The moment has come when the studio Build A Rocket Boy, founded by a former producer of the GTA series, presented its first game to the world — MindsEye. However, the joy of the debut was quickly overshadowed: the fears that had been hovering around the project even before the release turned out to be not empty.

Players met the new product coolly — at the time of writing this material, the game is holding at the level of “mostly negative” reviews on Steam, having gained only 38% positive ratings out of more than 400 reviews. The peak number of concurrent players stopped at 3,302 people — not the start that the authors probably counted on.

The main complaints are related to poor optimization and unsuccessful gameplay decisions. Nevertheless, even critics note the strengths of the project: an atmospheric soundtrack and an intriguing plot that is really captivating at first.

MindsEye Free Steam Account

The MindsEye project, which was worked on by Leslie Benzies, a former producer at Rockstar and the cult Grand Theft Auto series, has finally been released on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series. This is a story-driven action game set in the near future, in the futuristic metropolis of Redrock.

The main character is Jacob, a former special forces soldier whose consciousness is intertwined with a mysterious neuroimplant called MindsEye. He is tormented by fragmentary memories, and in search of the truth, he finds himself drawn into a large-scale conflict: on one side, there is a billionaire who dreams of changing the evolution of humanity, on the other, there is the mayor of the city, obsessed with a thirst for power. Despite the impressive name in the credits, the game had a mixed start. Journalists and influencers were disappointed – and here I wonder, what do ordinary players think?

According to Steam, the peak online reached 3,302 people in the first hours of release, but soon fell to 1,200. User rating is “mixed”: out of 646 reviews, only 42% are positive. Players often complain about weak optimization, bugs, crashes and unstable FPS. The gameplay is called monotonous and unfinished. Many agree that the project would clearly benefit from a delay and additional polish.

Nevertheless, MindsEye has found its supporters. Some praise the visual part, spectacular cutscenes and production – indeed, the moments when the game reveals itself as an interactive movie are impressive. And the plot? Here it all depends on tastes.

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Why MindsEye Failed: Comparison with GTA and Players’ Expectations

One of the main reasons for interest in MindsEye was not the plot, not the gameplay, and not even the graphics, but the name of Leslie Benzies. Yes, the same developer who stood at the origins of GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas and all subsequent hits up to and including GTA V. He was called the architect of the success of the 3D GTA – the man who assembled the team, thanks to which the series blew up the gaming industry. After leaving Rockstar in 2016, Benzies began to assemble a new dream team. And now – 12 years after the release of the last “numbered” GTA – he is back with MindsEye.

Expectations were sky-high, and marketers only added fuel to the fire, presenting the game as a “project from the creator of GTA.” In the end, this is what played a cruel joke – comparisons with the legendary series became not just inevitable, but literally destroyed the reputation of the new product from the first minutes.

Players immediately noticed what MindsEye lacks:

• An open world as such – instead of freedom of movement, you just follow from mission to mission, often not even having the opportunity to get out of the car at your own will.
• Shooting, as if stuck in the past – with cover mechanics reminiscent of games from the early 2010s.
• Third-party activities are presented in the strangest way possible – through “portals” that are puzzling both in terms of logic and presentation.
• NPC behavior looks a bit raw – townspeople often do not react to shots at all or start to panic after a couple of minutes, and can “hide” right in the middle of an empty highway.

And that’s not all. In social networks, the game has already been nicknamed a “cringe fest” – users were massively perplexed: where is the promised depth? MindsEye turned out to be very straightforward. No walks around the city, mini-games, side missions or a simple opportunity to relax. Only the plot, only forward – and a little freedom of action appears only after the credits.

It is interesting that the idea of ​​linear presentation is not new. It was implemented perfectly in Mafia at one time – especially in the first part and its remake. There, moving around the city was more of an atmospheric background, emphasizing the scale of events and the importance of the hero. But for this, everything must work like clockwork. In the case of MindsEye, according to many critics, the necessary synergy did not work out.

Unreal Engine 5 Under Criticism Over Optimization Again

Only a day has passed since the release, and the gaming community has already noticed a strange pattern: owners of NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super graphics cards report about the same (and sometimes even better!) gaming experience than owners of the top RTX 5080. The former complain only about slight freezes in cutscenes, while the latter have much more serious problems: sharp FPS drops, texture loading when turning the camera, noticeable lags. Perhaps it’s not the hardware itself, but the fact that users of older systems have simply gotten used to technical flaws and are not dramatizing.

Many people blame Unreal Engine 5 for what’s happening. However, in the spring, Embark studio already proved the opposite using the example of a test build of ARC Raiders — with the right approach, even this gluttonous engine can be put in order. Moreover, already on the first day after the release of Oblivion Remastered, some players began sharing configuration file settings that helped stabilize the FPS due to a couple of changes.

The problems bypassed only… no one. Console gamers are not happy either. Textures on their screens often turn into a soapy mess, shadows do not load – as a result, the main character sitting in the car looks like a flying ghost. And on Xbox, crashes became more frequent. The first patch “hot on the heels” weighed 16 GB – while the game itself takes up about 40.

MindsEye Plot

The plot of MindsEye cannot be called an outright failure – it provokes different opinions, but rarely leaves you completely indifferent. For some, it seems predictable, assembled according to the patterns of a typical blockbuster that is based on cliches. For others, this is a story with potential, which could well be transferred to the screens in the form of a dramatic TV series. And not the worst one: with intrigue, moral dilemmas and themes that you can cling to. And although MindsEye does not open new horizons in the narrative, it is the plot that remains that rare component that somehow hooks you during the passage.

Nevertheless, even here there is a fly in the ointment. The main problem is the voice acting. The acting in the videos often sounds dry, strained, lifeless, as if the actors simply read the lines before going home. This is especially noticeable against the backdrop of lengthy cutscenes, which already last about ten minutes, reminiscent of the protracted video inserts from Hideo Kojima’s games – only without his signature drama. At some point, you begin not so much to watch the scenes as to endure them, hoping that something worthwhile will follow.

Against this backdrop, Alex Hernandez stands out especially brightly – the voice and face of the main character. His work is noted by almost everyone who has played the game: emotional, precise, and lively. This is not just reading lines, but a full-fledged acting performance in which you can feel the character’s inner pain, doubts, and anger. But it seems that Hernandez is chronically unlucky with projects. He has already been remembered as “that guy from Mafia 3”, where he also gave it his all, but found himself surrounded by technical and script problems. In the case of MindsEye, history repeats itself: the main character has a face, voice, and character – but the rest of the game does not always reach this level.

Perhaps it is he who becomes the only point of emotional support for the player – especially in those moments when everything else begins to fall apart.

Why MindsEye Looks Like an Unfinished Game

The first thing that catches your eye when opening the game’s page in any digital store is the overly ambitious post-release roadmap. It seems as if IO Interactive is only going to really start developing the game in the summer, and what we have now is just a rough draft, barely reaching the status of an alpha version. Yes, the story missions are already in place, but everything else is promises for the future: new modes, more content, single-player missions, and even multiplayer. The main emphasis, judging by the studio’s statements, will be on tools for creating custom missions – something like a built-in constructor. But the current state of the game left players with completely different impressions – and hardly positive ones.

On Steam, the rating fluctuates between 30 and 50 percent positive reviews, and aggregators like Google give a rating of 30 points out of 100. Developers on social networks blame unfair competition and negativity, and users suspect that the publishers themselves used a “bot farm” to launder their reputation. For example, Build A Rocket Boy co-founder Mark Gerhard blamed everything on “external forces” in a conversation on Discord – they say that evil haters are deliberately ruining the project.

Most likely, the truth – as has happened more than once – is much simpler: on the day of release, the game was really in a depressing state, and only later, after the patch, it was brought to a more or less acceptable level. Those who bought the project a little later did not experience the most blatant bugs. But even without the technical problems, MindsEye remains just an average story-driven action movie that lacked time, polish, and love.

Is MindsEye worth playing right now?

Almost all critics, bloggers and even just attentive players agree on one thing – in its current state, MindsEye is hardly worth the time and money spent. This does not mean that the game has no potential. But right now it looks like a rough draft of an ambitious project released in a hurry. Lots of bugs, poor optimization, mediocre mechanics – all this prevents you from appreciating the little that really deserves attention.

You can imagine that after some time, after a couple of major patches and a price reduction, MindsEye will get a second wind. Especially if you miss story-driven sci-fi adventures and are ready to tolerate technical roughness for the sake of an interesting idea. But this is a story about “maybe later”. Right now, everything is too raw.

What the game does well:

• The plot. It’s not brilliant or new, but if you like sci-fi and themes of control, technology, and memory, the story can be captivating. There are potentially interesting twists, even if they’re not always logically presented.
• The protagonist. Actor Alex Hernandez really tries. His performance is one of the few emotionally convincing in the game. He gives the plot at least some life and makes the dialogue tolerable.
• The drone mechanics. This is the only truly non-standard element of the gameplay. Controlling drones adds a bit of tactical depth to firefights and allows you to look at the game from a different angle.

Where it all falls apart:

• The rest of the acting is lackluster, lacking in intonation. Some scenes look comical not because they were intended that way, but because no one believes them – neither the actors nor the player.
• The dialogue. Sometimes they sound like a set of lines from a draft script, especially in emotional scenes – where the power of words is needed, we get a mechanical exchange of phrases.
• Technical problems. Freezes, crashes, loading times that drag on forever, and FPS drops – all this turns the passage into an annoying test.
• Combat. Shootouts do not inspire excitement: enemies are stupid, shelters do not work as they should, and shooting does not feel “weighty”. In some places, the game even seems ten years out of date.
• Limited world. Despite the fact that MindsEye hints at a larger setting, it is not developed in any way. There is almost nothing to do between missions, and everything comes down to a banal transition from one point to another.
• Amount of content. The main storyline can be completed in just 7-8 hours. After that, there is emptiness: side activities do not grab, and there is no point in replaying the same missions.

Against this backdrop, the main question arises: will MindsEye develop further? The developers hint that the project is just an intermediate step to a much more ambitious “Everywhere,” where players will allegedly be able to create their own adventures. It sounds tempting, but for now these are just words.

History knows several rare cases when a weak project at the start became a hit: No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk 2077 — both were once drowning in negativity, but were brought to mind. However, even they had a solid foundation, which MindsEye, alas, cannot boast of now. At this stage, it is more of a blank than a full-fledged game. And how long we will have to wait for it to open up — if it opens up at all — is an open question.

MindsEye System Requirements

How to play MindsEye for free on Steam via VpeSports

Imagine waking up in a world that looks like the future but feels like a memory you can’t quite reach. That’s MindsEye — not just a game, but a fragmented dream stitched together by paranoia, power, and pixel-perfect dystopia. You’re Jacob — a man who’s lost more than he knows, dragged into a conflict between corporate giants and a city that wants to control not just your body, but your very thoughts.

Redrock isn’t your typical sandbox. It breathes, it lies, it pulls you in with flashing lights and leaves you questioning what’s real. The neural implant in your head whispers pieces of the truth, but it’s up to you to untangle the mess — with a gun in one hand and a ghost of a past life in the other.

We’ve made sure you can jump straight into Jacob’s world without the usual friction. All it takes is a few clicks on our site — once you’re in, we’ll send everything you need, including access through a free Steam account, so you can start playing without paying.

And when the credits roll (or your jaw drops at a plot twist), we’d love to hear your thoughts. Seriously. Every player’s voice matters. If your review doesn’t go through right away, it might just need a little editing — we moderate all feedback to keep things fair and helpful.

Stick with us and you’ll never miss a beat. Our Telegram channel is where the community lives and breathes — game news, patch alerts, and honest discussions about what MindsEye gets right (and what it doesn’t). If something’s unclear or buggy, check the full “How to Play for Free” guide — or just shoot us a message. We’re here, and we listen.