Put another feather in Troy Baker's already finely plumed cap: The famed voice actor is taking the lead role of Jack Pepper in the upcoming Mickey's got a heater FPS Mouse: PI for Hire, set to release later this year.
Baker has 435 credits across 254 games, according to Mobygames, which is kind of ridiculous, and that doesn't take into account his comparably numerous appearances in televisions shows and movies. The dude's a worker, and he's pretty good at what he does: He recently earned plaudits from none other than Harrison Ford for his portrayal of Indy in MachineGames' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and made an appearance in HBO's live action take on The Last of Us—appropriate, since one of his best-known roles is Joel in The Last of Us videogames. And now he's going to be a rat with a gat.
"I have been following the development of Mouse: PI For Hire since it was first teased," Baker said. "Its art style, gameplay and 1930s film noir aesthetic continue to win me over. I cannot wait to keep working with the team to bring Jack Pepper to life and hope to have some exciting things to share as we get closer to launch!"
Mouse has come a long way since we first saw it in 2023. Early gameplay clips looked like a mashup of '30s Disney animation and Raymond Chandler: A black-and-white cartoon rodent with a tommy gun raising hell in a hard-edged city filled with anthropomorphic (and distinctly criminal) animals.
That was enough to get me interested, and I probably would've been satisfied with a few hours of simplistic Kingpin-style blasting, but developer Fumi Games made it clear in a 2024 interview that they have greater ambitions. Mouse: PI for Hire will incorporate numerous metroidvania elements amidst its FPS action, including "NPC interactions with their own questlines … some minigames, some detective elements, and pretty adult, deep, gripping, dark storylines."
Those ambitions extend to the narrative side of the game too: "We are not avoiding serious topics like political extremities, racial segregation, poverty, social inequality—in a way, Mouse is the dark, twisted reflection of 1950s America." Given all that, it does seem more like a Troy Baker joint than it appeared a couple years ago.
Mouse: PI for Hire is expected to be out later in 2025, and is up for wishlisting now on Steam.
