It’s time again! You may have noticed that MindsEye—the newest release from former Rockstar North studio head and GTA producer Lezlie Benzies, through his company Build a Rocket Boy—is available to buy now, despite the fact that we still haven’t published a review.
This doesn’t appear to be a case of “cherry-picking.” It looks more like a broader problem across the industry: like nearly every other outlet, Eurogamer doesn’t have access to any pre-release review keys for MindsEye.
As always, the usual honest disclaimers still apply. We aren’t entitled to receive review keys, and it’s ultimately up to developers and publishers to decide whether to provide them. Getting access to games is a perk we receive in the course of working in gaming media, not a guaranteed right.
That said, whenever a high-profile game doesn’t offer review access before launch—MindsEye included—it’s smart to exercise a little caution before you decide to purchase it. It’s also worth pointing out some additional context around MindsEye’s unusually timed debut.
For instance, in late May, Build a Rocket Boy co-CEO Mark Gerhard told viewers on the game’s Discord server that some negative reactions from early access players were “100 percent” financed by a shadowy third party. That third party was widely implied to be Rockstar and/or 2K—“doesn’t take much to guess who,” Gerhard replied when asked again, adding a laughing emoji. For context, Benzies left Rockstar in 2016 under highly contentious circumstances.
Build a Rocket Boy didn’t respond to our request for comment. However, after another Discord user challenged Gerhard about it, he wrote, “I merely pointed out that there is a coordinated effort by individuals who don’t want to see Leslie or Build A Rocket Boy succeed, who are actively trying to undermine the game and the studio. It’s quite easy to notice the bots and repeated responses to any content we release.”
Just last week, Eurogamer reported that Build a Rocket Boy’s Chief Legal Officer and Chief Financial Officer—Riley Graebner and Paul Bland—had exited the studio only a few days before the game’s release. At the same time, during Summer Game Fest, Leslie Benzies abruptly canceled at least one appearance, including the closing fireside chat at The Game Business Live. And in a small, but potentially telling, mix-up today, MindsEye temporarily showed two “Buy” options on Steam for the same game at two different prices, according to industry analyst Mat Piscatella, before correcting itself to show the second, higher price for the Deluxe Edition. Even on launch day, full video walkthroughs of the game’s roughly 6-hour story are already up on YouTube.
All of this is unfolding alongside the still, honestly fairly puzzling promise that MindsEye will connect with Everywhere. Everywhere is the vague metaverse-style initiative that Build a Rocket Boy is developing in parallel, with the stated goal of letting players create and tailor levels and gameplay elements however they want. Speaking with our friends at GamesIndustry.biz recently, Benzies put it like this:
“Everywhere will be making a return very soon. Everything we’re creating has a narrative behind it – a grand overarching narrative. So Everywhere will surface again, and it fits into this storyline in some capacity. I can’t disclose [where] because it would be a spoiler. But it will reappear shortly, and it will all form part of the same product.
“… The larger narrative will become clear once you’ve played through all of MindsEye. At that point, you might begin to see how it all ties together with the Everywhere world.”
We’re looking forward to digging into it, and we’ll keep you posted on how it all fits together shortly.