Take-Two Boss Takes Subtle Shot at 2025's Worst-Reviewed

MindsEye: The 2025 Action-Adventure Game That Prompted a CEO Critique

MindsEye is a 2025 action-adventure video game developed and published by Build A Rocket Boy, an independent studio founded in 2016 by former Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies. The game belongs to the cinematic open-world genre, aiming to deliver a narrative-driven experience blending driving, shooting, and psychic combat mechanics. It sought to solve the deficit of new AAA single-player IPs from veteran western developers. However, it became the worst-reviewed game of the year with a Metacritic score of 45/100, directly prompting Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick to publicly distance his company from its quality level.

Key Facts

How Did Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick Comment on MindsEye?

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick publicly dismissed MindsEye's 45/100 Metacritic score as a quality level his company would never produce. During Take-Two's 2025 quarterly earnings call, Zelnick fielded a question about high-budget game releases. He contrasted his company's output with the heavily criticized title without explicitly naming it, stating his team's quality filters prevented such outcomes. The timing of the comment, directly after MindsEye's launch weekend, left no ambiguity for analysts or viewers.

"When I see a game that gets a 45 on Metacritic, I am confident that is not a game we would ship. Our development process and quality focus prevents that outcome." — Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two Interactive Q1 2025 Earnings Call (as reported by Kotaku)

Zelnick's implicit critique of MindsEye's aggregate score served as a clear distinction between Take-Two's historically acclaimed portfolio and the worst-reviewed game of 2025.

What Led to MindsEye Being the Worst-Reviewed Game of 2025?

MindsEye failed critically due to widespread technical bugs, an outdated open-world structure, and a convoluted psychic-powered narrative that critics found unengaging. Reviewers heavily criticized the game's performance on consoles, specifically citing inconsistent frame rates and texture pop-in as unacceptable for its $59.99 premium price tag. The game's psychic combat mechanics were described as unresponsive and poorly integrated into the gameplay loop. According to Kotaku's review, the game felt like a "lost-generation title" that did not evolve past the design principles of the early 2010s. MindsEye holds a 45/100 aggregate score on Metacritic, making it the worst-reviewed major game release of 2025 by a significant margin.

How MindsEye Compares to Take-Two's Quality Standards

The critical divide between MindsEye and Take-Two's published titles illustrates the exact quality standard Strauss Zelnick sought to defend during his earnings call. Zelnick's implicit comparison draws a strict line between the quality of MindsEye and his own company's tentpole franchises, leveraging the score gap to reinforce consumer trust in Take-Two's publishing label.

The 35-point gap between MindsEye's average critic score and the lowest-scoring recent Take-Two title underscores the divergent quality standards highlighted by Zelnick.

Common Questions

Did Strauss Zelnick mention MindsEye by name in his criticism?

No. Strauss Zelnick did not mention MindsEye directly by name during the earnings call. He referred to the abstract concept of a game with a 45 on Metacritic. Kotaku reported that his phrasing was a thinly veiled reference to Build A Rocket Boy's game, confirmed by the timing and context of his statement.

What is the Metacritic score for MindsEye?

MindsEye holds a Metacritic score of 45 out of 100 on PlayStation 5. This is the lowest score of any major studio game released in 2025, putting it below every single release from Take-Two, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Sony that year.

Who founded Build A Rocket Boy and why?

Build A Rocket Boy was founded by Leslie Benzies, former president of Rockstar North. Benzies left Rockstar following a legal dispute over royalties and creative control. He established the independent studio to create narrative-driven AAA games, making MindsEye his first major project outside of the Grand Theft Auto series.

Sources and Methodology

This article synthesizes reporting from Kotaku (source URL: kotaku.com/take-twos-boss-takes-a-subtle-shot-at-2025s-worst-reviewed-game-2000700171) and review score data from Metacritic. The direct quote from Strauss Zelnick is attributed to Take-Two Interactive's quarterly earnings conference call held in Q1 2025, as cited by Kotaku. No currency conversions were applied. This article was last updated on June 3, 2025.