Build a Rocket Boy appears to be shutting down for good

That didn’t take long. Build a Rocket Boy, the studio behind the spectacularly underwhelming MindsEye, looks like it’s closing for good, and, at this point, it feels less like a surprise and more like the inevitable final scene.

The Layoffs are piling up

The signs came from LinkedIn, of all places. Build a Rocket Boy’s principal talent acquisition partner, Dan Hawkins, posted that he and his colleagues had raised the “green banner,” industry code for “I’ve just been laid off, and I’m looking for work.” As spotted by Polygon, Hawkins said he’d personally be sticking around to see Build a Rocket Boy “through till the very end,” which tells you everything about where this is heading.

He wasn’t the only one. Lead weapon and prop artist Adam Ridsdale said he and his team are “facing redundancy,” though the wording there suggests the cuts haven’t fully landed yet. Either way, nobody’s popping champagne over this one.

There’s still no official word from the studio itself, so we’re not at 100 percent confirmation. But when your own recruiter is telling the internet he’s job hunting, that’s usually not a great sign.

Remember the Sabotage claims?

It’s worth remembering how we got here. MindsEye, built by Rockstar North veteran Leslie Benzies, launched and flopped almost immediately. Rather than take the hit, Benzies blamed internal and external sabotage for the game’s failure. A relaunch and a string of updates later, MindsEye still hasn’t turned things around, and funnily enough, none of those sabotage theories ever got proven.

Turns out the real saboteur might’ve just been the game itself.

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