After 10 hours of Mouse: P.I. For Hire, the noir shooter with 1930s-style animation flair from developer Fumi Games and PlaySide Studios, I might be done. While an initial hands-on look back during GDC 2026 had me excited to check out the full release, I've become increasingly exhausted by slogging through the same enemies over and over – it looks great in motion at first, but once you see past the magic the fatigue sets in.
On the surface, all signs point to Mouse: P.I. For Hire being Extremely My Shit™. The snazzy animated style and art direction drips off every corner and angle, and sometimes quite literally given there's a weapon that devarnishes enemies. I grew up on Doom and Heretic and other classic boomer shooters that Mouse: P.I. For Hire ostensibly takes several pages from. I like a good pun or bit of wordplay, as well as the odd reference here and there, and the game is absolutely full of them.
Yet here I am, wearily ready to say goodbye to grizzled private investigator Jack Pepper and the streets of Mouseburg before I'm anywhere near the finish line.
Cheese it
I'm a firm believer in the idea that people can often recognize an issue, but how to actually solve it is another thing. While I know that I'm tired of Mouse: P.I. For Hire, the "why" is something I've had to chew on for several days. Ultimately, I've decided, my problem is fairly simple: Mouse: P.I. For Hire takes every opportunity to show and tell me I'm nowhere near done while too slowly adding new reasons to keep going.
While the venues change, the mechanical concepts and enemies largely don't. Whether I'm slogging through underground caverns or sewers or trespassing at the police station or the local theater, the enemies are largely the same and attack in the same way while puzzles often boil down to hit this switch or blow up this wall.
I'm not expecting constant novelty or anything, after all Doom is largely populated by the same enemies repeated ad nauseam, but the Mouse: P.I. For Hire does not have the same economy of speed. Movement isn't as fast, enemies soak up bullets on standard difficulty without providing any real danger, and levels are just convoluted enough to be frustrating without being compelling. (If I ever see another swamp-like level where stepping off a platform immediately starts damaging me, it'll be too soon.)
What prompted me to reassess whether I wanted to go on – and continue experiencing all of the above – was the realization that I'd still only collected roughly half of the possible weapons. While there are alternate firing options and potential upgrades for each weapon, I'm constantly forgetting to bother with anything but pulling the trigger normally and the upgrades both require shared materials and are incremental in nature. Bigger clips, more damage, and so on.
But every single time I go to swap weapons, I'm presented with a half-empty inventory wheel like some kind of poorly reloaded revolver. It taunts me, and makes me do the mental math behind every previous acquisition to come up with a total for full loadout completion that's both intimidating and terrifying.
There's a bit of a force multiplier toward this sense of fatigue at work in Mouse: P.I. For Hire. The loadout is one thing, but the overworld map where you drive around Mouseburg actually shows just how many places you can possibly go, which ones you've been to already, and which ones are yet to unlock all at the same time. The crime board where you pin clues? Fills up over time, and 10 hours in I still have a big honking chunk of empty space smack dab in the middle of mine.
All of this combines for an overall feeling of: there's so much more to go. I can't say for sure, as I've not done it myself yet, but all the chatter seems to indicate that… yes, there is so much more to do. I have to imagine the developers perhaps wanted this to inspire feelings of joy or delight – there's even more! – but it instead fills me with dread. And there's a DLC expansion on the way!
There are only so many crooked mouse cops I can shoot, shrews with bats I can kick, and gators trying to bite me I can shotgun. At some point, it all blurs together, and while I love a good smear frame, Mouse: P.I. For Hire eventually becomes more of one large smudge.
MOUSE: PI For Hire is currently available for PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC. If you're still looking for more, be sure to check out our ranking of the best FPS games.
