Black-and-white bloodbath Mouse looks like Cuphead as a first-person shooter
Here’s a real high-class bout!
Take the Fleischer-style cartoons behind Cuphead’s stunning visuals, slam them together with a classic first-person shooter in the vein of Doom and you’d likely end up with something that looks like Mouse, an upcoming FPS with a hell of a stylish look.
Indie developers Fumi Games cite the “rubber hose” animation of the 1930s as inspiring Mouse’s incredible presentation, which sees the player running down anthropomorphic gangster mice armed with tommy guns with their own inventory of revolvers, machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles and what appears to be just their gloved hand making the motion of a gun.
There’s also brief glimpses of environmental dangers befitting the cartoon look - a precariously dangling piano gets dropped on enemies at one point - and the character scoffing down an entire wedge of cheese, a tin of something (Popeye spinach alternative, perhaps?) and a cup of tea.
The jazzy music fits right in with the vibe, with the gunplay offset by snippets of exploring a dark tunnel with flashlight in hand, speaking to characters and collecting trading cards - including mouse baseball star Brie Ruth. There look to be bosses, too, with a baddie in a Robotnik-style fixed turret having a dedicated health bar split into three segments.
Fumi say that enemies don’t just look like cartoons of the era but behave like them too; the gameplay trailer is perhaps more bloody than you might expect for a black-and-white game that looks like a Disney classic, with heads popping off in spurts of blood and barbecued enemies turning into charred matchsticks. It’s definitely more Itchy & Scratchy (or, at least, Steamboat Itchy) than Mickey Mouse.
The monochrome palette feeds into Mouse’s noir-fuelled story of a PI encountering gangs and mobsters while seeking out justice - and dispensing it plenty too, from the looks of things. Levels spotted include some kind of dock and the interior of a ship, plus what looks like a large warehouse.
In short, it looks wonderful - a whole lot of Cuphead and Doom, and even a dash of BioShock through various power-ups and the early 19th-century setting. Fumi say they’re still pinning down a release date, but hope to have Mouse out on Steam in 2025.