Over 250 developers at MindsEye maker Build A Rocket Boy were laid off earlier this year following the AAA open-world shooter’s disastrous launch. Now, over 90 current and former staff have signed an open letter blasting the studio’s management, including founder and long-time Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies, over what they claim were poor working conditions and a chaotic layoff process that allegedly broke the law. “The arrogance of leadership to believe they can act with impunity throughout development and the following redundancies has pushed myself and many former and continuing employees to take a stand,” ex-employee Ben Newbon wrote in a statement.
Published by Hitman maker IO Interactive, MindsEye launched in early June and was immediately met by harsh criticism from players, streamers, and reviewers. It was pitched as the first building block in the well-funded studio’s ambitious user-generated metaverse MMO called Everything. In reality, it was hard to see it being the start of anything but painful cuts for the new startup studio with offices dotted around Europe. Mass layoffs, first reported by IGN, immediately followed. According to the open letter, organized by Britain’s IWGB Union trade group, over 250 developers at the company were eventually swept up into its hasty and chaotic layoff process despite having been allegedly forced to work mandatory overtime in the four months leading up to launch.
“This week, members of the Game Workers Branch of the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union are filing multiple legal actions against BARB, claiming failure to carry out fair consultation ahead of redundancies as well as multiple cases of unfair dismissal,” the trade group announced on October 10. “In an open letter to BARB leadership, employees describe a record of systemic mistreatment, mismanagement, and mishandling of the redundancy process.”
We stand in solidarity with employees and ex-employees at Build a Rocket Boy as they file legal claims through our union and publish an open letter, condemning the way in which they’ve been mistreated and discarded by the studio’s millionaire executives. https://t.co/WWm4vxKEfd pic.twitter.com/bOOHaQEakQ
— IWGB Game Workers (@IWGB_GW) October 10, 2025
Concerns outlined in the letter include poor transparency and communication, extended crunch, and a “disastrous” handling of the layoff process. The current and former developers who signed it are calling for a public apology, the option for staff who haven’t hit their layoff date to take payment for it without working, a promise to use professional partners outside the studio for any future layoffs, and a “documented effort” to improve working conditions, including acknowledgement of the IWGB as a trade union for the studio.
“Many fantastic, hard-working developers have felt used and discarded, while public statements of care have not matched the reality of working conditions,” MindsEye audio engineer Isaac Hudd said in a statement. “A pattern of poor decisions from senior management has led to a disappointing launch and ongoing challenges for both players and employees.”
Despite a concerning swirl of exiting executives and broken promises at launch, IGN reported over the summer that MindsEye director Benzies, who worked on GTA at Rockstar Games for over a decade, blamed the studio’s troubles on internal and external saboteurs hoping for Build a Rocket Boy’s failure. “The callousness shown by management towards staff at Build A Rocket Boy is truly awful,” Ben Newborn, former lead games analyst at the studio, said in a statement. “Even before the disastrous launch of MindsEye, staff had suffered months of crunch, resulting in some horrific mental and even physical illnesses, beyond the typical widespread burnout.”
He continued, “Studio leadership have chosen not to take responsibility for the game’s failure and instead blamed saboteurs, as if individual employees or online influencers could have caused this.”
