Pac-Man 99 is coming to Nintendo Switch with a battle-royale reimagining of the arcade game. After the success of Tetris 99 and Super Mario Bros. 35, this is the next classic game to get an online-focused version, offered for free to every player with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.
Pac-Man 99 keeps a lot of the elements of the 40-years-old arcade game. Players will have control of Pac-Man and eat pellets on a maze while being chased by four ghosts. Getting touched by a ghost means you are dead, while special pellets allow you to temporarily inverse the rules and eat the ghost yourself. The twist comes from the online structure of the game, since 99 players will compete in each match to become the last Pac-Man standing.
This is not a simple race for survival, though what happens in your game will also affect your adversaries. Each ghost you get to eat with a special pellet will be transformed into “Jammer Pac-Man”, a new kind of character that’s immediately transported to another player’s game. Touching a Jammer Pac-Man will make the player lose speed, meaning it gets easier for a ghost to reach and kill them. The more you kill ghosts, the more your enemies will have trouble keeping alive. The more time goes by, the more ghosts will be sent by other players into your game.
To make things even crazier, Pac-Man 99 features “Sleeping Ghosts”, transparent ghost figures that, when eaten by the player, form a dangerous line of enemies trying to kill you. More enemies on the screen means you can eat even more ghosts with each special pellet, sending a horde of Jammer Pac-Men to wreak havoc on other players. The mechanic of teleporting killed enemies to other players was a core feature of Super Mario Bros. 35, another title exclusive for subscribers of Nintendo Switch Online. Unfortunately, Super Mario Bros. 35 was discontinued by Nintendo, but it’s nice to see the idea survived in Pac-Man 99. To give players more strategic tools, Pac-Man 99 allows the player to change special power-ups on the fly, making the mayhem even more unpredictable.
If you have a subscription to Nintendo Switch Online, you can download Pac-Man 99 today, at 9 pm ET. You can also check the official release trailer right below.