Between Summer Game Fest, rumors (yes again) of Half-Life 3, the Xbox Games Showcase and The Outer Worlds 2 Direct, and every other major release in June, I never expected Build A Rocket Boy to take me on this rollercoaster of emotions with MindsEye. What started as an innocent enough story trailer showcasing the return of Mafia 3’s Alex Hernandez in a leading role morphed into concern over the marketing strategy, questions over the whereabouts of Everywhere, and whether we would see some actual gameplay.
Within a week, the developer addressed all of these, releasing an overview trailer showcasing the mechanics and gameplay of MindsEye. All that running, gunning, and driving we’ve seen thus far? It’s still there, though you can toss in robots, space puzzles, a drone that follows you around (and can be upgraded), and…a post-launch roadmap? Yes, Build A Rocket Boy outlined everything at launch and what’s to come, including new single-player modes, free-roam “updates” and the Starstream universe.
It’s a lot to take in, and that’s before considering how Arcadia, the core creation tool used for Everywhere, is confirmed to be implemented into MindsEye. Or how co-CEO Mark Gerhard believes that all the negativity against the game is “100 percent” financed by someone else (and that it “doesn’t take much to guess who”). Now, there’s a massive interview with Leslie Benzies, game director and studio founder, by GamesIndustry, and it offers some…interesting revelations.
To start with, MindsEye is only the beginning, only “one story in an epic universe.” Benzies described it as “bang in the middle” of this narrative, and the others occur in different periods (with the implication that one occurs 10,000 years in the past) and locations in the universe. The plan is to “fill out the universe over time – so when you travel around, all the stories will be connected by one overarching theme, and each story will have different mechanics.”
So far, so ambitious. Maybe a little too ambitious, but it does give further context on what the Starstream universe could potentially be. He reaffirmed that the studio would continue supporting MindsEye with new content with stuff like races made “just for fun.” However, most of the content will be implemented into the story and then comes the kicker. Benzies said, “Once you’ve played the big overarching ten-year plan, you’ll have a very good idea of what this universe looks like.”
I’m not usually someone who blanches at terms from game developers and publishers, like quadruple-A, hero shooter, live service or metaverse. But “ten-year plan” does something. Let’s continue.
After MindsEye launches, Build A Rocket Boy will implement multiplayer, which is reasonable enough, but also plans to create a “full open world.” It’s still giving tools to players to create what they want, and the developer will look at how to “incorporate that into our plans.” “Hopefully some will create compelling content we can then promote and make that part of our plans to push to other players,” said Benzies, though whether there would be any kind of monetary compensation. Love of the game probably only goes so far but I digress.
It’s the developer’s side that concerns me because it wants to release an open-world multiplayer title next year, set one year after the events of MindsEye. It also wants to release an open-world free-roam title that will span “from when MindsEye finishes to the launch of the open-world multiplayer game.” With all the interconnectedness and talk of a larger universe, how much will those future stories cost? The answer is that it depends on the scale. “Some will be free, and some will be paid.” At this point, it seems a given that the multiplayer and free-roam titles will cost money.
Oh, and by the way: MindsEye is considered a “relevant piece of the puzzle that will have players asking questions of what the bigger story is.” To that end, the studio intentionally avoided releasing footage for “huge parts of the game” to avoid spoilers and that the story takes some “unusual twists.”
If all of that isn’t enough, he also confirmed that Everywhere is still very much a thing. That content creation platform announced before MindsEye, and which the latter was seemingly a part of? It’s still there. Why would you think it wasn’t? Benzies said it was going to “show up again pretty soon” and that everything that’s been worked on, “there’s a story behind it – a big overarching story. So Everywhere will come back, and it fits into this story somewhere.” He can’t reveal any more, obviously, because that would be a spoiler but it’s all “part of the same product.” It’s all connected.
I have many questions, but it’s the ten-year plan that gets me. Consider, for a moment, a developer like Bungie and Destiny, which famously famously had a ten-year plan for the franchise, which involved multiple sequels with Activision. It would exit that publishing agreement several years later, release expansions of varying quality, become acquired by Sony, change its content release plans multiple times, and is now seemingly on a knife’s edge with how underwhelming its performance has been (to say nothing of all the problems, rumored and confirmed, with leadership).
Then there’s 343 Industries and Halo Infinite. Remember how former studio head Chris Lee said it’s “about creating Halo Infinite as the start of the next ten years for Halo and then building that as we go with our fans and community.” That was after the horrendous campaign showcase at E3 2020 but before the game’s delay and Lee’s departure from the company.
Granted, Infinite is still getting updates for multiplayer but the campaign was left hanging. 343 eventually announced a rebranding to Halo Studios, multiple new titles in development and a shift to Unreal Engine 5. And for all its quirks, that’s a developer supported by one of the biggest, if not the biggest, gaming publishers in the world.
Then there’s Anthem, BioWare’s attempt at a live-service looter shooter. Former EA vice president Patrick Söderlund (who is now the CEO of Embark Studios of ARC Raiders fame) said that it would be the start of “maybe a 10-year journey” for BioWare. It was released in 2019 and deservedly panned, abandoned its planned roadmap, abandoned seasons in 2020 for a rework which never occurred and then abandoned support altogether in February 2021. The servers are still up for anyone who still cares.
The point of all this is that if these big companies couldn’t adhere to a ten-year project plan, then how is Build A Rocket Boy going to do it? Sure, it has three studios in different locations, but the total number of employees is unknown, and it doesn’t have a major publisher backing it, much less owning it and providing a safety net of sorts. There’s also the fact that Everywhere, despite being in development on Unreal Engine since 2020 (conceptualization began as early as 2016), still doesn’t have a release date.
Maybe I’m overreacting. If it heavily repurposes assets, ropes in community creators, and scales up, it could achieve all this. A lot hinges on the success of MindsEye, and I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. It’s $60, and value is subjective, but I’m not sure the gameplay and story-telling showcased thus far is something that I’ll be enthralled by over a “20ish” hour period. And that’s before considering all the other games out this month.
There’s also the fact that for all intents and purposes, MindsEye is the groundwork for what’s a live-service framework, and the success of new endeavors in that space in the past few years has been – to put it nicely – abysmal. Is MindsEye going to be such an incredible experience that will attract millions upon millions of players who want to see this grand narrative continue? Will they even be willing to engage in this open-world multiplayer sequel launching next year? You know, the same year as Grand Theft Auto 6, which has much more hype and probably a more robust multiplayer experience?
It’s hard to say, but it feels like Build A Rocket Boy wants to create a Fortnite competitor without an existing groundswell of support, financial success or immense resources, and I currently don’t think it can deliver. Maybe it’s just hedging its bets – if MindsEye doesn’t succeed, follow the current roadmap, see how recurring revenue pans out, and if it fails, oh well. We’ll find out after it launches on June 10th on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, but at this point, I’m just fascinated to see where this journey leads next.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
