MindsEye developer Build A Rocket Boy has appointed administrators following its most recent wave of layoffs.
A filing with Companies House indicates the studio has appointed an administrator, though the actual filing is not available at the time of writing. Build A Rocket Boy has, however, confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that Opus Advisory Group is acting as the company’s administrator.
The appointment of an administrator indicates that a firm is insolvent and needs protection from legal action brought by the people and organisations it owes money to.
The most recently-available accounts for Build A Rocket Boy are for the 12 months ending September 30, 2025; for that financial year, the company posted a £47.5 million operating loss and a £36.2 million net loss, and, as of that date, owed its creditors a total of £61.8 million.
Build A Rocket Boy has attracted investment from companies including NetEase Games, RedBird Capital Partners and Galaxy Interactive. Directors representing these three firms were terminated from the board over the summer of 2026.
GamesIndustry.biz has reached out to Build A Rocket Boy for comment.
Build A Rocket Boy was founded in 2016 by Rockstar veteran Leslie Benzies. The company’s debut project, MindsEye, launched on June 4, 2025, to negative reviews and a poor audience reception.
Within the month, around 300 staff received notices that they were at risk of redundancy. The IWGB Game Workers union announced legal action against Build A Rocket Boy in October 2025, alleging that the studio had mishandled the redundancy process.
Then in early 2026, employees at Build A Rocket Boy noticed that Teramind monitoring software had been installed on their work machines without notification from management.
This was, in part, to curb what co-CEO Leslie Benzies saw as an effort to sabotage both Build A Rocket Boy and MindsEye. Fellow co-CEO Mark Gerhard later claimed, without providing evidence, that “a very big American company” had spent north of €1 million in 2025, “committing criminal activity” against Build A Rocket Boy. IWGB subsequently launched legal action against BARB for data privacy violations following the use of Teramind.
In March 2026, the company repeated its allegation, saying that there had been an “organised espionage and corporate sabotage” effort against the studio as it made another wave of redundancies.
That was before the most recent wave of layoffs in September 2026.
In April 2026, Build A Rocket Boy released the Blacklisted update, which Gerhard said was “a big step forward for MindsEye, and our studio”.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz following MindsEye’s release, staff were not optimistic that the studio could recover from the game’s poor launch.
“I don’t think BARB survives this crisis,” one former staffer said. “I believe the end is coming for BARB, and it’s not heralded by saboteurs, but by Mark and Leslie themselves.”