Did MindsEye Predict the Future?

Conceived nearly a decade ago, Leslie Benzies' vision of AI, consumer robots, autonomous warfare, surveillance, and powerful technology leaders now feels considerably closer to reality. Without too many spoilers, MindsEye, the near-future-set video game from GTA producer Leslie Benzies, originally conceived nearly ten years ago, contains some chilling realities of today’s world.

The game is set in Redrock City, recognizably Vegas with renamed versions of Wynn, Encore, Mandalay Bay, even the Sphere. As I drive my luxury electric sedan (I mean Silva E sedan) down the Redrock Strip, I get the feeling I’ve spent a few hungover days and nights here before.

This is a city where technology has changed life. Consumer robots are the norm, and other than the few humans working in the Silva factory, we don’t actually see anyone working. NPC’s walk by complaining about how the robots took their jobs, but they can’t do much about it because surveillance is everywhere, the Police are Copbots, and prison is automated. Crime is impossible for the average citizen.

The main character, Jacob Diaz, has a neural implant that’s screwing with his head, an implant made by Marco Silva, a tech trillionaire, who’s got a bit too involved with politics and helped propel a populist mayor to power, whom he’s now having a hard time controlling.

Mirroring the real AI giants’ struggle to prevent their tech being used in war, Silva’s now reluctantly selling his to the military. Only trouble is the drones and robots being shipped off to war are carrying a virus that makes them impossible to control.

As the first real-world consumer robots roll out into general production and wars are being fought increasingly with unmanned units, one has to ask: how long until MindsEye becomes a reality?

I’d guess… it’s a lot closer than we think.

The long game

Every game begins with an idea. The difficult part isn't having one; it's still believing in it ten years later.

When MindsEye was first conceived, generative AI hadn't entered the mainstream. Consumer humanoid robots belonged more to research labs than shop floors. Autonomous vehicles were experimental, not everyday talking points. Over the years that followed, technology – and the expectations surrounding it – changed dramatically.

The vision behind MindsEye had to evolve with it. That's the part of game development players rarely see.

Building something that doesn't exist yet

Ask Leslie Benzies what his job actually is, and he doesn't talk about writing code, directing cutscenes, or designing missions.

He talks about holding onto an idea.

"I work backwards from the game I want to exist in the world," he says. "The day-to-day is people management; the long-term is vision."

It sounds deceptively simple.

In reality, it's one of the hardest challenges in modern game development.

A game like MindsEye isn't built over months. It's built over years – sometimes close to a decade. During that time engines evolve, hardware changes, audiences shift, and entirely new technologies emerge. Every one of those changes presents a temptation to chase something newer, trendier or commercially safer.

Every long development changes.

The difficult part is recognising which ideas are worth protecting.

"Games take years to make, and the industry is brutal – technically, commercially and creatively," Benzies says. "You need the ability to hold a vision in your head for a very long time and keep making decisions that serve it."

That isn't about refusing to change.

It's about making hundreds of difficult decisions without losing sight of the one idea that made the project worth starting in the first place.

Leadership means letting go

Popular culture loves the myth of the lone creative genius.

Modern game development works almost entirely the opposite way.

"I hire people who are better than me at things, and then I listen to them," Benzies says. "The moment you think you know everything in this industry is the moment you start falling behind."

It's a philosophy that becomes increasingly important as teams grow.

No creative director sees every animation, writes every line of dialogue, or balances every mechanic. Leadership becomes less about making every decision and more about creating an environment where good decisions consistently happen without you.

Since 2024, Benzies has shared that responsibility with co-CEO Mark Gerhard, whose background leading RuneScape developer Jagex brought a complementary perspective focused on operations, technology, and long-term player communities.

"Leslie holds the creative bar," Gerhard says. "My job is to build the machine that lets the team clear it – and to make sure we are listening to players at every step."

It's an approach built on trust. Creative vision may begin with one person.

Delivering it never does.

When vision meets reality

Every ambitious project eventually collides with reality. For MindsEye, that moment came in 2025.

The launch didn't fully meet the studio's own expectations. It was the kind of moment that forces difficult questions—not only about what needed fixing, but about which parts of the original vision were worth holding onto and which needed to evolve.

Build A Rocket Boy's answer wasn't to start over.

It was to keep building.

Player feedback became another design input. Major updates followed. Systems were refined. New content arrived.

The destination hadn't changed. Only the route.

Looking back, the launch feels less like the end of development than the point where players themselves became part of it.

Thinking in years, not weeks

The games industry often judges success by launch weekends, review scores and quarterly sales.

Developers rarely have that luxury.

The projects that ultimately matter are measured in years.

That long-term thinking continues to shape MindsEye today through new story content, expanding Arcadia creation tools and multiplayer experiences designed to keep the world evolving beyond its original campaign.

Whether every decision succeeds is almost beside the point.

The more interesting question is whether a project can continue adapting without losing sight of why it existed in the first place.

For Benzies, that's always been the real measure.

"A game that people are still playing and talking about years after it launched. The real measure is whether you made something that genuinely meant something to people."

Players experience a game once.

Developers experience it thousands of times – one decision after another, spread across years.

They live every compromise.

Every rethink. Every difficult decision to stay the course – or change it.

That's the part players almost never see. Perhaps that's why the hardest part of making MindsEye was never building the game itself.

It was believing in the same idea long enough to discover what it could become.