Shadow Labyrinth is Pac-Man’s shocking take on Hollow Knight

Bandai Namco revealed a new Pac-Man game at the Game Awards 2024, but it’s probably not what anyone expected. Shadow Labyrinth is a 2D action-adventure game set to launch in 2025 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. It completely twists the classic franchise on its head by giving it a grim, eerie tone.

The shocking trailer gives players a glimpse at a dark fantasy adventure that calls Hollow Knight to mind. In it, a character that Bandai Namco describes as “the Swordsman” roams through 2D environments, with a glossy orb — naturally in the shape of Pac-Man — hovering above. It’s a total departure from anything the series has done before in both genre and tone.

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Ahead of its reveal, Digital Trends spoke to producer Seigo Aizawa, who gave more detail about the surprising project, which is set to launch in time for Pac-Man’s 45th anniversary next year. The project is being developed internally at Bandai Namco by a team that’s been working on the series “for a long time.” Aizawa himself previously served as the producer of Pac-Man 99, so he’s no stranger to Pac-Man spinoffs. For Bandai Namco, the goal is simple: introduce a brand-new kind of player to the world of Pac-Man.

“Pac-Man has historically been a family game, and we wanted to reach a new fan that has never played Pac-Man before. When we thought about that, we went back to the origin of Pac-Man, which is the maze. And when we thought about the maze, we thought that the 2D action-platformer might be the best genre. And that’s where we thought that maybe a dark Pac-Man might fit perfectly well.”

Aizawa says that while the project may look nothing like a traditional Pac-Man game, it shares some DNA with the classic series. The studio broke the series down into three fundamentals: “the maze concept, the eat concept, and how the table can flip all of a sudden.” While Aizawa doesn’t explicitly use the word Metroidvania, his description of the game fits that bill. He says that the game has a main story, but will also let players explore the map in a nonlinear fashion to “collect gadgets and expand their abilities.” The word maze has been twisted here to refer to that specific kind of 2D Metroid-style map.

While the team is staying tight-lipped on specific details (Aizawa wouldn’t confirm if the arcade game’s iconic ghosts are represented, but he dropped a “Please look forward to it” with a laugh), he did reveal one detail with a bit of history to it. The orb that guides the Swordsman isn’t actually Pac-Man, but rather a companion character named Puck. That’s a reference to the series’ original name, Puck Man. There’s a bit of a mystery behind what exactly Puck is, as it’s a being that has been in the maze for a long time with unclear motivations for helping the Swordsman.

Those who have watched Amazon’s new video game anthology series Secret Level might notice that Shadow Labyrinth shares similarities with the series’ bizarre Pac-Man episode. That, of course, is no accident. Aizawa explains that the game was already in development when Amazon pitched the series to Bandai Namco, creating perfect space for a tie-in.

“The idea of Shadow Labyrinth started four years ago when we were brainstorming it. Then, while we were in production, we received a proposal from Amazon about the Secret Level project. When that came into us, we reproposed Shadow Labyrinth to them to see if they would be interested in taking their interpretation of the story. That’s how the prequel of Shadow Labyrinth started.”

While the project wasn’t conceived as an anniversary release, the team decided that Shadow Labyrinth was the perfect game to celebrate Pac-Man’s 45th anniversary. The team acknowledges that it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it will deliver on the core theme for the series next year: “make impact.”

Judging by how shocking Shadow Labyrinth’s trailer is, it seems like the team is already delivering.

Shadow Labyrinth is scheduled to release in 2025 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.