Build a Rocket Boy cuts 170 of 250 staff as MindsEye eDiscovery legal risks and financial collapse deepen
Summary
Build a Rocket Boy shed ~170 employees in its third layoff round in under a year.
Roughly 80 staff remain to revive a critically failed live-service title.
The IOI Partners publishing deal collapsed, triggering the latest cuts.
Union litigation over surveillance software and CEO-level espionage claims compound the crisis.
"It didn't get a chance to be iterated on, as would be typical for these things."
01
Three rounds in 12 months leave BARB with ~80 people
July 2025: ~300 UK staff cut shortly after MindsEye's failed launch.
March 2026: second round; CEO cited "organised espionage and corporate sabotage."
May 2026: ~170 more cut from a remaining pool of ~250.
Eliminated roles span QA, audio design, and technical level design.
These are core live-service functions, not peripheral overhead.
BARB France (Montpellier), opened 2022, shuttered in March 2026.
02
Legal exposure stacks on top of workforce collapse
IWGB Game Workers Union filed legal action in April 2026.
The claim: BARB installed surveillance software on devices without employee knowledge.
Employees previously published an open letter citing "unbearable" crunch.
The IOI Partners publishing deal ended before the latest cuts.
Gerhard stated in April that layoffs were not over.
His plan to base game characters on alleged saboteur ex-employees adds defamation risk.
03
An 80-person studio cannot credibly execute a live-service reset
MindsEye launched as one of 2025's worst-reviewed games despite Benzies's GTA pedigree.
BARB announced a "reset" and "new phase of ongoing development" post-launch.
It has since lost its publisher, most staff, and its secondary studio.
Social media team confirmed layoff impact via Discord, removing community management capacity.
Live-service recovery requires sustained content velocity, active QA, and community ops.
An 80-person team under active litigation lacks the capacity to deliver on that.
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Locations
United Kingdom
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