“M’yeah see?” is what comes to mind on even a cursory glance at MOUSE: P.I. For Hire. Almost decade after the release of Cuphead pushed the boundaries of art direction in video games by hand-rendering itself in the whimsical rubber-hose style of animation originating in the ‘30s, MOUSE looks to do the same, only from the angle of an FPS. There’s been a lot of fanfare about the game since its reveal two years ago, and now only a month out from its launch, developers Fumi Games and PlaySide Studios are cranking up the hype yet again. Just today, they released a trailer showcasing one of MOUSE’s bossfights, and it looks promising.
In a three-part showdown taking place in an underground lab section, the experimental Robo-Betty boss is tackled head-on using the game’s expansive cartoon arsenal of guns and explosives, all the while narrated with muted bewilderment and gruff quips from the famous Troy Baker, who voices the game’s mouse protagonist Jack Pepper. Aside from the action in the trailer, which speaks for itself quite well, more details about the boss and this part of the game are reportedly to be revealed soon in a preview event. MOUSE is not all guns-blazing, however. Its world of Mouseburg does not seem to be a collection of corridors funneling straight into combat arenas. There looks to be some puzzle solving and evidence gathering–which one would hope for in a game that’s a Noir pastiche–as well as some creative movement abilities. It’s not mentioned much in MOUSE’s marketing, but as bulleted on the Steam page for the game, its over twenty levels are laid out like a metroidvania. Theaters, sewers, swamps, alleys, and forests all turn up sooner or later, but whether or not all of them are interconnected or if that genre only presents itself on a level-wide basis isn’t specified. Perhaps that will be touched on in the preview.
This will be Fumi Games’ debut title, though collaborator PlaySide has some curiously diverse experience under their belt working on the upcoming strategy Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, contributing to the VR survival great The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, the Australian public-service-announcement derived Dumb Ways to Die titles, and a large smattering other smaller games. MOUSE: P.I. for Hire will launch on March 19th on Steam, Xbox, and Playstation.