MindsEye set to launch on June 10 despite stories of executive departures

Riley Graebner, CLO, and Paul Bland, CFO at MindsEye, departed Build a Rocket Boy developer yesterday, just a week before the release of the MindsEye game. Gamers on the MindsEye Discord channel have expressed concerns, suspecting a possible company internal difference. The game is expected to be released on the 10th of this month. 

The MindsEye game recently received adverse reactions from gamers online before its release. The company CEO, Mark Gerhard, suggested that most of the people driving negative feedback were sponsored by someone.

Gamers suspect possible internal differences at the MindsEye developer

Riley Graebner, now a former CLO at Build a Rocket Boy (BARB), said he was proud of what the team had accomplished while he was at the company. He added that the company had doubled in size to over 450 employees. However, he did not mention the reason for his departure and urged the online community to stay tuned for more updates.

MindsEye—a game so real executives are fleeing the studio a week before launch! Who needs stable leadership when you have suspense? Will it release or disappear into the ether? Grab your popcorn, folks! 🍿💀

— tacetmort3m (@tacet_mort3m) June 4, 2025

Graebner said he has launched multiple products worldwide and built the legal team and legal operation infrastructure from the ground up to systemize and automate. Paul Bland, CFO at BARB, also left after being in the company for two years. He didn’t publicly declare that he was going but updated his LinkedIn profile today to indicate his departure. His LinkedIn page is unavailable, but the account remains on a different URL.

Members of the MindsEye Discord channel have shown concern. One member attributed the reason for the departure as a potential internal affairs difference, or they don’t want to deal with possible legal issues if MindsEye comes out broken. According to another member, He believes that people don’t bail out just before the release of a hit, especially in an executive role. 

Currently, MindsEye has fallen off the radar. According to a gamer on the MindsEye subreddit, BARB has done a poor job of explaining the game. He added that the posted trailer only has buzzwords and unexplained features. According to the gamer, BARB has failed to show off the game, with a few days left before its release.

MindsEye is set to launch on June 10 despite developing stories of executive departures from BARB

The game released a trailer on May 27 showing a gameplay overview. The trailer received mixed feedback, but Mark Gerhard, the BARB CEO, defended the project, hinting that former rival Rockstar Games may have sponsored the comments. 

Leslie Benzies, the director behind MindsEye and former producer at GTA, spoke on the game’s campaign length. According to Benzies, the game storyline could take approximately 20 hours. He assured the gaming community that the studio would gradually add content, including multiplayer and a traditional open world.

The game will debut on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, priced at $59.99 for the standard edition. The studio revealed that gamers can craft their own experiences using all the tools to create custom missions and new scenarios within the game. The studio added that the game has been designed intuitively and efficiently, ensuring gamers of all skill levels can realize their imaginations.

Benzies revealed in an interview with Variety that the vision goes far beyond a single title at BARB. He added that MindsEye is the first episode and the central story around which more episodes will come. He hinted that the company is already working on future episodes to bring alternative realities while maintaining the core themes of hope and redemption. He said the different realities will also keep the plot of past and future civilizations and multiverse concepts.  

The director added that the concept of MindsEye was derived from all media types, including cinematic visionaries like Ridley Scott, Paul Greengrass, Christopher Nolan, and J.J. Abrams. He also mentioned films like The Bourne Identity, Memento, and the TV series Lost, which inspired the creation of MindsEye.

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