The Switch 2’s mouse mode didn’t come as a total surprise at the console’s reveal, having been widely rumored then hinted at by Nintendo beforehand, but it’s one of the most interesting new features of the console nonetheless. While it may not get widespread use in many games, the mouse function was featured in a spotlight on Drag x Drive, a wheelchair basketball game. Now we have word of one more game that will use mouse mode exclusively, and it’s a party game from the developer of Shovel Knight Dig.
The week after the Switch 2 reveal, developer Nitrome announced Mouse Work, a game that features the kind of multiplayer challenges you’d find in Mario Party or WarioWare, all based around the new Joy-Cons’ mouse mode.
In Mouse Work, up to four players compete to outperform each other at various “jobs” using their Joy-Con mouse cursors. Nitrome has shown off a handful of these minigames already in a new trailer. There’s a mouse-controlled space shooter, a competition to recreate drawings, a rock-climbing game, and a chaotic test of players’ ability to close popups and complete captchas on a computer screen. Some pair players up, like a game where two people are leashed together as they try to bounce a basketball into a hoop without it hitting the ground first.
Mario Party Jamboree is getting a Switch 2 Edition release with new mouse and camera-based minigames, but Mouse Work could still become a party game staple if the rest of its challenges stack up to what’s already been revealed to Nitrome. The game is already drawing positive comparisons online to SnipperClips, a well received multiplayer game for the original Switch that made full use of the console’s then-new Joy-Cons. Whether Mouse Work achieves similar success could rely on just how well Switch 2 Joy-Cons actually work in mouse mode, and maybe even whether all its players are wearing the right pants to make mouse controls work.
Aside from the ingenuity of its minigames, the most remarkable thing about Mouse Work is how quickly the game has come together. Nitrome’s founder recently told Eurogamer that development on Mouse Work didn’t even begin until Nintendo implied the existence of mouse mode in a January Nintendo Direct, following months of rumors.
"We have a background in making games in one month back in the browser days so we are used to working fast," Nitrome founder Mat Annal said.
Despite only beginning production on Mouse Work a few months ago, Nitrome says it’s aiming to release the game as early as possible in the Switch 2’s launch window.
While mouse mode could end up as a fun feature that rarely gets actual use, it’s encouraging to see third-party developers running with the concept already. Nintendo is of course baking mouse functionality into its own games, like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, but the real test for the Switch 2’s most inspired feature will be how other developers tackle it and how long after launch window it remains exciting.
Based on Inverse’s first hands-on impressions of the Switch 2, the mouse mode is already looking less like a gimmick and more like a viable alternative control method, which again suggests it may have more longevity than other experiments, like Mario Party Jamboree’s camera-based minigames. Strategy games and first-person shooters are the most obvious candidates to keep mouse mode alive, but it’s offbeat implementations like Mouse Work that could make the Switch 2’s quirkiest feature exciting for the long haul.
