Mouse: P.I. For Hire Rockets to #2 on Switch 2 eShop

A retro-styled indie FPS about a mouse detective just landed at #2 on the Nintendo Switch 2 eShop, sitting directly behind Pokemon Pokopia and ahead of Capcom's Pragmata. According to the latest Switch 2 eShop charts for the week of April 19, 2026, Mouse: P.I. For Hire is outperforming Mario Kart World, Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and basically every other heavy hitter on the storefront.

I did not have "1930s cartoon noir shooter outsells Pragmata on a Nintendo platform" on my 2026 bingo card, but here we are. Mouse: P.I. For Hire, developed by Fumi Games, is a first-person shooter built around the rubber hose animation style of early Disney and Fleischer cartoons. Think Cuphead's aesthetic filtered through a detective story with actual gunplay. The game has been on PC players' radars for a while, but this Switch 2 debut suggests it's connecting with a much wider audience than anyone expected.

Look at what it's beating. Pragmata, Capcom's long-awaited sci-fi action game, landed at #3 with its standard edition (and #6 with the Deluxe Edition). Mario Kart World, one of the Switch 2's flagship titles, sits at #4. Pokemon Legends: Z-A is at #5. The only game above Mouse is Pokemon Pokopia, which has the advantage of being a brand new Pokemon title on a brand new Nintendo console. For an indie FPS with no major publisher backing to wedge itself into that lineup is remarkable.

What the Full Chart Tells Us

The broader Switch 2 eShop top 30 paints an interesting picture of where the platform is right now. First-party Nintendo titles still dominate the middle of the chart, with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Donkey Kong Bananza, and multiple Zelda editions all holding strong. But the presence of games like Cyberpunk 2077 at #10, Hades 2 at #11, and Resident Evil Requiem at #22 shows that Switch 2 owners are hungry for third-party content in a way that the original Switch audience sometimes wasn't.

The download-only chart, which strips out physical releases, tells a slightly different story. Hades 2 leads that list, followed by No Man's Sky, Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, and Fallout 4. Mouse doesn't appear on the download-only chart, which suggests its sales are being driven heavily by physical copies or a combined physical/digital push. The game's physical "Mouseberg Edition" is already available for pre-order at major retailers with a July 10 release date, so early digital buyers are clearly jumping in well ahead of that.

What makes this debut so interesting to me is the genre. The Switch and Switch 2 have never been known as FPS platforms. The audience skews toward platformers, RPGs, and Nintendo's own roster. For a first-person shooter, even one with a distinctive art style, to crack the top 2 on this storefront says something about either the game's appeal crossing demographic lines or the Switch 2 audience being more diverse than the original Switch crowd. Probably both.

Mouse: P.I. For Hire is directed by Grant Taylor-Hill, and the game leans into its prohibition-era detective premise with a mix of stealth, gunplay, and environmental puzzles. It's the kind of creative swing that a mid-size studio can take when it isn't beholden to a publisher demanding mass-market appeal, and the chart position suggests that creative risk is paying off.

Physical editions of the game arrive on Switch 2 on July 10, with both a standard release and the Mouseberg Edition listed at retailers including Amazon and Best Buy. Whether Mouse can hold its chart position against the constant churn of Nintendo first-party releases and AAA ports remains to be seen over the coming weeks, but this opening week is a strong signal that the Switch 2 audience is willing to put money behind something different.