{"id":399352,"date":"2026-01-30T20:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T20:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/399352\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T20:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T20:15:10","slug":"exclusive-build-a-rocket-boy-to-end-publishing-partnership-with-io-interactive-on-mindseye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/399352\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE \u2013 Build a Rocket Boy to End Publishing Partnership With IO Interactive on MindsEye"},"content":{"rendered":"

Insider Gaming has learned that the developers behind MindsEye<\/a>, Build a Rocket Boy, are planning to announce soon that they have decided to part ways with their publisher, IO Interactive.<\/p>\n

According to sources close to the impending news, the decision is driven by Build a Rocket Boy\u2019s desire to bring its publishing in-house and gain more control over its future. That includes faster decision-making, simpler communication, and greater control over the player experience.<\/p>\n

As part of the change, it\u2019s said that the upcoming MindsEye x Hitman crossover, which was announced during 2025\u2019s Summer Game Fest, will no longer be taking place. Instead, Build a Rocket Boy will continue focusing on more fixes and content updates to build out MindsEye.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood that the decision to part ways is Build a Rocket Boy\u2019s, rather than IO Interactive\u2019s.<\/p>\n

MindsEye launched on June 10, 2025, to horrible critic reviews<\/a>, with just 6% of critics recommending the game and receiving mostly negative to mixed reviews on Steam. Prior to the game\u2019s launch and just a couple of weeks earlier, Mark Gerhard, the co-CEO of Build a Rocket Boy, took to Discord in a Q&A to claim that the negative pre-release reception of MindsEye was part of a paid campaign by a third party to make a \u201cconcerted effort to trash the game and the studio\u201d.<\/p>\n

Build a Rocket Boy remained mainly silent following the game\u2019s release, instead focusing on trying to fix and improve the game. Co-CEO Leslie Benzies reportedly told staff <\/a>on a call one month following the game\u2019s release that 300 developers were at risk of redundancy, saying the \u201cstudio and game\u2019s struggles\u201d were due to \u201cinternal and external saboteurs\u201d.<\/p>\n

Insider Gaming has contacted IO Interactive for comment, but did not receive one prior to publication. Should one be given, we will update this report.<\/p>\n

Both current and former employees at Build a Rocket Boy can contact me securely and anonymously at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>\u00a0if you would like to weigh in on current events or share your story.<\/p>\n

For more Insider Gaming, read about\u00a0Beyond Good & Evil 2 surviving<\/a>\u00a0the announced restructuring at Ubisoft. And for more Insider Gaming delivered directly to your inbox,\u00a0sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\n \"\" <\/a><\/p>\n

\n Tom Henderson is Insider Gaming’s Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. When he’s not running one of the industry’s leading independent video game websites, he’s probably playing an FPS like Call of Duty,\u2026 <\/p>\n


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Available on iOS & Android<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Insider Gaming has learned that the developers behind MindsEye, Build a Rocket Boy, are planning to announce soon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[83637,2609,87,205,59,70511,83639,86,56,54,55,55276],"class_list":["post-399352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-build-a-rocket-boy","tag-exclusives","tag-featured","tag-gaming","tag-gb","tag-io-interactive","tag-mindseye","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-video-game-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}