Several employees announced they were leaving the studio.
Build A Rocket Boy (BARB), the developer of the widely maligned action-adventure game SpiritsEyeseems to stop. Several employees wrote on LinkedIn that their time at the studio was “coming to an end” and Kotaku reported that BARB was preparing to close its doors for good.
“It is with a heavy heart that I raise my green banner, along with the rest of my colleagues at Build a Rocket Boy. I am ‘open to work’ and actively seeking a new adventure,” wrote Dan Hawkins, BARB’s lead talent acquisition partner, implying that all studio employees are out of work. “I will be with BARB all the way, helping to wrap things up here in the HR department.”
SpiritsEye got off to a disastrous debut in June 2025, with PlayStation apparently refunding some players who checked out the game in its initial bug-riddled state. A series of layoffs followed shortly after the release of the Grand Theft Auto game, while BARB founder (and former GTA producer) Leslie Benzies reportedly blamed his woes on “saboteurs” inside and outside the company.
The studio released an expansion for SpiritsEye this spring. It contained a mission that he claimed would expose some evidence of the alleged conspiracy that ruined the game’s chances of success. It contained no juicy details about said “scandal” and was just a run-of-the-mill riff on a Hitman mission, according to Rock Paper Shotgun. The addition of multiplayer and a Rocket League-style football mode this summer hasn’t really changed the game. SpiritsEyeneither does fortune.
BARB has become the sole publisher of SpiritsEye in March after separating from IOI Partners, an arm of 007 First Light developer IO Interactive. Further rounds of layoffs took place that month and in May.
Earlier this year, dozens of employees accused the studio of spying on them. According to the IWGB Game Workers Union, “BARB management installed invasive Teramind surveillance software on its devices without their knowledge” and went beyond “monitoring worker productivity or protecting company security by recording individuals in their homes and without their consent.”
