Build A Rocket Boy appoints administrators following insolvency
The developer of MindsEye, Build A Rocket Boy, has officially appointed administrators, signaling that the studio is insolvent. This legal step, confirmed by the company, means the firm is now under the protection of an administrator to manage its affairs and shield it from legal actions brought by creditors.
According to official filings, Opus Advisory Group has been appointed to act as the company's administrator. This move follows a period of intense financial instability and a final wave of redundancies that occurred in September 2026. The insolvency status highlights the severe financial distress facing the studio, which was founded in 2016 by Rockstar veteran Leslie Benzies.
The financial data supporting this crisis is substantial. For the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, Build A Rocket Boy reported an operating loss of £47.5 million and a net loss of £36.2 million. Furthermore, the company's total debt to creditors stood at £61.8 million as of that same date. These mounting losses followed the release of MindsEye on June 4, 2025, which met with negative reviews and poor reception from the audience.
The studio's decline has been marked by several significant corporate and legal developments:
- NetEase Games, RedBird Capital Partners, and Galaxy Interactive—all of whom had invested in the studio—saw their respective directors removed from the board during the summer of 2026.
- In early 2026, a legal dispute arose regarding data privacy after employees discovered that Teramind monitoring software had been installed on their workstations without prior notification from management. The IWGB game workers' union subsequently launched legal action against Build A Rocket Boy following the use of this software, alleging data privacy violations.
- The studio also faced legal action from the IWGB union in October 2025, which alleged the company had mishandled the redundancy process.
The leadership has frequently attributed these difficulties to external interference. Co-CEO Mark Gerhard claimed, without providing evidence, that a large American company spent over €1 million in 2025 on criminal activities and corporate sabotage against the studio. This claim was echoed in March 2026, when the company alleged organized espionage during another round of layoffs. In an attempt to stabilize the project, the studio released the Blacklisted update for MindsEye in April 2026, which Mark Gerhard described as a significant step forward for both the game and the studio.
Despite these efforts, the studio's trajectory has been defined by continuous downsizing, starting with the notification of 300 staff members at risk of redundancy shortly after the game's launch, and culminating in the most recent layoffs in September 2026. With the appointment of Opus Advisory Group, the future of the studio and its remaining assets remains subject to the administration process.
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