Copyright Wccftech
Build a Rocket Boy's MindsEye is an unlikely candidate for the worst video game ever, but the closer we get to the end of 2025, the likelihood of it being regarded as the worst game this year increases. To say the game has had a rough journey is an understatement, and following an open letter from 93 Build a Rocket Boy (BARB) employees calling out the studio's leadership for mismanagement, a new BBC report further details just how Leslie Benzies and BARB's leadership failed their staff and MindsEye's players. BBC spoke to several former BABR employees, who offered new details about what made MindsEye's development such a poor process. One developer, who the report addresses as Jamie (not their real name) directly points to Benzies lack of direction, saying "Leslie never decided on what game he wanted to make. There was no coherent direction." Two other former developers, Ben Newbon and Margherita Peloso, added what are arguably the most damning details with how Benzies and management responded when issues from the development team were brought up. "A lot of the points that we were hammering home on were just ignored and just never actioned," said Newbon. Peloso adds that when they or other employees would attempt to raise issues, management reportedly "laughed at" the raised concerns. Issues that Benzies and management did care about, however, were ones that Benzies would spot himself during his own playtesting sessions, a process that BARB actually showed to the public in a promotional video for MindsEye. In fairness, it's not an abnormal thing for the director of a game to playtest and point out issues that ought to be taken care of, as the above video shows Benzies doing. The issue that this video doesn't show, that Newbon and Peloso point out, is that the tickets Benzies would call out would suddenly take precedent over everything else. Developers even began calling these tickets "Leslie tickets," "Leslie bugs," or even just "Leslies." "It didn't matter what else you were doing, what else was being worked on. The Leslie ticket had to be taken care of," said Newbon. Benzies demanding focus on whatever was most important to him in any particular moment also extended beyond quality assurance and playtesting, as Jamie regarded that, with what was meant to be BARB's first project, Everywhere, Benzies would demand new features be added into the game faster than they could be properly implemented. This kind of haphazard working style, with no clear vision and new features being implemented before they've been given the necessary time to ensure they're ready is an unfortunately common story we've heard before regarding development cycles that burned out developers, whether the end product was a success or not. The development of BioShock Infinite is a now infamous story of how Ken Levine was unable let anything be declared 'final,' causing a hectic development environment, to say the least. More recently, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a game that suffered from grave mismanagement and a development process that lacked a solid direction. In both those cases, as with MindsEye, the result was weeks of crunch time for developers. "People just felt like they were being commanded to give a lot to the company without too much in return," added Peloso. Another former developer, Isaac Hudd, added how in the run up to launch, everything piled up at once, with new bugs appearing the moment a different one was squashed. "And it does mess with you," Hudd said. "You really do start to see the morale go down, the little arguments starting to happen. People are burning the candle at both ends and starting to think: 'What's the point?'" The report does add that Benzies and the leadership team of BARB "take full responsibility" for MindsEye, and added, as we've heard before, that the studio is working towards making it up to players and putting out "the game we've always envisioned, and one that players are excited to play." Those former developers the BBC spoke to, however, don't think the game will ever actually get there. In July, BARB told players that updates for MindsEye "may be less frequent." It's last update arrived on September 25, with no word as to when the next update will come.
