Video game icon Pac-Man is set to star in a new pellet-munching maze game for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PCs that recalls his earliest arcade adventures from the 1980s, publisher Bandai Namco announced this week.
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 will update the classic Pac-Man formula with new gameplay mechanics and a collection of tricky neon-tinted levels that will challenge die-hard arcade fanatics.
Footage shown in a trailer released Wednesday reveals that Championship Edition 2 will stick closely to the gameplay style introduced in 2007’s Pac-Man Championship Edition, which featured a series of timed challenges across varied mazes. Racing against a ticking timer, players must gobble all of the onscreen dots in their path and complete as many consecutive levels as possible while evading a gang of pursuing ghosts.
Championship Edition 2 will also retain many gameplay mechanics seen in the series’ 2011 follow-up Pac-Man Championship Edition DX and its expansion DX+, such as equipping players with bombs that they can drop to temporarily stun their pursuers. Championship Edition DX‘s sleeping ghosts will also return, giving players a chance to rack up high-scoring combos after consuming power pellets.
New features in store for Championship Edition 2 include teleporters, tilted mazes, and giant ghosts that lurk behind the playing field. This week’s trailer also suggests that boss battles will play a role in Pac-Man’s latest adventure – a rarity for the series.
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 follows up on the recent multiplatform release of Pac-Man 256, an endlessly scrolling action game in which Pac-Man must flee from a world-devouring glitch. The original 1980 arcade version of Pac-Man was also recently reissued for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 alongside its popular sequel, Ms. Pac-Man.
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 launches digitally for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PCs via Steam in September.
