Based in Warsaw, Poland, Fumi Games comes directly out of Fumi Studio, an award-winning animation studio. It’s that grounding in animation that makes Fumi Games’ debut title, MOUSE PI For Hire, stand out with its hand-drawn watercolor 1930s-inspired animation style. The game’s visual identity was the first thing we noticed in our hands-off preview at SGF.
During the Nintendo Switch 2 Partner Preview, held during GDC 2026, we went hands-on with MOUSE PI For Hire. This first-person shooter offers players a 1930s time capsule through its dialogue, investment in the detective genre (which the time period is known for), and, of course, frame-by-frame animation, all accented by an original big-band jazz soundtrack.
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In the game, you play as Private Investigator Jack Pepper, a former war hero-turned-detective. When a simple missing persons case quickly escalates into a complex web of intrigue, with corruption, kidnapping, and murder, you’ll take on the underbelly of Mouseburg.
MOUSE PI For Hire effortlessly captures an era through its hand-drawn art.
Our playthrough took us through a chapter of the game, where we solved a couple of environmental puzzles, culminating in a boss battle. Despite its cartoon aesthetic, the combat in MOUSE PI For Hire isn’t forgiving.
Ultimately, the juxtaposition of aesthetics, subject matter, and difficulty creates a unique experience you honestly can’t forget. The combat complexity is achieved through boss design and the choice to make resource scarcity a key factor in combat and boss encounters.
In the boss battle we played during the Nintendo Switch 2 Partner Preview, we got to see just how fast combat can feel and how the 1930s-inspired games lean on exciting boss mechanics to put players through multiple combat phases and teach them with each one.
MOUSE PI For Hire has an arsenal that never takes itself too seriously.
Weapon variety is another standout for MOUSE PI For Hire. Whether it’s the punny James Gun (a Tommy gun) or the Turpentine gun that channels Who Framed Roger Rabbit perfectly, each weapon has its own specialty and humor.
For the shotgun, the humor comes from watching your character just slam shells into the barrel to reload, and for the Turpentine gun, well, it stuns and then disolves your enemies, even behind a shield. Where some weapons offer easy one-shot kills through the regular trash mobs, the bosses don’t always keep in line with the combat style you’ve chosen for your playthrough. And that’s exciting.
Understanding how each of your weapons works against a boss or mob is important, especially since your ammo is limited. The resource management element of the game ramps up tension and pushes the player not to just give in to the game’s cartoon aesthetic and aim only with hip fire. This helps ground the shooter in its genre when its visual language takes it so far away from expectation.
For all of its humor, the combat is anything but easy.
But the most exciting element of the game is that every single frame has been hand-drawn by the team at Fumi Games. Fumi Games has delivered a level of visual excitement I haven’t felt in a game in some time.
The attention to detail extends from our main character to every background item, every weapon, and even the particle effects. A consistent black-and-white vision of the 1930s with enough grit and dark humor in my one 20-minute demo to make me excited.
MOUSE PI For Hire is one of the most unique games I’ve seen, and it stood out starkly against the other titles at the Nintendo Switch 2 Partner Preview. This is a noir fever dream, and it all pays off. A little bit of Steamboat Willie, a lot of Dick Tracy, and just a hint of Bioshock, MOUSE PI For Hire is a title worth playing when it releases in April.
MOUSE PI For Hire releases on April 16, 2026, on the Nintendo Switch | Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
