At The Game Awards last week, Bandai Namco revealed that “Circle,” its horror take on Pac-Man from the Prime Video anthology series Secret Level, isn’t going to stay exclusive to the streaming show. No, this weird, dark, gruesome version of Pac-Man is getting its own video game, Shadow Labyrinth, a metroidvania that will see players step into the shoes of the Swordsman.
In the short film, Pac-Man is reimagined as a malevolent metal orb called Puck that works with a humanoid creature — who TheGamer’s Eric Switzer correctly observed looks a lot like the Mudokons from Oddworld — as a sort of evil Navi from Ocarina of Time.
What If Pac-Man… Was A Pac-Monster?
Puck helps guide the Swordsman through the vast, dangerous maze he’s stranded within. As Swordsman explores, Puck encourages him to kill and eat the creatures they come across. With his gleaming sword in hand, Swordsman takes on savage beasts several times his size, then feasts on their carcasses.
Eventually, Swordsman attempts to take on a much larger gorilla-like monster, but is quickly defeated. Puck bursts through Swordsman’s chest, using his life force to form a black, oozy Pac-Man shape from ropy tentacles, devouring the gorilla monster in the process. But Swordsman rips the orb from his chest, killing himself, denying Puck its host and preventing it from exiting the labyrinth. As the short ends, Puck is waiting for its next host to tumble out of their tank so it can begin the process all over again.
I’ve seen some commenters online call this short edgelord-y or compare it to something you would have seen on YouTube ten years ago, as CGI artists whipped up fan films in hopes of gaining industry attention. And, yeah, sure, whatever. It is indeed a twisted take on a gaming icon who is typically portrayed as wholesome.
In concept, it isn’t that different from something like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, the low-budget horror film that turned the Hundred Acre Woods’ most famous resident into a slasher villain.
This Is What Old Franchises Should Be Doing
The primary difference is that “Circle” was made with the official blessing of Bandai Namco, and the company went so all-in on this dark take on Pac-Man that it has a game based on it set to launch next year. The fact that the company itself is the one dragging Pac-Man through the blood is what makes this so interesting to me, and it’s exactly what I want to see from franchises, like Pac-Man, that are almost old enough to qualify for an AARP membership.
Similarly, long-running franchises like Star Wars are terrified of taking risks for fear of fan backlash, which makes it refreshing to see Bandai Namco go, “F*** it, evil Pac-Man.” That’s easier to pull off with Pac-Man than, say, Luke Skywalker because Pac-Man has never been much more than an empty vessel. While Luke is a character, Pac-Man has always just been a shape that eats. “Circle” and Shadow Labyrinth are just taking that core idea about Pac-Man and taking it to its dark, logical end.
Shadow Labyrinth almost reminds me of a more successful take on something like Bomberman Zero, the infamous Xbox 360 title.
And why shouldn’t they? Pac-Man has been around for 44 years. There are so many games in the series, and as many “normal” takes on the character as players will ever need (provided basic Pac-Man is always getting ported to new machines). Bandai Namco has experimented with all sorts of unique twists on the gameplay over the years. There are traditional maze games, 2D platformers, 3D platformers, a falling tile game, pinball, a DS game that lets players draw their own Pac-Man with the stylus, and on and on and on.
Pac-Man is an elemental franchise, and that simplicity means that it can be pulled in many different directions. “Circle” and, presumably, Shadow Labyrinth asked “What is most essential?” and seemed to answer the question with a) the need to feed and b) the maze. Shadow Labyrinth is an unconventional exploration of those ideas, but it is engaging with the ideas. And that’s much more interesting than yet another traditional repackaging.