Mouse: P.I. Lands, Reviews Vary
Mouse: P.I. for Hire launched on the Switch eShop at $29.99 as a 1930s‑cartoon‑styled FPS, and critics’ scores are mixed across outlets. (youtube.com) Game Informer gave it 8/10 praising boss fights, IGN rated it 6/10 citing narrative issues, Polygon called it “hilarious and charming,” and Giant Bomb scored it 3/5. (youtube.com)
MOUSE: P.I. For Hire arrived digitally on April 16 at $29.99, bringing its black-and-white cartoon shooter to Nintendo Switch 2 alongside PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. (mousethegame.com) Developer Fumi Games and publisher PlaySide Studios describe it as a single-player first-person shooter with hand-drawn “rubber hose” animation, more than 20 levels, over 10 weapons, and movement upgrades layered into a noir detective story. (mousethegame.com) The game’s pitch has been unusually easy to explain: 1930s-cartoon visuals on top of fast, retro-style shooting. Steam’s store page says players control private investigator Jack Pepper in a “guns blazing, jazz-fueled adventure” through Mouseburg. (store.steampowered.com) Reviews landed in a wide band this week. Metacritic listed an 81 metascore from 50 critic reviews on April 16, while OpenCritic showed a “Strong” rating based on 66 critics. (metacritic.com, opencritic.com) Some outlets leaned hard into the game’s style and combat. Game Informer said its “smart, humorous writing” and characters carried the campaign over “the dozen or so hours” to the finale, while Polygon called it “hilarious, charming, and stylish.” (gameinformer.com, polygon.com) Other critics liked the look more than the story. IGN said the game’s noir mystery and retro shooting pull against each other, calling the result “thematically incoherent” even as it praised the presentation. (ign.com) That split has followed the game since its reveal in 2023, when Fumi Games first showed a shooter built around early-animation aesthetics rather than photorealism. Game Informer’s archive lists the project from May 2023 through previews in 2025 and 2026 before this week’s launch. (gameinformer.com) The release also closes a delay cycle. Game Informer reported in October 2025 that the game had slipped out of 2025, and the official FAQ now fixes the digital launch at April 16, 2026. (gameinformer.com, mousethegame.com) For now, the verdict is clearer on what MOUSE is than on how well it all fits together: a $29.99 shooter with a standout look, a short campaign, and enough critical spread to make the art style only the start of the conversation. (mousethegame.com, metacritic.com, ign.com)
