Ms. Pac-Man is absent on Pac-Land for Switch
Possibly due to current legal issues regarding the character, Ms. Pac-Man has been replaced with a new character.
One of Pac-Man’s classic adventures, Pac-Land, just arrived on Nintendo Switch courtesy of Arcade Archives. The side-scrolling platformer was one of the first games to take Pac-Man out of the maze and into a different perspective. Pac-Land also featured a quick cameo from Pac-Man’s wife Ms. Pac-Man and their child Jr. Pac-Man.
However, this recent Switch port has seemingly left Pac-Man’s family behind, with new sprites taking their place. Instead, they’ve been replaced with a character seemingly named Pac-Mom and… I dunno, Pac-Child? It raises the question: why have Ms. Pac-Man and child been erased?
Namco hasn’t confirmed this yet, but it’s very likely that it has to do with the legal battles surrounding the Ms. Pac-Man character. With a few entities battling for control over the Ms. Pac-Man name, releasing a game with her included might spell trouble later. So for now, it looks like Pac-Man’s wife has been given the boot.
Why isn’t Ms. Pac-Man in this version of Pac-Land?
The character of Ms. Pac-Man is tied up in a difficult legal battle between character rightsholders Bandai Namco and AtGames, the company behind several retro arcade microconsoles and controllers. AtGames acquired General Computer Corporation, the company who helped developed the original Ms. Pac-Man game, in 2019. As a result, they inherited the royalty rights to Ms. Pac-Man which, in their eyes, gave them at least partial control over the character.
Bandai Namco, of course, disagreed — leading to a lawsuit where they alleged that AtGames fraudulently sells its Ms. Pac-Man arcade cabinet and have no rights over the character. That was ultimately settled in 2020 in AtGames’ favor, with the ultimate fate of the Ms. Pac-Man rights left unknown.
We can’t verify that this is the reason behind Ms. Pac Man’s erasure, but others have pointed out that Pac-Mom also appeared in the trailer for the upcoming Pac-Man Museum+. In the meantime, you can still download the Ms. Pac-Man-less version of Pac-Land via the Arcade Archives library. It’s available now on Nintendo Switch for $7.99 USD.
What do you think of Ms. Pac-Man being absent from Pac-Land? Let us know!
Via Ars Technica.
