Take-Two CEO: Former Rockstar Devs Have Tried and Failed to Replicate GTA’s Success—MindsEye Proves His Point

At the TD Cowen 54th Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on May 27, 2026, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick didn’t just talk about Grand Theft Auto VI—he drew a direct line from Rockstar Games’ legendary consistency to one of the industry’s most high-profile failures. Without ever naming names, Zelnick made it unmistakably clear: the wreckage of MindsEye, the worst-reviewed game of 2025, and the near-total collapse of its developer, Build a Rocket Boy, stand as proof that even Rockstar veterans can’t recreate the magic outside the studio’s walls.

The subtext? Rockstar’s success isn’t a résumé entry you can take with you. It’s a collective culture—and no one, not even the former president of Rockstar North, has been able to replicate it.

“Lots of other people have tried. Including former Rockstar employees.”

Zelnick framed the conversation around the increasing difficulty of creating blockbuster hits in a maturing entertainment industry. “Making hits seems to get harder and harder and harder,” he said, before delivering the line that would dominate headlines .

“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.”

He added a caveat— “Doesn’t mean they can’t in the future, by the way. We’re always running scared. But it won’t be for lack of trying” —but the damage was done. Gaming press and analysts immediately interpreted the remarks as a thinly veiled verdict on Build a Rocket Boy, the Edinburgh-based studio founded by Leslie Benzies, the former president of Rockstar North and a key figure behind Grand Theft Auto V .

Zelnick’s argument wasn’t personal, at least not overtly. It was structural: Rockstar’s track record is the product of a specific creative environment, not a handful of individuals. The implicit message was that extracting key talent from that environment doesn’t guarantee results .

The contrast couldn’t be starker. While Rockstar Games prepares to launch what is expected to be the biggest entertainment product in history, Benzies’ studio has been reduced to a skeleton crew after a catastrophic debut.

MindsEye: The worst-reviewed game of 2025 and the implosion of Build a Rocket Boy

Released in June 2025, MindsEye arrived with the weight of Benzies’ GTA pedigree behind it—and collapsed under that weight almost immediately. The third-person sci-fi shooter with open-world driving was panned by critics and players alike, earning it the title of the worst-reviewed game of 2025 . On Steam, the game sat at “mostly negative,” and reports surfaced of players on PlayStation 5 successfully obtaining refunds despite rushed hotfixes .

The fallout was swift and brutal. Within two weeks of launch, Build a Rocket Boy initiated a formal redundancy process that, under UK law, signalled over 100 job cuts were coming . The mandatory 45-day consultation period began on June 23, 2025, triggering months of turmoil .

By July 2025, the studio had reportedly cut nearly 300 employees—roughly 75% of its workforce—in a single round of redundancies . A second wave followed in October 2025, when 93 former employees published an open letter accusing studio leadership of “unsustainable crunch,” systematic mismanagement, and a workplace culture where “employees were expendable resources rather than valued colleagues” . The Game Workers Branch of the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union supported the letter and later filed multiple legal actions against the studio, alleging failure to carry out fair consultation ahead of redundancies as well as multiple cases of unfair dismissal .

The final blow landed in May 2026, when approximately 170 of the remaining 250 employees were laid off, leaving Build a Rocket Boy with roughly 80 staff . The cuts came just days after the release of the game’s first DLC, Blacklisted, which was itself met with scathing reviews . Multiple developers—including three members of the MindsEye community team—announced their departures on LinkedIn and in the game’s official Discord server .

Benzies and co-CEO Mark Gerhard had previously blamed MindsEye’s failure on “sabotage,” but the scale of the studio’s collapse—and the chorus of employee accounts describing mismanagement and crunch—painted a more complex picture .

The acrimonious history: Benzies vs. Rockstar

Zelnick’s remarks at TD Cowen carry extra weight given the history between Take-Two and Benzies. The longtime GTA producer had a bitter split with Rockstar in 2016, suing the company for $150 million and alleging he was unlawfully terminated in 2015 . The legal battle, filled with competing allegations, ended in a confidential settlement in 2019 .

At the time of Benzies’ departure, Zelnick had publicly praised his contributions and expressed confidence in the franchise’s future, stating he was “highly confident” GTA would move forward without issue . Now, with MindsEye as the most visible counter-example, Zelnick’s comments feel less like industry observations and more like a retrospective vindication of Rockstar’s institutional approach.

Why Rockstar’s success can’t be replicated by alumni alone

Zelnick’s core argument at the conference wasn’t that former Rockstar employees lack talent—it was that hits of GTA’s scale require something more than individual skill. “Rockstar’s success is not simply transferable through individual alumni,” the remark implied. Even those who were central to the creative process at Rockstar North haven’t been able to reproduce blockbuster results outside that environment .

The message echoed a broader industry reality: as entertainment industries mature, the barriers to creating defining hits grow higher. Zelnick framed this as a structural shift, not a temporary market fluctuation . The takeaway for the gaming industry is uncomfortable but clear: institutional creative cultures are hard to build, and even harder to leave and replicate elsewhere.

GTA VI remains on track—and the marketing machine is about to start

Amid the commentary on failure, Zelnick used the TD Cowen conference to reinforce what Take-Two sees as its crown jewel. He confirmed that Grand Theft Auto VI remains scheduled for release on November 19, 2026, exclusively on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a PC version expected to follow later .

The GTA VI marketing campaign, one of the most anticipated rollouts in entertainment history, will begin this summer. Zelnick had previously signalled that the push would not start until summer officially begins in late June. “We never make marketing announcements in our analyst calls. Never ever ever,” he said in a pre-conference interview. “So the next few weeks I don’t think it’ll be summertime yet, but when it’s summertime, Rockstar expects to start marketing GTA 6” .

At the time of the TD Cowen conference in late May 2026, no new trailer had been released, no price had been announced, and pre-orders had not yet gone live—despite widespread speculation and retailer leaks . The conference appearance, less than a week after Take-Two’s quarterly earnings call, was widely viewed by investors and fans as the final signal before the marketing deluge begins .