Alex Hernandez, the actor behind MindsEye protagonist Jacob Diaz, feared he may never work again following the game’s disastrous reception.
Build A Rocket Boy’s game launched to major criticism due to its glitches and bugs, not to mention shallow gameplay. Yet with his face on the game’s cover art, Hernandez is intrinsically linked to the game.
“It’s a difficult thing to spend two-and-a-half years on a project that you’re really proud of and you’re proud of your contribution to it,” said Hernandez on the latest FRVR Podcast. “And I only had positive experiences working on it. The people I was working with, I was proud for them, of them, I wanted it to be a success for them just as much for myself.”
He continued: “Just the response… I was like, ‘I might never work in a game again’. Because one of the caveats of being the face on the box is that people, rightly or wrongly, will associate all of their opinions and, more importantly their emotions, about this game with my face,” he said.
Still, Hernandez admits players are entitled to their opinions on the game, despite being on the receiving end of extreme vitriol.
“Gamers are a unique species, and I am one of them, where the attachment to the experience and the product is so strong, the feelings are so strong,” he said, “and the internet is an anonymous place where people will share things they would never share to your face, ever, even if they actually hated it… they just wouldn’t look you in the face and say, ‘everyone who worked on this game deserved to die. This is f**king awful, these guys are idiots’. No one would ever say that to your face. And, I think, at the same time, you’re entitled to that.”
Previously, Hernandez provided the voice and likeness for Lincoln Clay in Mafia 3, another game with a poor reception at launch.
“I’m not a superstitious man, but I can’t help but have some kind of Spidey Sense, like, ‘Is it just me?’ Do I have like the opposite of the golden touch, like the sh*t-brown touch, everything I touch turns to poop?” he joked.
Build A Rocket Boy has continued to update the game since, and promised it’s “committed” to enhancing the gameplay experience.
Still, the disastrous launch has put the future of publisher IOI Partners into question. “So, IO Interactive will publish our own games internally,” said IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak. “IOI Partners? That remains to be seen.”
“Although it shows some early promise, MindsEye is sunk by a ridiculous story, inconsistent writing, poorly designed mission scenarios, and utterly atrocious combat,” reads our MindsEye review.
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