Mouse: P.I. For Hire is a noir-inspired doom-like game set in a world filled with mice and cheese. In every way, this game is a great example of what a love letter to a genre should be.
In Mouse: P.I. you play as private detective Jack Pepper. You start by solving the mystery of the missing magician, but things quickly get out of hand as you meet more characters, bad guys, and new cases to solve. Overall the story is just okay, I honestly didn’t pay that much attention to it. It’s your typical old-timey Looney Tunes style cartoon story, which is fine, but where the game really shines is in its gameplay.
Gameplay – Classic Doom Vibes with Great Variety
Basically, it plays just like Doom. You get a few guns and abilities throughout the game that you use to go through levels while taking down as many enemies as possible. Unlike Doom, there is actually a pretty big variety of enemies to fight, plus a handful of level-appropriate reskins, which was a nice surprise I didn’t expect.
The weapon I loved most was the shotgun. With almost every enemy I would run straight at them and shoot them in the head and seeing them pop was so satisfying. I also ended up using the pistol more than I expected for long-distance kills. There’s something really fun about going bang bang bang and seeing the head pop after the third shot. There are many more weapons like an acid shooter, cannon, tommy gun, and others. A lot of them became situational (the cannon for bosses, the acid one when I ran out of shotgun shells), but even those felt very nice to use.
You can upgrade all weapons with schematics you find in levels. These upgrades give alternative fire modes, bigger magazines, and supposedly more damage. Personally I didn’t notice huge differences (the 3-shot pistol was still 3 shots), but I didn’t really mind that.
Movement Abilities & Level Flow
There are also several abilities you gradually unlock that help you through the levels: a glide when you spin your tail, wall running shoes, double jump shoes, and a grappling hook. They perfectly add to the game and make you feel pretty fast when you’re running around clearing areas as quickly as possible.
Some levels have bosses with their own annoying mechanics that make fights a bit harder than regular enemies. I have to say the annoyance is in a good way because it gave me a nice challenge. One boss I remember was pretty tough, a cult leader who threw bombs that destroyed the floor. If you fell through you instantly died. My main challenge was simply not falling while attacking him from below, which required paying close attention.
Side Activities & Collectibles
One side activity is collecting cards and playing a baseball-themed minigame in the central hub. You basically pick a hitter with attack and running stats while the opponent picks a pitcher with throw and attention stats. It’s fun for a little while but can be quite random and hard at times. The other collectibles are newspapers (for extra world-building) and comic pieces that let you read parts of a comic.
Level Design, Art & Atmosphere
There are a few types of levels that get repeated (movie studio, city, swamp, sewer, and sometimes connected places like a boat, fisher’s dock, or opera house). At the time, I didn’t really notice how similar they were, which is a good thing. The game does a great job disguising these themes and making them feel diverse enough. One standout moment was a level in the movie studio that suddenly turned the color on in this black-and-white world, it was such a cool and unique moment.
In a world full of mice you can expect a lot of cheese, and there is plenty of it. Many characters and things are named after cheese, and there are tons of cheesy jokes that never get bothersome. On the contrary, they usually gave me a good chuckle. The game is also packed with clever 1930s noir references and visual style that is extremely pleasant to look at.
Small details I only noticed later are perfect: there is actual blood, but it’s black and blends in seamlessly with the noir style. Enemies killed with fire turn into ash, and acid leaves only bones. These touches make the game even more fun once you spot them.
Music & Overall Impression
The music is fantastic. I found myself humming the songs many times while playing, something I almost never do. Even when I paused the game I usually kept the music on, this is one of the few games where I actively wanted to listen to the soundtrack.
I saw the game and talked to the devs back at Gamescom 2025, which instantly gave me high hopes. Did they deliver? Yes, absolutely. I loved every second I put into this game. With an amazingly built world and fun gameplay, Mouse: P.I. For Hire was everything I hoped it would be and even more. As far as indie games go, this is going to be one of the best and most memorable of the year. I can’t recommend it enough.
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