at 2.6.
Its OpenCritic rating is Weak, with a Top Critic Average of 36 based on 7 reviews. Finally, on Steam it has received a Mostly Negative Customer Review Score, with the 1,678 Mostly Review Scores making up the overwhelming number of the 1,800 reviews.
For those who are only hearing about this game now, MindsEye is the brainchild of one Leslie Benzies, who was at one point president of Rockstar North and main producer of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Grand Theft Auto V including Grand Theft Auto Online.
Benzies sued Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive in 2016, in what appeared to have been a fallout with Rockstar’s heads, the Houser brothers. That lawsuit would end with a confidential settlement in 2019, and partly explains why Benzies had been missing from the public eye this whole time. He took nearly a decade before he would resurface with a new studio and game of his own, but that’s why hype was high that he could build a serious challenge to the Grand Theft Auto franchise.
Unfortunately, red flags had been floating about this game in the weeks leading up to its release. Early previews from press and content creators were not positive. A week before its launch, Build A Rocket Boy’s Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Riley Graebner and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Paul Bland left the company.
As far as comparisons to other failed releases come and go, criticisms can go all over the place. For example, it’s both true that cutscenes reveal impressive graphics and high production values, but minute to minute gameplay would then revert to graphical bugs reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed Unity.
Obviously, we’re still at the starting chapters of the story of MindsEye’s production, but it already seems set to overshadow the scandals surrounding Borderlands 4, Marathon, Splitgate 2, Genshin Impact, Infinity Nikki, etc.
