New ‘GTA Clone’ MindsEye’s Controversial Launch Explained

Build a Rocket Boy games studio just released its first game, MindsEye, though this debut game hasn’t gotten off to a strong start. With the studio behind MindsEye proudly featuring the talent of a game director with experience working on the Grand Theft Auto games, MindsEye was widely advertised as a new ‘GTA clone,’ and while the game has great potential, it hasn’t quite lived up to the high expectations it set for itself just yet.

Even before MindsEye released on June 10, the lead-up to the game’s launch was filled with drama. Now that the game is available, it has its enjoyable moments, but unfortunately, the prevalence of bugs and performance issues in the game has stolen the spotlight from the game’s strengths. If Build a Rocket Boy remains committed to its tentative plans for supporting and improving MindsEye, a comeback story for the game could be in the cards. Until then, though, the current state of the game is understandably a controversy.

MindsEye Bugs Make Launch of AC Unity, Cyberpunk 2077 Look Like Child’s Play

MindsEye is filled with bugs both hilarious and horrifying, leading to negative reviews and many humorous social media posts from players.

Why Players Are Review-Bombing MindsEye

MindsEye’s Development Journey Has Been Filled With Controversy

Leading up to the release of MindsEye, the game had already found itself the source of controversy. This was because early press previews for MindsEye were met with criticism, after which the Co-CEO of Build a Rocket Boy accused critics of being paid to bash the game, as reported by Eurogamer. Presumably because of this, review copies of MindsEye were allegedly withheld from major gaming publications, and a review embargo was enforced for the game until the game’s release.

This is an important context to consider because gamers generally couldn’t rely on credible reviews of the game to determine its quality ahead of its release. Hence, when many eager players stepped into MindsEye’s city of Redrock and began their journey as Jacob Diaz, the prevalence of performance issues and gameplay bugs on launch day led to strong initial backlash towards the game.

MindsEye’s Launch Issues Steal the Spotlight from Its Greatest Strengths

Despite some of the game’s best moments, the many technical issues present in MindsEye at launch have understandably given the game a bad reputation for the time being. Even after a day one patch and hotfix for MindsEye, the game’s performance is still problematic, especially on consoles.

For the first 24 hours after the game’s release, MindsEye received a Mostly Negative review score on Steam. Some of the most notable technical issues the game currently faces are: max 30 FPS frame rate on consoles, frequent crashes, and unoptimized graphics and performance leading to unnecessarily high system requirements.

At the time of writing, MindsEye’s Steam review score has since improved from Mostly Negative to Mixed.

Given that MindsEye was frequently compared to the Grand Theft Auto games throughout its development, expectations for the game were arguably impossibly high, considering that it’s a debut game from a newly formed studio. So, instead of living up to being a fabled Grand Theft Auto killer or competitor, the game is more commonly compared to the disastrous launch of games like Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin’s Creed Unity, and The Day Before.

MindsEye Might Need Post-Launch Support to Reach Its Full Potential

Ultimately, the praiseworthy cast performances and unique sci-fi story and setting of MindsEye provide a strong foundation that the developers’ long-term commitment to the game will only continue to improve upon, eventually evolving it into an expanded franchise universe. Considering that most of the game’s biggest criticisms right now are related to its performance issues, a comeback seems entirely possible. However, for the time being, the bad seems to outweigh the good, as is evidenced by the game’s controversial launch and negative player reviews.