Platforms: Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2
Developer: Fumi Games
Publisher: PlaySide Games
Back in 2023, gamers got a look at a prototype for what would eventually become MOUSE: P.I. For Hire in a clip showcasing classic FPS-style combat in a rubber hose hand-drawn style. It was an instant hit across social media platforms such as X and TikTok, generating thousands of views, most of which were notably positive.
Unfortunately, in March of 2026, the developers announced that the game would be delayed by a month to ensure added time for bug fixing, and overall polish. Fast forward to April, we’re finally ready to get our hands on the game for the first time!
Developed in-house by the Poland-based team known as Fumi Games, it very quickly picked up steam in the news back in 2025 when it was announced that legendary voice actor Troy Baker would be voicing the main protagonist of the game, Jack Pepper.
As it would turn out, Troy had been following the game closely for a while and was excited to jump in the booth when publisher PlaySide reached out with the opportunity. The result is a game which is filled to the brim with charm, beauty, and just enough crime to sate your inner detective (and maybe even your mouse).
The absolute highlight and selling point of the game is the previously mentioned rubber hose visuals. If you’ve played games like Cuphead, you’ll certainly be familiar with not only the style, but also the tone of the game. Furthermore, almost every single piece of artwork in MOUSE is hand-drawn, something that serves to the final presentation of the game through conversations you’ll be having with the residents of Mouseburg, the setting in which you’ll spend most of your time solving crime.
In a market where many gamers are being unfortunately priced out of their favorite hobbies, I can’t help but feel a massive smile when I remember that MOUSE is on the market for an extremely reasonable asking price of $29.99. It’s a borderline steal for what’s on display here, and one which I think will help MOUSE soar into the headlines when it releases.
Our review for MOUSE: P.I. For Hire was conducted with the PC version on Steam.
The Highs
A MOUSE-ter Class In Game Design
Upon first booting up the game, we're instantly introduced to the atmosphere of MOUSE with a catchy saxophone. It's just the start of immersion-inducing factors that truly make this vintage detective shooter feel just a little more at home.
I was really worried when first starting MOUSE that the snippets I had seen up until this point, were simply just a novelty that would quickly wear off. The reality however, is that underneath all of the fancy makeup, the core of MOUSE is an extremely well designed shooter that will no doubt send it straight to the carts of many players looking for a good time.
The moment we step into the world, the dev team wastes no time in showcasing just how effective simple concepts can be when pulled off effectively. Doors that spawn enemies are marked with skulls, a touch designed to help eagle-eyed players avoid confusion when looking for where to shoot next, and added contrast on pathway doors to always know where to actually go next once you’re done blasting through the streets of Mouseburg. It’s a testament to how well contrast is handled in this game at almost all times.
Item pickups standing out to the player is a lost art in gaming, and in MOUSE, picking up money or ammo feels extremely satisfying, because it almost jumps out at you. You also don't need to look at each one and press interact to pick them up, a good decision in a game that has tons of these scattered through each level.
The actual combat also never really gets tiring. The level design is great, and combat encounters always feel different enough that the stagnation of a very simple combat system keeps evolving through unique enemy, weapon, and gadget introductions. It reminds me a lot of how classic style videogames like DOOM put simple concepts like evolution into effect.
The fun doesn’t stop there, either! It just so happens there’s a colorful arsenal of weapons here for you to enjoy as you blast your way through the streets, swamps, and sewers of Mouseburg.
From simple pea shooting pistols to sticks of TNT, almost every weapon you obtain can be used in unique ways to level up the combat. When you’re done exploring for the day, you can take these weapons back home and upgrade them with unique gameplay changing upgrades which will affect how you use them, the next time some chump tries to empty your pockets of change.
I spent a lot of time juggling ammo in between combat encounters whilst playing, and I really feel it’s one of the better strengths of the game.
You’ll often find yourself over-relying on a gun you feel most at home with, and before you know it you’re almost demanded to switch things up in a bid to keep your next move just as fair for the enemy as it is for you. This also extends to gameplay abilities, as you’ll find yourself moving in new ways as your playthrough progresses.
What would have been a more simply designed level 3 hours ago, will now be a far more challenging and thought-provoking challenge. It’s very easy for designers to get stuck in a set way when making games, with the loop often falling into the same pattern over and over again. That doesn’t happen much here at all, and it’s not lost on me. I really appreciate just how many times you notice a clear shift in the mission design.
One key mechanic that instantly stuck out to me in MOUSE is the lockpicking minigame. You essentially take control of a drain snake, and must weave your way through a serpentine-like tumbler, knocking the individual pins up as you navigate to the exit.
You might have to take a narrow, yet simple enough path to the exit, whereas the next tumbler you encounter might just require you to play a game of Twister as you figure out how on earth you’re supposed to unlock a safe in just 22 moves! Luckily, you’re equipped with an undo key to retrace your steps if you feel you’re about to mess the entire thing up.
It’s an extremely cool take on lockpicking, and never felt too easy, or too hard to pull off during a mission. Sometimes the developers will up the difficulty through added hazards such as spikes or even a timer in an attempt to raise the blood pressure of our main protagonist, Jack Pepper.
Not Just A Pretty Face
Despite MOUSE having no doubt received the majority of its initial boom on social media due to the attractive art direction and simple yet effective gameplay, it should be noted that there’s a real, deep, and fleshed-out story at play here. It makes going through the game a wonderful treat for fans of classic-style detective beats.
It's truly fantastic, and really does feel like a detective game done right. It's deliberately on the nose in what it's trying to be, and it often made me smirk with just how well it pulled that goal off. You'll spend most of your time in the world solving cases and putting together evidence you find during missions to finally bring down mischievous villains.
It doesn't take itself too seriously either, something which I'm sure players who are just looking for a fun FPS will especially be thankful for. You don't need to spend hours solving riddles, finding hidden marks, or running DNA tests. It asks just the right amount of effort out of you, and does the rest in the background so you can focus on enjoying the lovingly handcrafted world.
It’s immediately clear from the jump that MOUSE isn’t trying to go for a dark, depressing narrative that you might expect from a game locked to greyscale. Rather, it’s a game that tries to pull laughter out of the person behind the screen at almost all times, and I personally felt like it did a great job.
The jokes are funny, and the characters are unique and leave a lasting impression on you not only from the moment they show up, but also in their absence. It’s rare for me nowadays that I find a title like this and become so quickly sucked into the written world. I realized just 30 minutes into my session that this was a real special one.
While I won’t go into spoilershere on what the intricacies are on the main story, the overall plot is that as Jack, you are responsible for solving a number of large cases in the world. You must gather and put together evidence to ultimately come down on in order to reach a conclusion to the story at hand.
I think it works wonderfully, and every major development in the story was interesting to me, even as someone who hadn’t done much research on the world or overall direction of the game prior to my playthrough.
My playthrough of MOUSE lasted around 12 hours, and I have no doubt that had I spent longer allowing myself to be fully enveloped in this world, seeking out all of the secrets and side quirks I missed out on, I could’ve easily spent 30 hours as Mr. Pepper. It’s a game and story I think most people will easily find themselves spending days, if not weeks, in as they push towards the ending.
The world isn’t just here for story either, it’s a lovingly handcrafted adventure that is absolutely filled to the brim with secrets. It reminds me a lot of classic Xbox 360 era titles that would constantly have you splitting off onto B-Paths to find a secret chest, or a hidden journal you could pick up to gather progress towards an achievement, or to get some free gold for your troubles.
This is absolutely the case in MOUSE, and is even promoted by the designers, who display a hard-to-miss prompt on your screen every single time you stumble across a secret area. It’s usually worth your time, too. I often found myself stumbling across caches of coins, or hidden baseball cards for the minigame you get to play just outside of your office when you’re not too busy blasting bad guys with a wacky array of guns you’d only find in the dreams of a madman detective with an addiction to cheese.
There were what felt like upwards of 100 secrets to find in the game, and that’s a crazy number considering I didn’t even find all of them. I’m sure this doesn’t even cover minor-scale secrets like hidden consumables stashed under beds, bricks, and more. If we were counting those, we’re easily past the 250 mark — just an absolutely staggering statistic for a game that on paper, seems rather simple. This is anything but that. It’s a fever dream built by designers who truly understand the craft, and fans of that style will be in for a fun time.
Shoots Well, And Performs Better
I think one of the most surprising elements of MOUSE that I was particularly looking out for, is the bugs. Given the delay this game had received, I was curious to see how justified they were when it came to assessing the overall level of polish in the game at launch. The relieving news here is that in my hours of gameplay sunk into MOUSE, I only encountered 1 single bug.
This isn't to say they don't exist elsewhere, either. I just find it remarkable that we have yet another title to add to the "more time in the oven is good" shelf. I tried my hardest to stress test the game in many areas, including stuff like looking for broken geo, trying to dash against random corners, or even just looking for simple out-of-bounds glitches. I really couldn't crack the case, and I think that is undoubtedly a good thing. Hats off to the devs!
MOUSE is made on the Unity game engine, and while it’s a far cry from being perfect, I’m sure for a lot of gamers this will be news that will bring on a sigh of relief. Many games released in today’s market seem to come under fire for their performance, which is most typically tied to the Unreal Engine, which draws harsh criticisms for its struggles with stuttering.
While I did have a few stutters in MOUSE, they didn’t last long at all, and by the 1 hour mark in my time with the title, I was smooth sailing through every level I played, even on Ultra at 1440p. I was also pleasantly surprised to check out the graphics tab, which came with the optional inclusion of NVIDIA’S DLSS 4 Model.
It’s still a little odd that this is such a focal point for games nowadays, but it’s an area of game development which deserves just as much praise as the level designers responsible for creating the worlds you’ll find yourself grappling around. It’s not easy to grapple with optimization either, and I really do feel like the team behind that aspect have done a wonderful job here.
The Lows
"Boss" Fights? Not So Much.
While I won’t go too in-depth on the different bosses in MOUSE to avoid spoilers, I found that many of the fights left me wanting more. I enjoyed the tone and direction of each encounter during my playthrough, but there are areas where I think improvements could make a big difference.
Most notably, the boss fight AI often feels a bit too easy to outsmart, especially if you rely on a powerful, upgraded weapon and use the arena’s geometry to your advantage. Rarely did I feel truly threatened, as most fights can be handled by playing peek-a-boo from behind cover.
There’s also an over-reliance on spawning backup enemies to create the illusion of chaos. While this can work in some scenarios, too often it felt like, without the added minions, the boss itself wasn’t all that dangerous. It isn't a deal breaker, but I do think there’s room to make these encounters more engaging and dynamic.
Give Me Some More Firepower!
After each outing in Mouseburg’s many side-stories, you’ll earn the means to upgrade your weapons, unlocking an alt-fire ability. While I like these upgrades, I do wish they changed the alt-fire on a deeper level, rather than just tweaking mag size or reload speed.
These incremental improvements are helpful, but I feel they leave a lot to be desired. Why not turn my Tier 1 bomb upgrade into a cluster bomb once I hit Tier 2? I’m just spitballing of course, but I’d really appreciate this kind of idea explored further.
In my playtime, I found one specific weapon in particular was the best in-slot option for almost every scenario. This continued, even when I had maxed out the upgrades on my bullet-showering Tommy Gun. If those upgrades had added a little extra quirk to the item, it may have rivaled the competition.
Take Me To Crazier Places!
This last point is a bit of tough love, as overall I loved each area I was tasked with exploring. However, there are moments in the game where you are taken to levels which truly make you step back to take in the scenery. I really enjoyed these moments, and was sad that there weren't more.
Simply put — I do want to see more of them! Some of the most fun I had in the game took place in environments that pushed the fold a little, and had me re-evaluating my surroundings.
I like subway stations, swamps, and even opera houses a lot. What I love much more however, is stepping out onto a beach, or diving into the ocean for a cool underwater level to change up the scenery.
As a solo indie developer, a huge source of my own inspiration for levels comes from the feeling I got going into a warp pipe for the first time in Super Mario. It's the feeling of uncertainty and adventure, something which I feel a game like MOUSE could use more often to their advantage.
I'm obviously being rather coy here in what I'm looking for, and what environments I particularly enjoyed in the game. This is because I don't want to spoil the experience for you, should you eventually jump in for yourself.
Ultimately, all I really want here is to see the team continue to express their imagination in fun and imaginative ways going forward.
Our Score
9/10 (Indie GOTY Candidate, and deserving of a sequel)
After my time with MOUSE, I really had to ask myself a few times: “Is there going to be a sequel?” due to just how much fun I had playing. I don’t mean that in the typical sense, either. I feel like sometimes you play a game like this, and very quickly get the feeling that it’s most likely going to end up being a one-and-done kind of deal. I didn’t get that vibe from this game at all, and actually, I would go as far as saying that if this game doesn’t get a sequel announced by the end of 2027, it’d feel like a major missed opportunity.
This feels like the sort of game that will inspire a multitude of art-style derivative games, much like Cuphead did. I can’t properly explain it to you through the screen like this, either. MOUSE is a game that is designed to be played, not explained. It’s not a game I would want to miss, and it certainly isn’t a game I’d want spoiled for me, either.
If you’re looking for a retro-style shooter with simple hooks and just enough charm to keep you playing minute-to-minute, you’ve found the next lead in your investigation. Start looking at MOUSE, because your next wishlist item is right under your nose (and eyes). Don’t let this one fall to the wayside, and don’t wait for a sale. It’s reallygood.
Mouse: PI For Hire isn't just a beautifully illustrated game, it may very well just end up being my 2026 Indie Game Of The Year.
Main Reviewer: EpicNNG (originally published April 15, 2026)
