A Pac Man Battle Royale Game Has Entered The Market | EarlyGame

A Pac Man Battle Royale Game Has Entered The Market

Dive into the electrifying world of Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle Chomp Champs, where classic arcade excitement meets modern battle royale chaos.

Chomp Champs
Chomp Champs is a great way to revive an old retro classic | © Namco Bandai Games America Inc.

Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle Chomp Champs retains the classic arcade gameplay that made the original so iconic. You navigate a maze filled with dots to increase your score, and power pellets in the corners let you temporarily eat the ghosts chasing you. Eating a ghost resets its position, but they respawn invulnerable, so strategy is key.

Clearing all the dots levels up your maze, making it slightly larger with a reset of dots and power pellets. The ghosts also become faster, increasing the challenge. The real twist comes when the doors to other mazes open. Suddenly, you're not just thinking about clearing your board, but about raiding other players' mazes.

Pac-Man Meets Battle Royale In Wild New Game

You can consume other Pac-Men for big points, farm their ghosts, or grab power-ups before leaving. There are timed doors and various power-ups that can stun other players or ghosts, increase your speed, or give you a ghost-repellent shield. Items that empower the ghosts can either troll another player or reduce the effort in chasing them down.

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Pac-Man was originally named "Puck-Man" in Japan | © Namco Bandai Games America Inc.

The game uses missions to encourage invasions, like eating three ghosts in another player's maze or using a power-up within it. These provide incentives, although in lower ranks and unranked mode, you might do well enough without completing them. You can earn extra lives or other rewards, but with enough points, the loss isn't significant.

The competitive aspect of Chomp Champs is interesting. In ranked games, your goal is to make it into the top 32. If you do, you maintain a 100% win rate. Higher placements earn more XP towards the next rank. However, there's no real penalty for losing, which turns the experience into more of a grind than a competitive journey. Settling for a lower placement isn't too bad, since you earn nearly as many points as the top finishers.

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Not only do we have a Battleroyal, we also have a ranked system | © Namco Bandai Games America Inc.

Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle Chomp Champs offers just a few modes: unranked, ranked, and training. There's no dedicated single-player mode or option to play classic Pac-Man offline. The overall package could be better, especially considering the small amount of content and the user interface, which could use some excitement.

Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle Chomp Champs isn't Bandai Namco's first battle royale experiment. They launched Pac-Man 99 for the Nintendo Switch in April 2021, which saw moderate success before being discontinued in late 2023.

The game first debuted as Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle on Google Stadia in November 2020, marking it as the original Pac-Man battle royale. After Stadia's closure in January last year, the game was re-released with minor adjustments and added cross-platform play, maintaining its core gameplay.

Ali Kanaan

As a political science student, Ali has always liked historical games like Assassin's Creed and strategy games like EU4....