MindsEyehas achieved an unfortunate record as it officially becomes the worst-reviewed game of the year so far. The newly released action-adventure game is the first title to be released by studio Build a Rocket Boy, which was co-created by ex-Grand Theft Autoproducer Leslie Benzies, butMindsEye’s launch has been plagued by poor performance, bugs, and negative reviews.
With the release ofGrand Theft Auto 6delayed to 2026, fans of the series were hoping to fill the time withMindsEye. Not only does the new title have a formerGrand Theft Autodeveloper at the helm, but it also has striking similarities to the series, with some calling it a mix ofGrand Theft AutoandCyberpunk 2077. Unfortunately, fans quickly became skeptical ofMindsEyeafter previews labeled it a “broken mess” that is “filled with bugs.” While Build a Rocket Boy’s co-CEO Mark Gerhard believes thenegative reactions toMindsEyewere a paid effort, its launch has shown that simply isn’t the case.
MindsEye Becomes Worst-Reviewed Game of 2025
It didn’t take long for thenegativeMindsEyereviewsto begin rolling in from players, but it has taken a little longer for official critic reviews to be published, as the studio didn’t send any early review codes out to the press. However, more and more reviews have been making their way online over the last few days, and they haven’t been great. In fact, the critic reviews forMindsEyehave been so negative that the title has officially become the worst-reviewed game of the year so far. As spotted byTheGamer,MindsEyenow has aMetacritic score of 43, which makes it the lowest-scoring game of 2025. To put things into perspective, the second-worst-reviewed game of the year isAmbulance Life: A Paramedic Simulator, which has a Metacritic score of 44.
Its launchhas been such a bug-ridden disaster that the PlayStation Store has begunoffering refunds toMindsEyeplayers. While this might not seem like a massive deal, Sony has a pretty strict policy on offering refunds after a game that has already been downloaded to the console. The only other title to become an exception to this rule wasCyberpunk 2077, which also had a catastrophic launch in 2020. CD Projekt Red’s futuristic RPG had such severe performance issues on PlayStation consoles that Sony temporarily removed the game from its storefront and offered all players a no-questions-asked refund.
MindsEyedoesn’t appear to be going down the same route asCyberpunk 2077, as it still remains purchaseable on the PlayStation Store, and that’s likely thanks to the studio’s fast-acting response to the controversy. Build a Rocket Boy’s first game hasn’t even been out a week yet, but the studio has promptly outlined its plans for new patches and has already deployed the veryfirst post-launch update forMindsEye. The game’s first update included CPU and GPU performance improvements, memory optimizations, memory leak fixes to prevent crashes, and a handful of bug fixes.
