In a decidedly baffling turn of events, the developers of Mindseye – one of the worst reviewed games of 2025 – is apparently soon going to announce that it has decided to part ways with publisher IOI Partners, the 3rd party publishing arm of IO Interactive. Yes, you ready that right, it’s not IO Interactive ditching them, it’s Build A Rocket Boy filing for divorce.

Word comes by way of Tom Henderson at Insider Gaming, who claims sources have informed him that “the decision is driven by Build a Rocket Boy’s desire to bring its publishing in-house and gain more control over its future.”

But most shockingly, “It’s understood that the decision to part ways is Build a Rocket Boy’s, rather than IO Interactive’s.”

Mindseye launched in June of 2025 to terrible reviews (a 33 on Opencritic) that made it one of worst-scoring games of 2025. To make matters worst, it was IO Interactive’s first foray into publishing 3rd part games via their IOI Partners branch. It seems they were attracted by Build A Rocket Boy’s leader Leslie Benzies, who was a producer Rockstar and who worked on the Grand Theft Auto series.

Unfortunately for IO Interactive, not only was Mindseye was a critical mess, it was a sales disaster. It was so bad IO Interactive has even expressed doubt about its long-term 3rd party publishing plans.

And yet staggeringly, it appears IO Interactive isn’t the one cutting ties with Build A Rocket Boy, despite the huge failure of Mindseye, and the comments of Co-CEO Mark Gerhard who accused a “concerted effort” made by bots and paid influencers were the cause of the bad reception. He even seemed to hint toward Rockstar being the guilty party.

So, what’s the future for Build A Rocket Boy? Well, according to the company’s own financial details, they have enough cash to tide them over until April of this year. Their future relies heavily on Ascendant, an arena-shooter from PlayFusion, a developer that Build A Rocket Boy acquired in in December, 2024.

And to Build A Rocket Boy’s credit, they have continued updating their game. Hell, there’s even a surge of positive reviews on Steam defending the game, both for not being as bad as people made out, and for recent improvements.