Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told a Wall Street audience that former Rockstar employees have tried and failed to match GTA’s success, a remark the industry read as a pointed verdict on MindsEye, 2025’s worst-reviewed game on Metacritic.
Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick told a Wall Street audience on May 27, 2026, that former Rockstar Games employees have repeatedly tried and failed to match the studio’s blockbuster output. Speaking at the TD Cowen 54th Annual Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, Zelnick did not name any studio or individual directly, but the gaming industry universally read his remarks as a pointed reference to Build a Rocket Boy and its disastrous debut title MindsEye, which earned a Metacritic critic score of 37 out of 100 and became the worst-reviewed mainstream game of 2025.
What Exactly Did Zelnick Say?
“The folks at Rockstar seem to be able to make these massive hits, and lots of other people have tried. Lots and lots, including former Rockstar employees. And so far, they haven’t been able to do it,” Zelnick said during a discussion about whether AI tools could allow competitors to threaten Rockstar’s creative dominance.
He pushed back firmly on the idea that technological advances alone could produce a GTA-level hit. “Making hits seems to get harder and harder and harder as entertainment industries mature,” he continued. “I don’t believe for a minute that technological advances give someone else an edge or give us an edge. It’s just the toolset, it’s available to everyone. Show me one AI company, just one, who’s offering their services or products on an exclusive basis. They don’t exist.”
The comments arrived with GTA 6 confirmed for a November 19, 2026 launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, positioning Take-Two five months from what is expected to be the biggest entertainment launch of the decade.
The Implicit Target: Leslie Benzies and Build a Rocket Boy
The “former Rockstar employees” Zelnick was widely understood to be referencing centre on Leslie Benzies, the former president of Rockstar North from 1995 to 2016. Benzies produced every major entry in the Grand Theft Auto series from GTA III through GTA V, a run that accumulated hundreds of millions of sales. His departure in 2016 was acrimonious: he filed a $150 million lawsuit against Rockstar and Take-Two, alleging he was forced out and denied royalties. The case was resolved through a confidential settlement in February 2019.
Benzies subsequently founded Build a Rocket Boy, an Edinburgh-based studio that spent years developing Everywhere, a high-fidelity gaming platform pitched as a competitor to Roblox and Fortnite’s creative modes. MindsEye, a single-player action-adventure game released on June 10, 2025, was intended as the platform’s proof-of-concept debut. It became, instead, one of the most high-profile failures in recent gaming history.
How MindsEye Became 2025’s Worst-Reviewed Game
MindsEye launched with pervasive bugs, graphical glitches, and a 30-frames-per-second performance cap that even the PS5 Pro could not stabilise. Players reported bland mission design, tedious mini-games, weak dialogue, and frequent crashes. The game finished 2025 with a Metacritic critic score of 37 and a user score of 2.5 out of 10, making it the lowest-rated mainstream release of the year by a significant margin.
The fallout was severe. Both Sony and Epic issued mass refunds for the title, a rare intervention previously reserved for Cyberpunk 2077’s catastrophic 2020 launch. Publisher IO Interactive, whose Partners label had backed the game, severed its relationship with Build a Rocket Boy entirely. A planned Hitman crossover mission was scrapped as a result.
Sabotage Claims and Studio Collapse
Rather than acknowledging technical failures, Build a Rocket Boy’s leadership chose a different narrative. In a July 2, 2025 video call with staff reported by IGN, Benzies blamed MindsEye’s poor reception partly on “internal and external saboteurs.” Co-CEO Mark Gerhard had made similar claims even before launch, suggesting in a May 2025 Discord session that people speaking negatively about the game online may have been paid to do so.
IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak publicly stated he did not believe the game had been sabotaged. Former employees told outlets that during pre-launch testing, they had to activate “God Mode” in two separate scenarios just to prevent the game from crashing, pointing to deep technical deficiencies rather than any external plot. A BBC report from October 2025 noted that Build a Rocket Boy employees signed an open letter demanding apologies from Benzies and Gerhard, citing mismanagement. The studio subsequently conducted multiple rounds of layoffs affecting more than 300 staff.
Zelnick’s Broader Point: Creativity Over Technology
Zelnick’s remarks were not solely about MindsEye. He used the example to articulate a wider thesis about what produces enduring success in the games industry. With GTA V still selling roughly 5 million units per quarter more than a decade after its 2013 release, and GTA Online continuing to generate substantial revenue, Zelnick argued that Rockstar’s dominance stems from institutional creative infrastructure rather than any single individual’s talent.
“It won’t be technology that changes the game,” he said. “What’ll change is that some extraordinarily creative individual or individuals will show up and do something astonishing. Our goal is to get those people to work within the Take-Two system. If we fail to do that, we fail.”
The statement reframes the Build a Rocket Boy story in institutional terms: Benzies did not fail because he lacked ability. He failed, in this reading, because the organisational machine that amplified his talent was no longer behind him. It is an argument about systems producing hits, not individuals.
A Warning Wrapped in Confidence
Zelnick was careful to avoid outright triumphalism. “Doesn’t mean they can’t in the future, by the way,” he said of the former Rockstar talent he had just implicitly addressed. “We’re always running scared.” The acknowledgement that a challenger could eventually emerge reads as both genuine humility and strategic messaging ahead of GTA 6’s launch window.
On the question of AI, Zelnick told Business Insider that Take-Two employees are encouraged to use tools like Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, and that the company has “hundreds of AI pilots and implementations” across its studios. However, he drew a clear line: “AI so far is really great at asset creation, but hit creation isn’t asset creation.” The idea that a small team could press a button and create a GTA competitor struck him as “laughable.”
What Happened to Build a Rocket Boy?
As of April 2026, co-CEO Mark Gerhard told GamesBeat that the studio is preparing a MindsEye relaunch. A new mission called “Blacklist” reportedly aims to present evidence of the alleged sabotage campaign against the studio. Gerhard claimed that sales were “increasing organically, doubling almost weekly.” At the time that reporting was published, 11 people were actively playing MindsEye on Steam.
Reports also indicate the studio planned to use real names of individuals it believes were involved in the alleged sabotage within the game’s new content. The cancelled Hitman crossover materials were reportedly repurposed to build the Blacklist mission. None of this has reversed the game’s fortunes or industry perception.
The Questions Players Keep Asking
Did Zelnick directly mention MindsEye?
No. Strauss Zelnick did not name MindsEye, Build a Rocket Boy, or Leslie Benzies by name. He referred to “former Rockstar employees” who have tried and failed to create hits comparable to GTA. The remark was universally interpreted as referencing Benzies and MindsEye given the timing and context.
What is MindsEye’s Metacritic score?
MindsEye holds a Metacritic critic score of 37 out of 100 (based on 16 reviews) and a user score of 2.6 out of 10. It was confirmed as Metacritic’s worst-reviewed mainstream game of 2025.
Why did Leslie Benzies leave Rockstar?
Benzies departed Rockstar North in 2016 following a sabbatical that began in September 2014. He filed a $150 million lawsuit in April 2016 alleging he was forced out and denied profit-sharing royalties. Rockstar disputed his claims and counter-sued. The litigation ended in a confidential settlement in February 2019.
When does GTA 6 release?
Grand Theft Auto 6 is confirmed for November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. No PC release date has been announced. Take-Two’s full marketing campaign, including an anticipated third trailer and pre-order opening, is expected to begin in late June 2026.
