MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy lays off even more people

A week after the release of the anticipated MindsEye DLC Blacklisted, which in case you hadn't heard was utterly godawful, it looks like the layoff hammer has fallen again on developer Build a Rocket Boy. As noted by Kotaku, multiple developers have reported a new round of redundancies at the studio, and given the report numbers it's hard to imagine how it continues from here.

The layoffs were reported on both LinkedIn and in the MindsEye Discord, where three members of the MindsEye community team shared that they too have been laid off. Those messages in particular are touching: MindsEye hasn't accumulated a very large or enduring community, but there's very clear affection and disappointment to be seen in the farewell messages and the responses to them.

While Build a Rocket Boy hasn't made any formal statement about the layoffs, Kotaku says two sources have indicated that up to 170 employees have been let go. The studio has already imposed two rounds of layoffs, the first just days after the launch of MindsEye in June 2025, and the second in March of this year.

If the number of layoffs reported by Kotaku is correct, you'd have to think there isn't much of Build a Rocket Boy left, but that's apparently the intent. In a March interview with GamesBeat, co-CEO Mark Gerhard said the team had about 240 employees remaining, from a peak of more than 800; its goal was to get down to around 100 in total.

The purpose of that reduction, though, is less clear. MindsEye is a bad game—accidentally fun at times, as these things sometimes are, but fundamentally just not good. Build a Rocket Boy committed to a turnaround in February, but the supposed big step in that direction, the Blacklisted update, was a flop: a short, dull mission utterly lacking even the unintentional charm of the base game.

The apparent plan to grow the game via its Arcadia platform for UGC also looks to be a bust: The peak concurrent player count on Steam today was 11, a number that does not indicate the presence of the U required to G the C.

I've reached out to Build a Rocket Boy for comment on the reported layoffs and will update if I receive a reply.