If you were wondering how the producer of GTA 5 managed to make the worst game of 2025, new evidence has emerged from behind the scenes of MindsEye.
MindsEye is not only the worst game of 2025, it also has the strangest backstory. Not in terms of the in-game plot (although that is pretty whacky) but the behind the scenes machinations that made it such a high profile failure, despite the considerable experience of those making it.
The game is the brainchild of Leslie Benzies, who worked as a producer on all the modern GTA games and is considered one of the unsung heroes of the franchise. He left Rockstar Games under a cloud several years ago, and formed the studio Build A Rocket Boy – initially to create expansive Roblox-like platform Everywhere.
Everywhere ran into problems and so the idea was to release MindsEye, which was always planned to be a part of the platform, first. But not only was the game a critical and commerical disaster but Benzies has increasingly blamed its failure on vaguely hinted at ‘saboteurs’.
As you can imagine, things have not been going well at Build A Rocket Boy since then and a transcript of an all-staff meeting from July has been floating around online. Until now there’s been no evidence that the transcript was real but the BBC claims to have verified its authenticity.
In it, Benzies describe the negativity around the game as ‘uncalled for’ and blames ‘internal and external’ influences but never names them.
‘I find it disgusting that anyone could sit amongst us, behave like this and continue to work here,’ he is reported as saying.
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Despite these comments, nobody, including former developers seems to consider it a mystery as to why MindsEye failed, with former employees complaining of Benzies’ tendency to micro-manage, while never having a clear idea of the game’s concept.
‘Leslie never decided what game he wanted to make,’ an anonymous developer told the BBC. ‘There was no coherent direction’.
A total of 93 current and former staff recently signed an open letter, complaining about a lack of support from management, who would make ‘radical changes’ without communicating with staff.
The BBC report also alleges the studio relied heavily on crunch, i.e. mandatory and potentially unpaid overtime in order to get the game finished.
Although crunch used to be commonplace within the games industry, especially at Rockstar Games, in recent years there has been a concerted effort to end the practice.
Following the launch of the game, at least 250 staff lost their jobs, although the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union described the way the redundancies were handled as ‘disastrous’.
The final fate of the studio is not yet certain, but in a statement Build a Rocket Boy said: ‘Leslie and the entire senior management team take full responsibility for the initial launch.’
‘The version of the game that was released did not reflect the experience our community deserved.’ According to them, they’re still set on ‘delivering MindsEye as the game we always envisioned – and the one players are excited to play’.
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