No review copies sent, no clear marketing push, and no real direction. Build A Rocket Boy’s Mindseye is already shaping up to be 2025’s worst game, with a ‘Mixed’ rating on Steam from over 800 users, and it hasn’t even been out for 24 hours.
One of the most baffling gaming releases of the year, Mindseye has continued to generate controversy even post-launch. Prior to release, fans were already concerned, likening the situation to The Day Before, a game whose trailers seemed “too good to be true.”
It seems those fears were justified. Mindseye launched today and was immediately met with a wave of negative user reviews. While the rating has shifted from ‘Mostly Negative’ to ‘Mixed,’ complaints continue to pour in on the Steam version.
READ: Mindseye Should’ve Been Delayed and Everyone Knows It Now
Technically, no major media outlets have reviewed the game yet, aside from a few sponsored YouTubers. As of now, Mindseye has been released with zero review copies sent to press outlets, including us here at Gfinity.
Fans were understandably alarmed by this absence of marketing. For a game with visual and thematic similarities to Grand Theft Auto, expectations were high that it would capitalize on the gap left by the delay of GTA VI. But Mindseye failed to deliver the kind of campaign needed to build momentum.
Much of the criticism centers on the game’s lack of clear direction. The story lasts only 8 to 15 hours depending on how you play. What really frustrated players was its glaringly unfinished state. Bugs and glitches are rampant, with character models at times reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed Unity’s infamous launch.
Performance-wise, the game fares even worse. Even on the PlayStation 5 Pro, Mindseye struggles to hit 30fps, far from the promised 60fps of its gameplay trailers. Console players are reporting persistent performance issues, with many citing poor optimization and an outdated version of Unreal Engine 5 as possible culprits.
Among the roughly 3,000 concurrent players on Steam, a notable number have already requested refunds. There’s no official figure yet, but the volume of negative reviews and refund-related threads on Reddit tells its own story.
click to enlargeMindseye is clearly in trouble. Even two of the studio’s top executives left before the game officially launched. It’s a disaster of a release, lacking the polish, coherence, and identity that made Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series iconic. Despite having GTA’s Leslie Benzies at the helm, Mindseye feels like a confused blend of sandbox ambition and open-world chaos, buried beneath bugs and broken promises.
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