MindsEye Studio Reeling As Disastrous Launch Sees Sony Issue Rare Round Of Refunds

MindsEye managed to grab headlines with an impressive looking trailer, as it seemed to be leveraging Unreal Engine 5 to great effect. However, it appears as if there were gremlins hiding beneath the shiny façade, with players reporting a myriad of problems since its Tuesday launch—issues that have left developer Build a Rocket Boy feeling “heartbroken that not every player was able to experience the game as we intended.”

Many players who picked the game up at launch experienced game crashes, lackluster AI for NPCs, and very poor game performance. The problems were severe enough that users in the game’s subreddit reported successfully requesting refunds from Sony's PlayStation support. It’s a sign of just how bad the situation is, as the console manufacturer hasn’t offered refunds in this fashion since the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077 on the PS4.


However, there does appear to be a bit of hope for players who want to play MindsEye to the end. Build a Rocket Boy claims to have found the root cause of most of the problems, a memory leak that purportedly impacts only about 10% of players. In a statement on social media platform X, the studio said that “our priority is optimizing performance and stability so that every player, across every device, can enjoy an equally high-quality experience.”

It’s a tough situation for a studio to face with the release of such an ambitious project, especially as it has faced criticisms that go beyond the technical state of the game. Judging from the Steam reviews alone, many players have been unimpressed with the story and have felt that the gameplay is uninspired, too. Even if all of these issues are resolved, it’s unlikely to pull in the vast audience the developers were likely aiming for with so many excellent gaming experiences that have already come out in 2025.

Hopefully the development team is able to push out a fix quickly to try and right the ship, and that the studio gets the time it needs to allow MindsEye to reach its full potential. Of course, it would have been better to have waited until the game was in a more polished state to release it in the first place.