MOUSE: P.I. For Hire – Review

What do you do when Mickey grabs a machine gun and noir gets… very personal?

Tudor Sprînceană: Some games try to be cool, and some games are cool without even realising it. MOUSE: P.I. For Hire strides confidently into the latter category, with heavy footsteps, jazz in the background, and a hand-drawn machine gun that looks like it escaped from a cartoon forbidden to minors.

Officially released on 16 April 2026 and developed by Fumi Games, the game is a single-player first-person shooter published by PlaySide, blending 1930s aesthetics with aggressive boomer shooter gameplay. In other words, if you’ve ever dreamt of a DOOM drawn like an episode of Steamboat Willie, you’ve come to the right place. And yes, it’s exactly as weird and glorious as it sounds.

How did Mouse: P.I. For Hire begin development? Legend has it that Fumi Games initially focused on animation, until one day Art Director Michał Rostek had the idea to combine his two passions: “rubber hose” animation and the BioShock series. From a simple artistic whim, a unique concept was born, which today we know as Mouse: P.I. for Hire.

The first trailer enjoyed massive success among gamers, so the developers at Fumi took courage and focused all their attention and energy on the new project. And I didn't use the word “energy” by chance, because their ambition was to create a game in a 3D environment, but with characters, weapons, and certain interactive objects entirely hand-drawn. Specifically, we're talking about approximately 54,000 manually animated frames.

You can imagine that optimisation was no easy task either. Fumi was helped by PlaySide to package the game in the most performant form possible and, especially, to bring it to consoles. By the way, I played it on Steam, probably the best version currently available, where it feels perfect with the classic mouse (sic!) and keyboard combination. Leo and Tudor, however, tested it on Switch 2 and PS5, so you'll find some opinions in the review about how Mouse plays from the sofa.

Noir with a moustache and a story that isn't just window dressing

At the heart of the story is Jack Pepper, a private detective and former war hero, caught in a corrupt city called Mouseburg. He's the kind of protagonist who probably drinks black coffee without sugar and solves his problems with a combination of deduction and heavy calibre.

The narrative structure isn't just a pretext for gunfights. The game offers investigations, cases, and urban exploration where you have to gather clues and unravel a web of corruption, crime, and conspiracy. This places it in an interesting area: it's not just a shooter, but a shooter with detective noir ambitions. Surprisingly, it actually works!

Cuphead meets DOOM in a dodgy bar…

The first thing that hits you (after you're no longer blinded by black and white) is the visual style. MOUSE uses “rubber hose” animation, hand-drawn, frame by frame, inspired by 1930s cartoons. Everything is monochrome, but surprisingly, full of life. Exaggerated expressions, elastic movements, and a world that seems ripped from an old film… make this title a must-have.

The atmosphere is completed by an original jazz soundtrack, which not only sets the tone but makes every firefight feel like a choreographed scene. Basically, every battle is a small concert where the instruments are weapons and you are the conductor of chaos.

Boomer shooter with personality (and nerves of steel)

The gameplay is fast, brutal, and without much mercy. If you grew up with old shooters, you'll feel right at home: constant movement, diverse weapons, and enemies who aren't coming to negotiate.

The arsenal is “cartoonish” but deadly: the weapons and power-ups are inspired by cartoon aesthetics, but their effects are as serious as can be. Basically, it's the kind of game where you can eliminate a gang of gangsters… with style.

But it's not all milk and honey… Some reviews mention inconsistent difficulty and pacing issues, especially in the second half of the game. This means that sometimes you'll blast through levels like a god, and other times you'll die 15 times and start to suspect your mouse has life insurance.

More than a visual gimmick?

A major risk for such games is to be “all style, no substance”. But MOUSE: P.I. For Hire seems to avoid this trap. Besides classic shooters, the game includes exploration, mini-games, and even more complex narrative elements, with an estimated duration of 10-15 hours. This places it above many indie titles that rely solely on a cool idea. Here, the cool idea is just the beginning.

However, it doesn't completely escape criticism. The enemy AI can sometimes be limited, and the gameplay risks becoming repetitive in certain segments. Nevertheless, honestly, when everything looks like a cartoon gone wild, you're probably willing to forgive a few imperfections.

Between indie masterpiece and “try again”

Critic and community reactions are generally very positive, with scores around 83 on OpenCritic and over 89% recommendations. Many praise the visual style, atmosphere, and the combination of story and gameplay. However, this title isn't for everyone. If you don't like difficult games and want something relaxing, it might annoy you faster than a bug at the last checkpoint.

Of mice and Switch

Leo Luția: A mouse goes to a mouse, right?! After receiving the review key for Tudor from PlaySide, I admit, a slight jealousy crept over me. The gaming bubble on the internet had already exploded with news and gameplay from Mouse, and I felt completely left out. Total drama, what can I say…

I couldn't resist for long and nudged PlaySide for a second key, this time for the Nintendo Switch 2.

About 80% of what I saw online about Mouse was played on PC, but the question that kept nagging me was different: how does it run, dear sir, on Switch 2? A game so visually charming and, seemingly, simple to optimise, I thought, should fly on a handheld. Especially since Switch 2 also comes with the option to turn the red Joy-Con into a mouse. May Mr. Jack Pepper forgive me for using the term “mouse”, but that's the official name, I didn't invent it!

But hold on, Tudor S. had given me a really cool gift some time ago, which made me even more curious to test an FPS on Switch. The code arrived, the game installed, and the fun began!

To cut a long story short, Mouse: P.I. for Hire is a solid 7 on Switch 2, in handheld mode, but absolutely in mouse mode. The classic Joy-Con isn't the most comfortable option, but believe me, the game becomes twice as fun and much easier to control in this mode.

Where the Switch experience didn't convince me as much, at least compared to PC, was in docked mode. Obviously, I played it on Performance, to enjoy a fluidity close to 60 FPS, at least that was the intention. I don't know if it's hardware limitations or simply optimisation, but just when you're having the most fun, the game starts to “tremble”. Unfortunately, frame drops are quite frequent and appear quite randomly, not just in crowded moments when the screen fills with enemies.

If you're not the type to get hung up on framerate consistency, then you should know that Mouse looks excellent on Switch 2. I didn't notice anything visually disturbing or any neglected textures. It's clear that the developers put a serious emphasis on the graphic style. And if you follow their activity on social media, you'll see that the folks at Fumi are very active, with weekly updates, so there's real hope that the issues on Switch 2 will be resolved over time.

Show me the money

Tudor Enea: It seemed like any other day…

I woke up this morning with a terrible headache, thanks to the fondue from John Brown, the chipmunk owner of the Little & Big bar. Most of the neighbourhood gathers there every evening, but somehow I'm the only one unlucky enough to be the guinea pig for his latest creations. I won't soon forget that sour, sewer-like smell emanating from that wretched fish. I hope he took my advice and didn't put that “delicacy” on the menu…

After I came to my senses and splashed some water on my face, I entered the office, where I saw her. The femme fatale, the Tinsel starlet, and the one who would help me put everything together: Vivian McCarthy. But not before she got me into some trouble too. I followed her advice and went to the film sets, to discover the connection between Tinsel Bros., the magician's disappearance, and Betty Lynch's death. Fortunately for Mouseburg, there I discovered the missing piece that would elucidate how all my recent cases were linked. Unfortunately for me, this discovery put me in the sights of some influential people.

I tell you honestly, dear readers, this “small” project from Fumi Games is something else entirely. In the current flood of hyper-realistic and identity-less games, Mouse P.I. For Hire comes to show us that it's more fun to have your own style. And not just any style, but by using the rubber hose aesthetic itself, a technique that allowed artists in the 1920s and 1930s to create scenes seemingly ripped from the wildest LSD trips. In this chapter, I have nothing to reproach the developers for, as they did their homework meticulously. However, I believe that the gameplay could have been worked on a little more.

The game is, at its core, a boomer-shooter, which is in direct antithesis to the noir atmosphere that defines the title. However, the combination works precisely because of the chosen artistic style. And if the aesthetics and attention to detail didn't impress you, you'd notice that Mouse P.I. For Hire is, after all, a fairly simplistic game. Levels are large, easily identifiable arenas, connected by long corridors and secret shortcuts, and each battle comes with its own puzzle. Usually, you can easily deduce the “solution” by looking at the type of ammunition scattered around the arena: bullets, acetone, bombs, etc., as each corresponds to a certain type of enemy. Are there a lot of acetone doses? Clearly, those shield-wielding rats will appear. Full cartridges for James Gun? You'll surely be besieged by those suicidal chipmunks.

Even if, in terms of gameplay, it doesn't reach the complexity of larger or more mainstream games, the noir atmosphere, the jazz and swing specific to the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the performance of the actors who brought the rodents to life, transform Mouse into a memorable experience and a solid 7 for those who want to try something more niche. However, don't expect a complex story, because you won't find it here.

As for how it runs, I can tell you that the game runs flawlessly on PlayStation 5, and during the 13 hours spent with detective Jack Pepper, I encountered only one bug, which I resolved by loading a recent save.

Watch out! This mouse bites hard…

Tudor Sprînceană: One thing is certain: The title has enough style for ten games, gameplay good enough to keep you hooked, and enough ideas not to seem like an extended tech demo. It's not perfect, but it has a lot of personality.

If you're looking for a detective mouse who solves cases with bullets and jazz, then you've found the right game. Now, honestly… who wouldn't want that?

The review code for MOUSE: P.I. For Hire was obtained via the Keymailer.co platform

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Available on: PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2
Played on: PC (Steam)
Release date: 16 April 2026
Developer: Fumi Games
Publisher: PlaySide
Approximate playtime: 10–15 hours