Build A Rocket Boy has cut roughly 300 workers since MindsEye shipped in June 2025, with the Edinburgh studio now reportedly preparing for "final closure" as of September 17, 2026.

Multiple outlets including GamesIndustry.biz, Video Games Chronicle, and regional gaming press confirmed a new round of redundancies on September 16, 2026, after employees posted notice of their dismissals on LinkedIn. No formal company statement has addressed the latest cuts, and no outlet has published a precise headcount figure for the September round.

What is the current state of the studio?

The studio entered MindsEye's June 10, 2025 launch with roughly 500 staff, according to The Verge. Cut cycles followed almost immediately, with reported waves in late 2025 (~300 developers), March 2026 (no figure given), and May 2026 (~170 staff), which GamesIndustry.biz reported reduced the active workforce to about 80.

The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) estimated 250 to 300 layoffs between June 2025 and July 2026, framing the situation in a July protest statement as "a kick in the teeth" because the cuts coincided with a company-funded fan event.

How did MindsEye perform at launch?

MindsEye's reception triggered the spiral. TechTimes reported a Metacritic critic score of 37/100 and a user score of 2.5/10, the worst-reviewed mainstream release of its launch year. Both Sony and Epic issued mass refunds, a platform-level intervention TechTimes compared to the response to Cyberpunk 2077's December 2020 launch.

The refund wave cut directly into first-week revenue and signaled to the broader market that the title's problems extended beyond routine post-launch bugs.

What has leadership said about the cause?

CEO Mark Gerhard has consistently rejected a development-side explanation. Speaking to Kotaku during the March 2026 round, he said: "This is a deeply painful decision," adding that the company was working with "external partners and legal advisors to investigate the criminal activity that took place around our launch."

No outlet has published findings from that investigation, named a perpetrator, or independently corroborated the claim. The "organised espionage and corporate sabotage" framing, as IGN described it, remains an unverified assertion from studio leadership.

What has the company publicly acknowledged?

Build A Rocket Boy's official statements have stayed procedural. After the June 2025 cuts, the studio told The Verge and IGN: "We can confirm that we have made the difficult choice to inform our dedicated team about some internal adjustments at Build A Rocket Boy." The phrasing has not materially changed in subsequent statements, and the studio has yet to confirm a closure date.

The October 2025 open letter, reported via the BBC, saw staff demand apologies from founders Leslie Benzies and Mark Gerhard over alleged mismanagement. The July 2026 IWGB protest followed, timed to an "all-expenses-paid" fan event the union said made the layoffs harder to absorb.

What does the founder pedigree tell us?

Benzies, the former president of Rockstar North, co-founded Build A Rocket Boy with CEO Gerhard. The studio marketed MindsEye as a spiritual successor to open-world action games associated with the Grand Theft Auto series. That narrative drew significant pre-launch capital but also set expectations the title could not meet.

Build A Rocket Boy scaled headcount to roughly 500 before any commercial proof point. When MindsEye underperformed as severely as it did, no rescue financing, publisher partnership, or acquisition surfaced in the reporting reviewed, a signal that investors treated the studio's problems as too deep-rooted to backstop.

What happens to MindsEye if the studio closes?

No outlet has identified a buyer for the IP. Should Build A Rocket Boy wind down without an asset sale, future updates and any sequel work would likely stall indefinitely given the title's reception and refund history.

Watch for a formal closure announcement in the coming weeks, the outcome of Gerhard's still-undisclosed sabotage investigation, and any indication of an acquirer for MindsEye's assets before IP rights lapse.