Build A Rocket Boy has stopped work on MindsEye and moved into what staff and reporters are describing as a full studio wind-down, marking the third disclosed contraction at the Edinburgh-based developer since June 2025. The news broke on September 16, 2026, when PlayStationLifestyle reported that the company founded by former Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies is closing out the MindsEye project, following a second confirmed round of layoffs that CEO Mark Gerhard announced on LinkedIn in March 2026. Gerhard has publicly tied the cuts to what he calls “organized espionage and corporate sabotage” connected to the game’s troubled launch, a claim reported by Game Developer that has not been independently verified in court.
For an industry that has already logged 14,666 layoffs across 2026, per prior shattered.io tracking, Build A Rocket Boy’s collapse is notable less for its size and more for how publicly messy it has become. Workers have posted redundancy notices on LinkedIn, a labor union has organized a protest fund, and the studio’s own CEO has alleged criminal sabotage rather than simply citing weak sales. This piece walks through what is confirmed, what remains unconfirmed, and what the pattern means for UK game development heading into 2027.
What Build A Rocket Boy Confirmed on September 16
Build A Rocket Boy, commonly abbreviated BARB, built its reputation on the pedigree of its founder. Leslie Benzies ran Rockstar North during the development of the Grand Theft Auto series before departing to start his own studio. MindsEye was billed as the company’s debut title, an open-world action shooter meant to establish BARB as a serious contender outside the Rockstar orbit. Instead, the game’s rocky reception set off a chain of workforce reductions that has now stretched across 15 months.
The first confirmed contraction came in June 2025, weeks after MindsEye shipped. The company issued a formal statement at the time acknowledging a consultation process that could lead to redundancies. According to that statement, quoted by Game Developer: “While we are working to reassign roles for as many of those impacted by these changes as possible, sadly we are initiating a formal consultation process that may result in redundancies. This decision has not been made lightly, and we are committed to handling this process with transparency, fairness, and respect for all employees. We will provide further details to the team over the coming weeks.” A near-identical version of that statement was also reported by IGN. Specific headcount figures from that round, often cited by studio sources as “over 100” or “around 500” staff, were never confirmed by the company itself.
In March 2026, Gerhard posted a second statement on LinkedIn confirming what outlets described as the studio’s second round of job cuts in eight months. That post confirmed layoffs had taken place but did not disclose a specific headcount. It did, however, include the sabotage allegation that has since dominated coverage of the studio.
Timeline: Three Rounds of Cuts in 15 Months
Piecing together statements from the company, union commentary, and worker posts gives a rough shape of how the situation escalated. The table below separates what BARB has confirmed directly from what has only been reported by outlets or workers.
| Date | Event | Confirmed By | Headcount Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 2025 | First redundancy consultation opens, weeks after MindsEye launch | Build A Rocket Boy statement | Undisclosed by company; media estimates ranged widely |
| March 2026 | Second round of layoffs confirmed via CEO LinkedIn post | Mark Gerhard, CEO | Undisclosed number |
| 2026 (ongoing) | IWGB union cites cumulative job losses since mid-2025 | Independent Workers Union of Great Britain | Estimated 250-300 workers since last June |
| September 16, 2026 | MindsEye studio closure reported | PlayStationLifestyle reporting, worker statements | Not disclosed by company as of this writing |
Note that the September closure has not been confirmed in a formal company statement equivalent to the June 2025 or March 2026 announcements. It is currently sourced to reporting and to public comments from staff describing their own departures, which is a meaningfully different evidentiary bar than a company press release. Readers should treat the “closure” framing as the most current reporting rather than a confirmed corporate filing.
The Corporate Sabotage Allegation
The detail that separates this story from a routine round of games-industry layoffs is Gerhard’s public claim that MindsEye’s failure was not simply a product problem. In the statement reported by Game Developer, Gerhard said: “Over the past months we have been working with external partners and legal advisors to investigate the criminal activity that took place around our launch. That work has taken far longer than expected, but it has now resulted in overwhelming evidence of organized espionage and corporate sabotage affecting MindsEye. Because this matter is moving towards prosecution, we cannot share the full details publicly yet” (Mark Gerhard, CEO, Build A Rocket Boy).
That is a serious accusation, and it is important to be precise about its status. Gerhard has described an ongoing legal process moving toward prosecution, but no criminal charges, court filings, or named defendants have been publicly disclosed. No court has issued a ruling connected to this claim, and no individual has been convicted of anything related to MindsEye’s launch. The allegation should be read as an unverified company claim pending legal process, not as an established fact, and this article treats it that way throughout.
The sabotage framing also raises a practical question that has come up repeatedly in comments sections and industry forums: does it change how laid-off staff, publishers, or platform holders view the studio’s failure? For staff who lost their jobs, the answer so far appears to be no. Several described their departures in plain terms, without reference to sabotage, in posts picked up by Polygon.
What Laid-Off Staff Are Saying
Individual departure posts have become one of the more reliable signals of what is actually happening inside BARB, since the company itself has not published detailed headcounts. Adam Ridsdale, listed as Lead 3D Weapon/Prop Artist at Build A Rocket Boy, wrote in a public post cited by Polygon: “Unfortunately, along with the rest of my colleagues at Build A Rocket Boy, I am facing redundancy and now looking for a new opportunity” (Adam Ridsdale, Lead 3D Weapon/Prop Artist, Build A Rocket Boy).
Michaela Emslie, who worked as a Release Manager at the studio, posted a similar account, also reported by Polygon: “After four years at Build A Rocket Boy, I’ve unfortunately been given my redundancy notice along with some of my fellow colleagues” (Michaela Emslie, Release Manager, Build A Rocket Boy). Four years at the studio places her tenure back to roughly 2022, well before MindsEye’s launch, underscoring that this round of cuts is not limited to recent hires brought on for a single release cycle.
One additional account, reported by PlayStationLifestyle from a staff member in the studio’s HR department, suggests some employees are staying on specifically to manage the wind-down process itself: “I will be seeing BARB through till the very end, helping wrap things up here in the HR department” (unnamed employee quoted in PlayStationLifestyle reporting, HR Department, Build A Rocket Boy). That phrasing, “through till the very end,” is part of why outlets are now framing this as closure coverage rather than another routine layoff story.
Union Response and Worker Organizing
The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, known as IWGB, has been tracking cumulative job losses at BARB since the studio’s troubles began. In a statement reported by Game Developer, the union said the pattern of cuts had prompted direct worker support efforts: “The decision to fund the event followed several rounds of redundancies at the studio, during which an estimated 250-300 workers have been laid off since last June” (IWGB, Independent Workers Union of Great Britain).
That 250-300 figure is the closest thing available to a cumulative headcount, and it comes from the union rather than the company. It is worth stressing that IWGB’s estimate covers the full period since June 2025, not any single round in isolation, and BARB has not confirmed or disputed the number publicly as of this writing. Union involvement also signals that at least some portion of BARB’s former workforce was organized labor, which is still relatively uncommon in UK games development but has grown steadily since 2023 organizing pushes at other studios.
UK Redundancy Law and Why the 45-Day Window Matters
Part of why BARB’s June 2025 statement used formal “consultation” language traces back to UK employment law. Under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act, an employer proposing 100 or more redundancies within a 90-day period must run a minimum 45-day collective consultation process before any dismissals take effect, a threshold explained on the UK government’s redundancy consultation guidance. That rule exists specifically to give employee representatives, including unions like IWGB, formal standing to negotiate terms, alternatives, and timing before cuts are finalized.
The fact that BARB’s June 2025 announcement explicitly referenced a formal consultation process is itself informative: it implies the studio anticipated proposing cuts at or above the 100-employee threshold, even though the company never confirmed an exact figure. Whether the March 2026 round or the September closure also triggered fresh 45-day consultations is not confirmed in available reporting, and studios are not always required to restart the full process for staged reductions tied to the same underlying restructuring.
Build A Rocket Boy’s Rockstar Pedigree Made This Fall Sharper
Leslie Benzies spent close to two decades at Rockstar North, rising to studio president during a period that included multiple entries in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, before a public split from Rockstar’s parent company and the eventual founding of Build A Rocket Boy. That background is precisely why MindsEye carried outsized expectations. A studio led by someone with Benzies’ résumé, chasing an open-world shooter in a genre Rockstar itself still dominates, was always going to be measured against a very high bar.
Mark Gerhard, who serves as CEO, has been the public face of the company through the layoff announcements, issuing both the June 2025 and March 2026 statements and the sabotage allegation. The split between a founder known for design pedigree and a CEO now managing successive rounds of job cuts is a familiar shape in games industry stories: the creative promise that attracted funding and talent runs into commercial reality, and the executive team is left explaining what went wrong to a shrinking staff and a skeptical press.
How BARB’s Collapse Compares to Other 2026 Studio Shutdowns
Build A Rocket Boy is far from the only UK or Western studio to shed staff in 2026. What sets it apart is the length of the runway between the first warning sign and the apparent endpoint, and the unusual step of publicly alleging criminal sabotage rather than citing sales figures or market conditions.
| Studio | 2026 Event | Stated Cause | Reported Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build A Rocket Boy | Second layoff round, MindsEye wind-down reported | Alleged corporate sabotage around launch, per CEO | Est. 250-300 since June 2025, per IWGB |
| Polyarc | Studio shutdown after 12 years | Project and funding pressures | 29 jobs cut |
| Don’t Nod | Warned of 2027 collapse risk, planned cuts | Cash runway concerns, sector-wide funding crunch | 90 jobs planned |
| Xbox Game Studios | WARN notice filed for Redmond staff | Corporate restructuring | 605 Redmond jobs, 3,200 total cited historically |
| Netflix Games | Night School and Moonloot studios closed | Portfolio consolidation | Down to 1 of 6 internal studios |
Against that backdrop, BARB’s story reads as an extreme version of a pattern that has repeated across the industry all year: a single high-profile launch underperforms, funding tightens, and successive rounds of cuts follow until the studio either stabilizes around a smaller footprint or winds down the project entirely. Where BARB diverges is in publicly contesting the narrative of failure itself, through the sabotage claim, rather than accepting a straightforward commercial explanation the way Polyarc and Don’t Nod largely have.
Market Impact for UK Game Development
Scotland’s game development sector is comparatively small next to hubs like London, Guildford, or Manchester, which means a contraction the size of BARB’s has an outsized local effect. Losing an estimated 250-300 positions at a single studio, per the IWGB figure, represents a meaningful share of the country’s specialist open-world and shooter development talent, much of it with prior AAA experience given the studio’s Rockstar-adjacent hiring pipeline.
For publishers and investors watching from outside, the sabotage allegation adds a layer of reputational risk that a standard layoff announcement does not carry. If BARB does pursue legal action, as Gerhard’s statement suggests, the studio’s name is likely to stay in headlines well past the point most shuttered projects fade from coverage. That extended visibility cuts both ways: it could vindicate the studio if evidence eventually surfaces, or it could deepen scrutiny of a leadership team already managing a third contraction in 15 months.
What Remains Unconfirmed
Readers should keep a clear line between what BARB has stated directly and what is currently sourced to reporting or worker accounts. Confirmed by the company: the June 2025 consultation process, and the March 2026 second round of layoffs referenced in Gerhard’s LinkedIn post. Not confirmed by the company as of September 17, 2026: an exact cumulative headcount, a formal announcement of full studio closure, and any legal filing or court action tied to the sabotage allegation. The 250-300 figure comes from IWGB, not BARB. The closure framing comes from PlayStationLifestyle’s reporting and worker statements, not a company press release.
This distinction matters because “studio confirms full shutdown” and “reporting and worker accounts describe an apparent shutdown” are different claims with different evidentiary weight, and conflating them risks overstating what is actually known right now.
Predictions: Where This Goes From Here
Based on the pattern established across the three disclosed rounds of cuts, a few outcomes look more likely than others heading into the rest of 2026 and into 2027.
- A formal company statement addressing the closure reports is likely within weeks, given BARB’s pattern of issuing statements after each prior round of cuts rather than staying silent.
- If Gerhard’s sabotage claim proceeds to a filed legal case, expect it to become the dominant storyline around BARB well into 2027, independent of the studio’s operational status.
- Displaced BARB staff with Rockstar-adjacent AAA open-world experience are likely to be recruited relatively quickly, given how few UK studios carry that specific skill set at scale.
- Scrutiny of Leslie Benzies’ post-Rockstar ventures is likely to intensify, given that MindsEye was framed from the outset as a test of whether his design pedigree could translate outside Rockstar’s infrastructure.
- Expect continued union involvement from IWGB in documenting cumulative headcount figures, since the company has not published its own consolidated numbers across the three rounds.
The Broader 2026 Games Industry Layoff Pattern
BARB’s situation is one data point in a year that has already produced a steady drumbeat of studio contractions, from Xbox’s Redmond WARN notice to Netflix paring its internal game studios down to a single active team. What distinguishes 2026 from prior downturns is less the raw headcount and more the visibility: LinkedIn posts from individual laid-off developers, union-tracked cumulative figures, and now a CEO publicly alleging sabotage have all become part of how these stories get told in near real time, rather than emerging months later through financial filings or leaks.
That shift in transparency, however uneven, has made it easier to track a studio’s decline as it happens rather than after the fact. It has also made it easier for readers to spot the gap between what a company confirms and what reporting infers, which is exactly the gap BARB’s story sits inside as of September 17, 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has Build A Rocket Boy officially confirmed MindsEye is shutting down?
As of September 17, 2026, there is no formal company press release confirming a full studio closure equivalent to the June 2025 or March 2026 statements. The closure framing comes from reporting by PlayStationLifestyle and from public statements by staff members, not from a direct BARB announcement.
How many people have been laid off at Build A Rocket Boy in total?
The company has not published a cumulative figure. The IWGB union estimates 250-300 workers have been laid off since June 2025 across multiple rounds, but that number has not been confirmed by BARB itself.
What is the corporate sabotage allegation about?
CEO Mark Gerhard said the company has been working with legal advisors to investigate what he described as organized espionage and corporate sabotage connected to MindsEye’s launch, and said the matter is moving toward prosecution. No court filings, named defendants, or convictions have been publicly disclosed in connection with this claim.
Who founded Build A Rocket Boy?
Leslie Benzies, the former president of Rockstar North, founded the studio after departing Rockstar’s parent company. Mark Gerhard serves as the studio’s chief executive officer.
When did the layoffs at Build A Rocket Boy start?
The first confirmed round began in June 2025, shortly after MindsEye’s launch, when the company opened a formal redundancy consultation process. A second round was confirmed by Gerhard via LinkedIn in March 2026.
Why does UK law require a 45-day consultation for these layoffs?
Under UK employment law, an employer proposing 100 or more redundancies within a 90-day period is required to run a minimum 45-day collective consultation process with employee representatives before dismissals take effect.
Is MindsEye still available to play?
Reporting on the studio’s wind-down does not confirm the game has been delisted or taken offline. Available coverage focuses on staffing and studio operations, not distribution status.
How does this compare to other 2026 game studio closures?
Build A Rocket Boy’s estimated 250-300 cumulative job losses sit above single-round cuts at studios like Polyarc (29 jobs) but the situation stands out mainly for its length, spanning three disclosed rounds across 15 months, and for the CEO’s public sabotage allegation rather than the scale alone.
