MindsEye Review (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, & GeForce Now)

In our MindsEye: Everything We Know article, we reveal it as “a good distraction from GTA 6, given the striking similarities between the two games” and “one of the most exciting reveals at 2025’s State of Play.” Indeed, the months leading up to launch had many gamers in a chokehold about it potentially becoming the next addictive game you poured several of your precious hours into. 

MindsEye, after all, comes from GTA ex-director, Leslie Benzies, and industry veterans known for Hitman, who are working on another exciting project called Everywhere, where an online community of players can freely build any game they want. Yet, development on Everywhere seems to have hit a dead end, and perhaps, that should have been the first indication that MindsEye, too, may be full of empty promises. 

The anticipation for MindsEye has been sky-high, with gamers flooding the scene as soon as it hit the shelves. But, sorry to say, those gamers have left the game, shockingly disappointed, citing “absolute garbage” in the “mostly negative” reviews we’ve seen in gaming yet. However, after we’ve experienced the game for ourselves, it’s easy to understand why it’s one of the worst-reviewed games of the year. 

Do tag along in our MindsEye review below, as we explore everything that went wrong, along with a few of the good ideas that might slightly elevate your experience.

In the Near Future

Set in Las Vegas-inspired Redrock City, we’re introduced to Jacob Diaz, a military soldier who wears the titular MindsEye neural implant attached to the base of his skull. The implant allows Diaz to pilot a combat drone into high-stakes missions. However, after a mission goes wrong in pretty much the beginning of the story campaign, you wind up suffering mental and memory issues. So, now, you set your sights on tracking down the scientist who implanted MindsEye in your brain for answers, and potentially bring down the corporation that sponsors its use.

This is all standard dressing in setting the stage for a mission-fueled action-adventure. The idea of suffering from amnesia has been strung dry at this point. However, MindsEye has an interesting take on it, combining your memory loss with the potential dangers of technology. In this day and age, when conversations about the use of AI and its repercussions are hot and alive, MindsEye couldn’t have picked a better theme. And the story seems to go even deeper, infusing the use of high-tech gadgets and technology in the military. 

But then, we’re introduced to another potentially thought-provoking theme about mega corporations and the influence of the powers that be in controlling politics and military use. We know all too well about the debates surrounding Elon Musk’s influence on politics and the public outrage that has come up as a result. And wherever your opinion may lie on these current sociopolitical issues, you must agree that these are pretty bold themes to include in a story campaign.

And I must admit, I was hella excited to see where MindsEye takes us, whether they dive headfirst into these issues, deeply breaking down their relation to the real world and progress. I bet you can already guess how that turned out. 

Perhaps, In a Few Years

It’s like a teaser into something good and spicy, and then once you’ve taken a big bite into what’s placed before you, your knife and fork are sharpened. Cutting through the beefy chunks of a juicy steak, you’re met with a bland and boring taste of what’s unseasoned, undercooked, and potentially dangerous for human consumption. Okay, that last part may not be particularly damning in a video game.

But the rest is true. MindsEye is simply bland, unseasoned, and undercooked. Despite having an intriguing premise and potentially thought-provoking ideas, it fails to deliver on all fronts. The ideas are simply teased but never deeply explored. And the plot outright bores you with its uninteresting characters, uninspired writing, and relentlessly dull missions.

If anything, the best part about MindsEye’s story campaign is its cutscenes and setting, when the light hits glass surfaces and the horizon just right. And that’s hardly a compliment, hardly a goal a game should aim for at the expense of everything else that matters more. The sad thing is, the story is better compared to the exploration and combat. Like, it’s disappointingly bland and boring, but you’d rather take that than have to navigate the world and play through combat.

True, the world, even in the screenshots and videos you may have seen, has its polished and stunning moments. Redrock is a truly believable near-futuristic city, with familiar monuments from real-life Las Vegas. The vehicles, too, look slick and polished, with finishes and electricity-powered engines that sound very viable in the next few years or so.

Rushing to Go Nowhere

But that’s just about as good as the world design and content gets. It doesn’t really feel alive, like a city you’ll want to put down roots and explore every nook and cranny of. Part of that reason is that MindsEye seems hellbent on preventing you from exploring the world. It’s like it’s a backdrop to your missions, and only that. You explore the city on foot or in your vehicle, completing a linear mission structure. You cannot stray from the mission at hand, as you’ll be quickly met with a “FAILED” black screen. So, it’s hopping from mission to mission, never even having the chance to hijack another vehicle, or even stick your gun out to fire at a truck that rudely just bumped into you. 

And the car crashes you will see will be in plenty. The AI here is dense, always hellbent on exploding its vessel into flames. It’s the only action that happens on the road, with trash cans sent flying over your dashboard. Cars even crash-land into craters, almost like they’re emulating what could happen when self-driving cars are given control. And if you’re caught in the carnage, it’s, you guessed it, another “FAILED,” sent back to redo the mission.

The driving can take several minutes, literally with nothing to immerse you along the way, except for annoying phone calls to get your ass moving. And when you arrive at the mission late, there’s no penalty, so you might as well take your time. Or speed things along to cut down the time wasted on the commute.

Take a Breather

And what would you be rushing to? When the missions are as generative as they come. They hardly bear significance to the story, giving you purpose, or, for instance, unfolding the dramatic death of a brutal antagonist. All through to the ending, things wrap up in an anticlimactic event. I will say that MindsEye manages to make missions varied to an extent. So, you’ll complete escort missions at one point and move to a stealth mission the next. You’ll also unlock side missions by walking into portals. These let you live past or future life of Diaz. However, they aren’t significant to the story, and are often pointless shootouts. 

Pointless, often because MindsEye’s combat sucks. All Diaz can do is sprint, crouch, take cover, or shoot. He can’t dodge, roll, or melee attack enemies. Your weapons are fairly varied. However, they lack a punch or sense of power. Meanwhile, enemies are the same types and pretty dumb; you won’t even need to take cover to destroy them. Things get a bit interesting with your drone, as it can stun enemies and hack into them to become allies. However, it’s only toward the end that your drone can unleash grenades, and they’re powerful enough to take out entire fields of enemies, leaving little incentive for experimenting with much else.

Freedom to Roam Free

And lastly, you have the Free Roam mode. There’s no world map. However, you have icons leading to the same boring races and missions you’ve already played. And the icons themselves can be difficult to navigate to. There’s no multiplayer, no XP, no currency, no progression, or skill tree. You jam into people, and no police come chasing after you.

And forget the drone or abilities from the story campaign, possibly because your character isn’t Jacob Diaz, just some other crop-topped guy. And you can only take one car without any building or customization options. Anyway, I think that’s enough said.

Verdict

However hard you try to find the good in MindsEye, its faults simply outshine them, so much so that it’s laughable. Even the numerous technical issues, glitches, and bugs you’ve likely seen online are comical. And it’s true, some games like Hello Neighbor and Goat Simulator have built their success on bugs. But players boot up MindsEye looking for a certain gaming experience.

A freedom to leave their mark on Redrock, to interact with its shops and underground racing minigames. To grow powerful over time, amassing wealth and influence. And whoever says, that’s GTA, I’ll say that’s MindsEye, too, or what it should have been. Because in the end, it promised a lived-in world, where technology crashes with morality. And the end result is simply too broken, unpolished, and underwhelming to cut it in the action-adventure genre.