Build A Rocket Boy, the studio founded by former Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies and responsible for MindsEye, is reportedly shutting down permanently. Kotaku reports that multiple employees have said their time at the company is ending, while sources familiar with the situation confirmed that the studio is winding down for good. Build A Rocket Boy has not yet publicly announced its closure.
Several employees posted about their departures on LinkedIn over the past day, including level designer Liam Shannon, QA analyst Elizabet Tyaneva, release manager Michaela Emslie and production QA analyst Cameron Deaves. More significantly, principal talent acquisition partner Dan Hawkins said he would remain with Build A Rocket Boy until the end while helping wrap up operations through the studio’s HR department. Kotaku subsequently reported that sources directly familiar with the situation confirmed the closure was permanent rather than another conventional reduction in staff.
The apparent shutdown follows several rounds of layoffs at Build A Rocket Boy since MindsEye launched in June 2025. The studio conducted another major restructuring in May 2026, when sources told Kotaku that roughly 170 members of what was then approximately a 250-person workforce were affected. That round was expected to leave Build A Rocket Boy with only around 80 employees, following earlier layoffs and the closure of its French operation.
Build A Rocket Boy was founded in the UK in 2016 by Benzies, whose previous work included serving as president of Rockstar North and producing major Grand Theft Auto games. The studio initially attracted attention for Everywhere, an ambitious platform centered on user-created experiences, before revealing MindsEye as a separate narrative action game connected to its broader technology and content plans. MindsEye ultimately launched for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on June 10, 2025.
The game’s release proved difficult for the studio. MindsEye arrived to significant criticism surrounding technical problems and its overall state, followed quickly by the first major wave of redundancies. Build A Rocket Boy nevertheless continued updating the game and publicly discussed plans to improve it, including additional content and changes intended to address criticism from players.
Its publishing relationship with IO Interactive also ended earlier this year. IOI Partners and Build A Rocket Boy announced in March that their collaboration had concluded, leaving the developer solely responsible for publishing MindsEye. A previously announced Hitman crossover mission was cancelled as part of that split, although Build A Rocket Boy said at the time that it would continue supporting MindsEye and working with other partners.
Further layoffs followed shortly afterward. By May, the scale of the reductions raised substantial questions over how Build A Rocket Boy could continue maintaining MindsEye, Everywhere and its wider development plans with a dramatically smaller workforce. Employees had also previously raised grievances about working conditions and management, while studio leadership repeatedly alleged that MindsEye’s troubled launch had been affected by organized espionage and corporate sabotage.
Despite those problems, MindsEye continued receiving updates during 2026, and its Steam listing still describes the title as an expanding experience intended to receive new playable content. The game is currently published directly by Build A Rocket Boy following the end of the IOI agreement. What happens to ongoing support, servers, future content and the underlying MindsEye intellectual property if the studio fully closes has not yet been clarified.
The legal company also remained listed as active through the UK’s Companies House database before the latest reports, though a studio winding down operations does not necessarily result in an immediate change to its corporate registration. No liquidation, administration or other formal insolvency announcement has been identified alongside Kotaku’s report at the time of writing.
Build A Rocket Boy has not issued a public statement confirming the shutdown or explaining what will happen to its remaining projects and employees. Kotaku says it contacted the company for comment. If the closure proceeds as reported, it brings an end to a studio launched nearly a decade ago with unusually high expectations following Benzies’ departure from Rockstar, just over a year after MindsEye reached the market.
