Spoilers for Secret Level's Pac-Man "Circle" episode ahead.

Shadow Labyrinth was revealed at The Game Awards 2024, shocking viewers as the colorful mazes of Pac-Man have been turned into a horrific sci-fi trap that a "chosen" swordsman must now escape from. What was once a simplistic arcade title has now been adapted into a Metroidvania filled with monsters, encouraging players to eat their kills to survive. The unique take on Pac-Man can be played sometime in 2025, but fans may already be aware of what Shadow Labyrinth entails through Amazon Prime's Secret Level anthology.

Indeed, what was originally a rather jarring adaptation of Pac-Man was actually a jump into a new genre for the franchise in disguise. The reveal trailer for Shadow Labyrinth shows impressive swordplay and movement abilities, as well as the potential to control a darker, terrifying Pac-Man shape, in ways that will likely make the title fun for players. Some of these were already teased with the Secret Level episode, but others take Shadow Labyrinth further than the episode ever did. To understand just how Shadow Labyrinth can still call itself a Pac-Man game, however, it's worth evaluating the themes of Pac-Man that the same Secret Level episode highlights.

Secret Level
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Shadow Labyrinth Takes Twists Pac-Man's Themes While Leaving Them In-Tact

What Secret Level's Pac-Man Episode Says About Shadow Labyrinth

Secret Level's "Circle" episode confused many viewers upon release, making them question just how this tale about a swordsman had anything to deal with the iconic arcade game about fruits and ghosts. The short episode does indeed include fruits and ghosts, but instead, it takes the core themes of Pac-Man as concepts and dares to take them in a different direction. It breaks down the gameplay to reach these conclusions while also tackling the concepts of games themselves.

Pac-Man as a game is relatively simple and easy to jump into, with no lore or any prerequisites to start, beyond a simple quarter. All players know is the maze, to eat the pellets and ghosts, and eventually they'll make their way through the levels. The Secret Level episode does indeed keep all of these elements in different ways, with a maze that the chosen swordsman has to escape with ghosts floating through it, and the eating is there in a haunting fashion. It even turns the idea of replays and mastering a game overtime into something terrifying, with the mantra of "strength in repetition" having more consequences than just simple perseverance. It could be said that this one episode in the first batch of Secret Level shorts manages to heighten the fear that players may feel when a ghost gets close too fast while playing the classic game as well.

Shadow Labyrinth Has the Chance to Take Secret Level's Premise Further

As part of Bandai Namco's already interesting 2025 line up, Shadow Labyrinth may deliver on the concepts that Secret Level introduced on a broader scale. After all, there's only so much that the short could go into during its 11-minute runtime. Already, the trailer has shown tons of enemies and bosses that expand beyond what the TV show displayed. There are also a few more things worked in, such as the strange classic Pac-Man maze sections that offer edible pellets to increase movement options, as well as a way to control the powered-up Puck that the episode's swordsman couldn't accomplish, that illustrate there are far more secrets to uncover with this take on the franchise.

If players were asking just what lurked beyond the door in "Circle," they thankfully have a game to look forward to that might answer that very question. If anything, it almost feels as if Shadow Labyrinth makes the ending of "Circle" much more chilling by even existing, as the way Puck faces the camera now gives off the feeling that the player is their next "chosen one." Fans of what Shadow Labyrinth is adding to Pac-Man can look forward to more news on this interesting title in 2025.