MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy appears to be shutting down as staff report mass layoffs

MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy (BARB) appears to be shutting down. Over the past day, studio employees have been posting one after another on LinkedIn about their departures, and some say they were laid off along with the rest of their colleagues. Citing sources familiar with the situation, Kotaku reports that the studio is closing permanently.

BARB itself has not yet confirmed either the layoffs or the closure. The departure posts are coming from employees across different departments.

Artists, designers and HR staff announce their departures

Employees are adding the green #OpenForWork frame to their profile pictures, which LinkedIn uses to show that a person is looking for work. Among those who have announced their departure:

• a talent acquisition and HR operations specialist who spent almost five years at BARB. By their own account, this employee was the first hire in the in-house recruiting team and helped grow the studio's headcount from 200 to 550 in a short time. The employee also wrote that they would stay at BARB “until the very end” and help the HR department wrap things up;
• a lead weapons and props 3D artist, who says they were laid off along with the rest of their colleagues and are looking for a new job;
• a technical level designer from the user-generated content (UGC) team, who wrote that, like other BARB employees, they are looking for work again.

Troubles during MindsEye's development and after launch

The studio was already going through hard times during the development of MindsEye, and the problems continued after the game's release in June 2025. The team was hit by several rounds of layoffs, and BARB blamed the failed launch on “corporate sabotage.”

Nearly a hundred developers signed an open letter accusing leadership of serious management failures. Some of them filed lawsuits. Earlier this year, IOI Partners, the publishing arm of IO Interactive (the makers of Hitman), withdrew as publisher of MindsEye.

The IWGB Game Workers union took the studio to court. According to the union, BARB violated data protection rules by installing surveillance software on employees' work devices. Industry workers then held a protest outside the studio's Edinburgh office.

What this means for the industry

If the closure is confirmed, it will be one of the most prominent failures among new large studios in recent years. BARB's headcount quickly grew to several hundred people, while its work was concentrated on a single large project. After the unsuccessful release, the studio likely had no safety margin left. When a company depends on a single game, a troubled launch, the loss of a publisher and a conflict with employees greatly reduce its chances of surviving a crisis.

The closure comes amid an ongoing wave of layoffs in the games industry. Artists and designers from BARB will likely have to look for work in a highly competitive market. At the same time, other studios will be able to hire experienced specialists. The BARB story shows the risks of rapidly scaling up headcount for a single project. In addition, public conflicts between employees and leadership, as well as union lawsuits, will likely weigh more heavily on how investors and publishers assess such teams.

What is behind the likely closure of Build a Rocket Boy: the failure of MindsEye, leadership missteps, or a cooling AAA games market?