MindsEyeis out and gettingreally bad reviews. The highest score I’ve been able to find for the game is a 5/10, and given the propensity of critics and players alike to overrate triple-A action-adventure games with realistic graphics, that’s saying something.
It doesn’t help that it’s full price. Well, at $59.99, last-gen full price. Reportedly, it takesaround ten hours to complete, and when GOTY contenders likeClair Obscur: Expedition 33andSplit Fictionare retailing for 50 bucks, it’s tough to justify paying ten more for something this slight that is also universally disliked.
It’s the combination of short and bad that I wouldn’t pay for. I’d happily pay $60 for a great ten-hour game.
MindsEye, You Have My Attention
Despite all that, I’m intrigued. Not intrigued enough to buy the gamenow, bbut intrigued enough to buy the game in 2026 when it costs 20 bucks and has a year’s worth of improvements. Some of this is just residual curiosity. When I first saw MindsEye get a gameplay reveal at aState of Playearlier this year, I thought it looked like a cool alternative toGTAwith a highly detailed cinematic look. The fact that it was the first gameIO Interactiveopted to publish through its IOI Partners label had me especially interested. I associate the Hitman studio with quality.
The reviews being universally negative is putting my view of IO to the test. That said, a lot of the criticisms of the game are focused on it being busted at launch. Persistent framerate issues and enemy AI being unintelligent and poorly animated are complaints I’ve seen repeated across multiple reviews. But both seem fixable if Build A Rocket Boy can get the time and money. Missions that are currently getting criticized for being one-note and easy would quickly improve with smarter enemies who put up a fight in combat and would drag less if the performance felt snappy, rather than sluggish.
There are other issues that are fairly deep-seated. The story seems to fall flat, the characters and combat seem one-note, and there are systems that just aren’t implemented. You can only drive predetermined cars, and there are no police to prevent you from killing as many civilians as you want. Those are problems that will persist, as will the half-baked free-roam mode that, hilariously, just plops you into the game as a random middle-aged balding dude with zero explanation.
But that seems like a problem that, if you know about it going in, is easy enough to ignore. Its open world is getting flak for feeling empty and mostly existing as a repository for a linear story, but, again, that isn’t necessarily a negative if you’re aware beforehand.
When a game gets negative reviews that mostly focus on its performance and bugs, I perk up. That doesn’t mean the game is bad, per se. It just means it isn’t goodyet. MindsEye doesn’t seem like it has the wrong ingredients; it just seemsseverelyundercooked. And that hasn’t stopped other games like Cyberpunk 2077 from enjoying a comeback.
Of course,Cyberpunk 2077, which suffered from a similarly disastrous launch, had major pressure to improve. It was much-hyped, sold a ton of copies out of the gate, and was the latest release fromCD Projekt Red— an established developer that needed to keep its reputation intact to continue its beloved The Witcher series and continue to profit from its PC software sales and preservation work withGOG.com. Cyberpunk 2077 failing to improve would have been a permanent blow to that, and thanks to Phantom Liberty’s acclaim, CD Projekt Red has largely bounced back forThe Witcher 4.
IO doesn’t have the same external pressure to fix MindsEye. This is the first game from Build A Rocket Boy, and it might just be easier to let the Leslie Benzies-fronted company go gently into that good night. I’m not under the illusion that a year of fixes is going to make the game a classic. But, if it could get to 6/10 or 7/10 status, I’d be willing to spend the cost of lunch at Chipotle to see what it’s all about.
