Pac-Man 99 is a battle royale for Nintendo Switch

(Image credit: Nintendo)

Pac-Man 99, a new battle royale game for Nintendo Switch, is now available.

In an announcement trailer, Nintendo said that the game is "a special offer for Nintendo Switch Online members," so you'll only be able to download it if you're signed up to the service.

The trailer also details how the game will work. As the name suggests, you'll match up alongside 98 other players on a classic Pac-Man maze, collecting pellets as you attempt to evade the ghosts patrolling the arena. As ever, getting caught by a ghost means it's game over, but eating a Power Pellet will let you turn the tables on your spectral foe and temporarily remove them from the game.

That's where Pac-Man 99 begins to differ from the established formula. If you eat a ghost, it'll be transferred to one of the other players in your lobby, entering their maze as a 'Jammer Pac-Man'. Running into one of those reduces your movespeed, making it much harder to evade your own ghosts.

To make things even trickier, however, mazes will also contain inert 'sleeping ghosts', which can be consumed to form a line behind an existing opponent. Chowing down through the entire 'ghost train' will send a whole fleet of ghosts scattering into other mazes. To make the experience even more competitive, you'll be able to use power-ups to make your own movement around the maze easier, and targeting options to help determine where your banished ghosts will go.

This isn't the first time Nintendo has come up with a unique twist on the battle royale genre, with 2019's Tetris 99 offering a similar competitive take on an arcade classic. What could be next is anybody's guess - Frogger 99, anyone?

Fancy some more last-player-standing action? Here's our list of games like PUBG.

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