Look how they've massacred my boy: The newest Pac-Man game will have mechs, airdashing, and a 'dark sci-fi' story

Shadow Labyrinth – Launch Date Trailer – Nintendo Change – YouTube
Shadow Labyrinth – Release Date Trailer – Nintendo Switch - YouTube

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Watching the brand new trailer for Shadow Labyrinth, which dropped throughout yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, you would be forgiven for considering it is only a sidescroller a few sci-fi world beset by otherworldly monsters and wreathed in tragedy. I imply, it’s all of these issues, it is simply additionally a Pac-Man sport, which you might need gleaned from the protagonist’s yellow, spherical companion named Puck. He goes round consuming pellets and stuff.

We first noticed this world within the Pac-Man-themed episode of Amazon’s Secret Stage anthology sequence, which was impressed by a dialog with Bandai Namco the place the showrunners had been inspired to make audiences “marvel what the fuck they did with Pac-Man.” This sport was revealed across the identical time that episode got here out, however the newest trailer exhibits off extra of its metroidvania gameplay.

It is nothing new for an arcade icon to be topic to edgy reinvention: the critically panned Bomberman Act Zero and the cancelled Maverick Hunter tackle Megaman come to thoughts. However in a press launch accompanying the brand new trailer, Bandai Namco mentioned the makeover goals to please followers new and previous.

Bandai’s assertion emphasizes the sport’s story, which can embody extra than simply Pac-Man: “The sport options an enticing narrative, the place venturing deeper into this maze of a world begins to unravel the thriller of the planet … [it] attracts wider inspiration than simply Pac-Man, tapping into Bandai Namco’s broader library of beloved basic video games, and promising to please followers with familiarity and nostalgia for traditional arcade video games.”

As protagonist Swordsman No. 8, gamers will discover the titular hell maze with the assistance of Puck and the newly revealed mech, Gaia, who the press launch notes “inflicts devastating injury to enemies.” It additionally factors out that “[players’] intention on this treacherous world is to flee it, and to attain that they have to eat every thing that waits within the darkness to outlive,” which could have one thing to do with the sport’s tagline: “You need to eat.”

I’ve loved Pac-Man for about so long as I have been capable of learn, and all that is very attention-grabbing, however I admit I am slightly hooked up to the model of him that eats strawberries and co-writes cookbooks in his spare time. That mentioned, Bandai’s previous experiments with the character have yielded some fairly unbelievable outcomes, like Pac-Man Championship Version, so I am keen sufficient to see how this shakes out.

Shadow Labyrinth releases on July 17 and is offered to pre-order on Steam.

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