This title has been floating around video game sites and the top YouTube channels for months now, but personally, I wanted to wait until there was an official release date for this title, which seems super promising. That’s easy to judge just by watching some of the gameplay footage in the video that comes with this article. The fact is, there’s now less than a month left until we finally get our hands on this game from Build A Rocket Boy, the studio led by Leslie Benzies, former producer and principal mind behind the Grand Theft Auto saga.
MindsEye will arrive on June 10, 2025, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC as one of the most ambitious releases of the year. Not only does it present itself as a futuristic thriller full of action and conspiracy, but it’s also powered by one of the most important names in video game history, Leslie Benzies, whose legacy in shaping the iconic GTA made its mark, to say the least. After years of silence following his departure from Rockstar Games, Benzies returns to the scene with his own studio, Build A Rocket Boy, and with his personal vision of what a cinematic open-world game can be, structured differently, but with the same ambition and attention to detail that defined the titles he helped create in the past.
In MindsEye, we take control of Jacob DĂaz, a former soldier who carries in his head an experimental device called MindsEye, a neural implant that distorts his perception of reality and haunts him with fragmented memories of a covert operation that changed his life forever. As the player explores the dystopian Redrock City, an artificial metropolis in the middle of the desert ruled by artificial intelligence and technological control structures, Jacob begins to question both his past and the true intentions of the people around him. The city is ruled by Silva Industries, a megacorporation led by Marco Silva, a charismatic yet ruthless tech tycoon who controls both the media and the neural networks of its citizens. At the same time, Mayor Shiva Vega, an authoritarian figure with her own agenda, is secretly waging a power struggle against Silva, using Jacob as a pawn in a larger conflict of corporate interests, mass surveillance and memory manipulation.
MindsEye’s storyline is packed with elements straight out of dystopian science fiction cinema, with an atmosphere that evokes both Blade Runner and Black Mirror, and a narrative approach that blends tension, social commentary and a constant reflection on identity. Although the game doesn’t offer a fully open world in the traditional sense, it does present a semi-open structure rich in detail, with environments crafted to strengthen the narrative experience. Redrock City is divided into themed districts, all interconnected by the very technology that dominates its citizens’ lives, and each zone reflects a piece of the central conflict experienced by the protagonist. The design choices are meant to offer a more contained yet immersive experience, something the developers have likened to watching an intense TV series, where every episode (or mission) is key to moving the story and emotions forward.
One of the most striking aspects of the project is that MindsEye is not a standalone game in its global structure. It’s part of Everywhere, a parallel and ambitious platform from the same studio that aims to merge narrative experiences with creative tools. Through it, players will not only get to play MindsEye, but also generate content, modify elements of the world or even experiment with creation tools of their own, in something akin to a metaverse, although this part is more of a complement than the core of the game. What’s interesting here is the blend between MindsEye’s closed, cinematic structure and the creative freedom proposed by Everywhere, a mix that seeks to innovate without falling into the excesses of traditional sandbox games.
The voice cast also features heavyweight names, like Alex Hernandez in the lead role of Jacob DĂaz, whose performance promises emotional depth and narrative weight. On a technical level, the game is being developed with next-gen graphics engines, with a strong focus on lighting, facial animations and combat physics. The trailers released so far have shown intense sequences, from chases to hand-to-hand combat, alongside dialogue that points to a mature, serious and well-structured story. The developers have stressed that the goal is to maintain a fast-paced rhythm without losing complexity, moving away from the “infinite” open-world model that tends to overwhelm with irrelevant content, and instead aiming for a more refined, narrative-driven experience.
With MindsEye, Leslie Benzies seems determined to prove he still has a lot to say in this medium. After being a key part of the team that turned GTA V into one of the most successful and groundbreaking games of all time, this new project doesn’t just try to replicate that formula, it seeks to reinterpret it from a different angle, that of a creator who no longer needs to please a major publisher, but rather wants to tell a story with full creative control. And that shows in the direction, in the themes it tackles and in the way it’s been conceived.
This coming June 10, when MindsEye lands on next-gen consoles and PC, will be the chance to see if this long-awaited return lives up to the hype. The comparison to GTA will be inevitable, but everything so far suggests that Benzies’ new game has a unique identity, an ambition that’s not about repeating the past, but pushing forward into a new way of telling interactive stories in virtual worlds. And with everything we’ve seen so far, there’s more than enough reason to keep an eye on it, don’t you think?
Now that you’ve made it this far, this is your moment, my dear gamer, because, like I always say, “since we have to wait,” at least three more weeks, why don’t we both jump into the comments and talk about what we think of this ambitious project from Build A Rocket Boy, and Benzies’ vision? You know gamer, we’ll be reading you! 🙂
Images Source: MindsEye Official YouTube Channel, MindsEye on Steam
