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Build a Rocket Boy's staff are announcing the studio's end before the company does
Kotaku's sources say the MindsEye developer is closing permanently, and the most detailed public account so far comes from a talent acquisition partner writing that he will see the company through to the very end.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Kotaku reported that sources familiar with the situation say Build a Rocket Boy, the studio behind MindsEye, is permanently closing its doors after another round of layoffs.
- Dexerto named four departing employees who posted on LinkedIn, among them level designer Liam Shannon, release manager Michaela Emslie and two QA analysts.
- Build a Rocket Boy has not publicly confirmed that it is closing.
- MindsEye's release was met with widespread criticism, and multiple rounds of job cuts at the studio followed it.
- The most recent MindsEye update went out on August 12, 2026, adding a new multiplayer race.
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Why it matters
- exposure Whoever bought MindsEye on the strength of the announced fixes is now carrying that promise alone, and the reporting leaves open who maintains the game after the closure.
- constraint The IWGB says it is still pursuing action over management's treatment of workers, and a dissolved employer narrows what that action can reach and who answers for it.
- precedent Benzies' Rockstar North credit bought MindsEye anticipation before launch, and the next pitch built on a famous back catalogue gets read against how this studio ended.
"With a very heavy heart I raise my green banner, along with the rest of my colleagues at Build a Rocket Boy. I am 'Open to Work' actively looking for a new adventure," principal talent acquisition partner Dan Hawkins wrote [4]. He added that he would be "seeing BARB through till the very end" while helping to "wrap things up" within the HR department [5]. Studios in trouble tend to cut hiring first, so a recruiter's own status is evidence about the company as well as about him. A round of layoffs leaves an HR team in place to run the next round; Hawkins is describing the department being wound down.
This round is one of several. Add it to the ones that followed MindsEye's reception and staff have been through at least three separate reductions since the game shipped [1].
The studio's answer to the reviews was to announce updates and changes as it tried to salvage the game [10]. Announcing fixes is a statement about a studio's intentions, and the figure that would show whether the plan worked is returning players, which patch volume does not stand in for. Ben Newbon, vice-chair of the IWGB Games Worker Union, put the job losses in a longer frame. "We cannot add any further insight into the heartbreaking job losses at BARB, a company that we think has been slowly spiralling for a long time," Newbon said [8].
For anyone who has to decide on Monday whether to keep depending on a small studio's live product, or whether to fund a recovery plan for their own: how many of the promised fixes need the company to exist in a year, and who is left to write them. A recruiter wrapping things up in HR answers that faster than a roadmap does, and you can check it against a headcount. The other question is what the product does for the person who already paid, on the day nobody ships to it again. You can check that one by unplugging the internet.
What to watch
- A statement from Build a Rocket Boy or Leslie Benzies confirming or denying the closure, and any word on MindsEye's servers.
- Whether the IWGB escalates its threatened action, and which legal entity it can pursue if the studio dissolves.
- Whether MindsEye stays on sale, and whether its storefront listing changes after the last August 12, 2026 update.