The poor technical state of MindsEye – the debut game from developer Build a Rocket Boy – is well established by this point. The bottom line is that as a £55 or $60 purchase, there is only morbid curiosity in checking it out at present with glaring bugs, low frame-rates and crashes blighting the experience on console. In fact, having tested all PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series machines on its latest update 1.07 (or 1.04.4 on Xbox) – as released on June 18th – it appears little has improved post-launch. For all its potential as a futuristic, open world action-shooter, there’s no question that MindsEye remains in an undercooked state. An apology has already been issued by the developer, while the problems run deep enough in its launch week that Sony is allowing refunds via the PlayStation Store – a rare manoeuvre for Sony that calls to mind Cyberpunk’s troubled launch back in 2020.
Still, as an Unreal Engine 5 title, the game’s focus on Lumen and Nanite – plus vehicle simulation and physics – has echoes of the Matrix Awakens demo released back in 2021. MindsEye’s feature-set is uncannily similar: Nanite, Lumen, open world – and sadly this also extends to the state of its performance on consoles. All machines appear heavily CPU bound in a similar manner with traffic build-ups and destruction causing sizeable sub-30fps drops. Even in the best case, all consoles – including PS5 Pro – also run with an unevenly frame-paced 30fps cap meaning judder is a problem. Meanwhile, there’s visible screen tearing at the top of the display, which is exacerbated by drops into the 20-30fps range.
The basics first: there are no graphics modes to consider in MindsEye and every console runs with a 30fps target. In terms of native resolution, there is dynamic scaling in play, with PS5 and Series X typically running between 972p and 1008p. In terms of the PS5 Pro enhancements meanwhile, Pro boosts its resolution to a higher 1296p average value in most areas. This jump in image clarity is really the full extent of the PS5 Pro upgrades though, as most other settings – shadows, textures and world draw – appear similar to base PS5. Sony’s PSSR upscaler is not in sight either, with PS5 Pro using the same upscaling solution as other consoles. Finally, we have Series S, which typically runs at 720p, with spikes to 756p.
Despite its first patch, MindsEye continues to exhibit poor performance on consoles – seemingly down to an over-taxed CPU.Watch on YouTube
Xbox Series S is an outlier given its 4TF power profile, and it resorts to the greatest setting cutbacks as a result. It’s the one most deserving of a comparison and next to Series X, texture quality is dropped and shadows default to a lower preset with obvious dithering on edges. Transparency effects also run at a much lower setting with visible pixellation on fire effects while reflections take a hit in coverage across the metal sheen of interior walls. In matching cutscenes between Series S and X, there’s a higher frequency of pop-in for texture assets and shadows maps too. Finally, image quality is also remarkably blurry on all consoles – even on PS5 Pro – but Series S takes it to a further extreme owing to its native 720p count. The upscale often struggles to resolve the game’s distant detail, with chase missions set to long highways, or drone missions across the sky suffering the most for it.
Speaking of performance, there’s no escaping the fact that this is a 30fps-only experience, with higher frame-rates reserved for PC only. A large chunk of the game including combat missions and interior areas technically run at the 30fps line, but the overwhelming problem is that frame pacing is much too inconsistent all round. Taking PS5 Pro for example, the frame-time graph trills between 16, 33 and 50ms constantly in the big city, meaning it rarely feels smooth in practice. Driving at any pace through congested streets feels choppy, while hitches above that (spiking to 80ms and beyond) only add to the choppy, erratic sensation. It genuinely makes it tough to thread the needle between two packed lanes of traffic or to line up a head shot during combat. Towering above these issues is the potential to go under 30fps. This is re-tested on the latest patch 1.07, where an on-rails shoot-out through the city still has PS5 Pro dropping into the 20s. We’re pushing close to that 20fps line at points and the fact is that PS5 Pro’s GPU boost over base PS5 doesn’t alleviate the issue, suggesting a CPU bottleneck.
The situation on base PS5 is remarkably similar, with a choppy 30fps line due to uneven frame-pacing, plus screen tearing. Again this is technically a 30fps experience in the main, but the uneven cadence (plus hitches) truly affects the flow of any action. MindsEye also hits lower lows in frame-rate on base PS5: again the on-rails shootout mission puts PS5 at the lower end of the 20-30fps range, even finding itself at numbers like 18fps. In other words, there’s a small Pro advantage in this stress point but it doesn’t count for much when playability is this dire. If there is a plus side here, it’s that MindsEye’s vehicle physics, car handling and suspension, are at least somewhat satisfying, marred by sometimes brutally low frame-rate.
Manage cookie settings
Both Xbox Series X and S versions suffer from all the very same problems: the uneven frame-pacing, hitching, tearing, and the sub-30fps drops are all present. Xbox Series X perhaps holds up better overall during the on-rails shoot-out with drops to the mid-20s rarely descending much further down the graph. It’s hard to recommend Series X on those grounds alone, but the outlook so far is that it’s potentially better than base PS5. On the other hand, Series S gives us the most damning result of the four machines with the same on-rails sequence taking us to an 18fps low, and then crashing. The software simply froze up on my first play-through of this mission, forcing me to close the game manually and restart the app all over again. Others have reported crashes in a similar vein, and it’s the most crucial issue that needs to be addressed.
Mindseye is a release that looks and plays like it’s months away from being ready for release. It’s not a complete write-off: the framework of an entertaining enough game lurks beneath its myriad issues, but it clearly needs more time. The few positives to mention include aspects of its car physics, the suspension model, which offer a satisfying enough sense of weight as you drift around a bend. Also, there’s undeniably some superb character rendering put in close-up shots for its many (often quite lengthy) cut-scenes. Character models are crisply detailed with every blink and smile brought to life by accurate motion capture performances. Credit where it’s due, the direction of these scenes is a highlight.
Overshadowing all of that is the frame-rate and the game’s bugs. Based on my time with it so far, a bulk of the bugs relate to enemy logic. Some enemies simply do not move, others have buggy collision detection, making them impossible to shoot, or awkward cover animations. In other instances, they disappear on the spot after dying. Likewise, despite its upsides, the car physics produce laughably wild outcomes at times, where even a small piece of debris might send you spinning to the sky. The traffic in the city is also often bull-headed and mindless, barrelling straight at you in a way that defies any real-world common sense. In one instance a target enemy car got stuck in a parking lot, essentially making the mission impoossible to complete. This is all scratching the surface – especially with so much of the story left to see – but it does point to the range of gameplay issues that need fixing.
All that’s left to be said is that I hope it is eventually fixed, because MindsEye has a faint hint of potential beneath its issues. Let’s be clear, this is never destined for Cyberpunk or GTA levels of greatness, but as a simpler action game using an open world format to stitch together its missions, it might have some merit. Sadly, Build a Rocket Boy is in a position of needing to make up ground on quality control – and quickly too – now that it’s actually being sold to paying customers. Whether that can be done in reasonable time, or if a recall, and later re-release is a better route, remains to be seen. Either way it’s difficult to recommend MindsEye in its current state on any console, which is a shame.
