MindsEye is one of the worst-reviewed games of the year, and IO Interactive published it. In fact, it was the Hitman maker’s first outside publishing deal ever. How did things go so wrong? The studio’s CEO was finally asked to weigh in on the topic and he makes it sound like he doesn’t know either.
“The initial talks we had with those guys were to support them,” Hakan Abrak, who’s been in charge of IO for nearly a decade, told IGN recently. “We thought they had some great ideas and a great world in the background that they were building, and hopefully they’ll get the opportunity to show more of that in the future. And we just wanted to help them distribute the game.”
MindsEye had a sound pitch. Developer Build A Rocket Boy, led by ex-Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies, was making a user-generated-content-based metaverse called Everything, but pivoted to getting a smaller, single-player shooter out the door first. Following an ex-black ops guy with a brain implant that’s turning his world upside down, MindsEye sounded like an old-school action-adventure campaign with some modern AAA gloss.
What it ended up being instead was a confusing and boring mess. It’s one of the lowest-rated games of 2025 on Metacritic and has only 2,000 user reviews on Steam, around 70 percent of which are negative. As far as first-time publishing experiences go, it probably couldn’t have been any worse.
“Well, that was definitely tough, right?” Abrak told IGN. “It was a tough reception. It wasn’t what they hoped for, and also what we didn’t hope for at IOI Partners. They’re working hard on turning that around to regain the trust of the gamers out there, and they have tons of potential and content they’re working on. So hopefully they’ll succeed with that in the future.”
While Build A Rocket Boy has made promises, it’s also been undergoing post-launch layoffs and playing weird blame games. IGN reported that Benzies took the opportunity on a rare video call with staff in July to accuse internal and outside actors of trying to sabotage MindsEye. The studio announced an updated roadmap later that month that includes more fixes to the game and its upcoming Hitman crossover mission.
Worth noting is that at no point does Abrak talk about the partnership like it’s still ongoing. He talks about “we” at IO Interactive and “those guys” and “them” at Build A Rocket Boy. Even with the upcoming content you get the distinct feeling the Hitman team is ready to wash its hands of the entire thing and focus exclusively on its upcoming 007 James Bond game moving forward.
Does IO plan to publish any other outside games after this? Abrak said, “That remains to be seen.”
