Build A Rocket Boy, the Edinburgh studio founded by former Rockstar North producer Leslie Benzies, has filed for administration and appears to be closing permanently, according to reporting from several games-industry outlets published this week. The studio confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that Opus Advisory Group has been appointed as administrator, a step that signals the company can no longer meet its debts, as noted by psu.com.
The collapse follows the troubled 2025 release of MindsEye, Build A Rocket Boy’s debut title, which drew heavy criticism from reviewers and players and was widely ranked among the worst-reviewed games of the year, according to the bbc.com. The studio’s most recent accounts, covering the period to September 2025, showed a £36.2 million net loss, and PSU reported that GamesIndustry.biz’s figures put the operating loss at £47.5 million with £61.8 million owed to creditors as of that date.
Several current and former employees signalled on LinkedIn over the past week that the studio was ending entirely rather than simply shedding more jobs. Level designer Liam Shannon, QA analyst Elizabet Tyaneva, release manager Michaela Emslie and production QA analyst Cameron Deaves all posted that their time at the company was coming to a close, as first reported by kotaku.com. Talent acquisition partner Dan Hawkins wrote that he would help the studio through to its end while wrapping up HR matters, a comment Kotaku and KitGuru both interpreted as confirmation that this was a full wind-down rather than another restructuring.
A studio that never recovered from launch
Benzies set up Build A Rocket Boy in 2016, the same year he departed Rockstar Games following a legal dispute over unpaid royalties, according to the BBC. The studio initially worked on a multiplayer project called Everywhere before pivoting to MindsEye, an action-adventure game that BBC Newsbeat reported was described by former staff as chaotic in development, with management accused by workers of failing to act on internal concerns.
After the game’s rocky launch, Build A Rocket Boy laid off between 250 and 300 staff, the BBC reported, and further rounds followed through the year, with Kotaku and PSU both noting a reported layoff of roughly 170 people shortly before the administration filing. Push Square reported that Sony had approved PS5 refunds for the game not long after release, underscoring how quickly consumer confidence collapsed. In a statement to BBC Newsbeat, the company said its senior leadership took full responsibility for the initial launch and that the version of the game released did not reflect what the studio’s community deserved.
Administration does not automatically mean the company disappears entirely. Under UK insolvency rules, an administrator’s job is to keep operations running where possible while creditors are repaid, often by selling assets, and a sale to a new owner remains technically possible even at this stage, per the BBC’s explainer on the process. Even so, the flurry of LinkedIn departures this week suggests the staff closest to the situation expect no rescue.
How the outlets framed it
The BBC framed the story primarily as a business insolvency, walking readers through what administration legally means and quoting the studio’s own admission of responsibility for the launch failure. Kotaku and KitGuru instead framed the closure through the lens of departing staff, treating LinkedIn posts from individual employees as the clearest evidence that the studio was ending rather than merely cutting jobs again. PSU and Push Square leaned on the financial figures, presenting the eye-watering losses and creditor debt as the real explanation for why the studio could not survive another relaunch attempt. Read together, the coverage shows a shift from official corporate language about restructuring toward the plainer testimony of workers who say the company is simply finished.
Build A Rocket Boy had not issued a public statement addressing the apparent full closure as of this week, beyond its earlier comments to the BBC about the launch itself. The gap between the studio’s formal insolvency filing and the informal accounts from departing employees leaves unresolved questions about what, if anything, survives of the company once administration concludes.
