Nintendo is shutting down and delisting Pac-Man 99

Nintendo has announced that Pac-Man 99 will be removed from its Switch Online service later this year.

The massively multiplayer Pac-Man spin-off, which allows up to 99 players to compete against each other, will start to have its features gradually shut down from August until the full game is pulled from the eShop on October 8.

According to Nintendo, the game’s paid DLC – which contains three offline modes and a number of custom themes – will still be playable after the game is delisted.

However, all online features, including the game’s main Pac-Man 99 mode, will be terminated and no longer playable.

The delisting schedule is as follows, according to Nintendo:

• August 8 – the option to buy custom themes will be removed
• September 8 – the option to buy the Pac-Man 99 Deluxe Pack or the Pac-Man 99 Mode Unlock DLC will be removed
• October 8 – the main game and free custom themes will be removed from the eShop, online services will end

The Pac-Man Mode Unlock DLC costs $14.99 and includes three modes – CPU Battle, Blind Time Attack and Score Attack. These are all offline modes and will still be playable after October 6, as will the eight custom Pac-Man themes also included.

The Pac-Man 99 Deluxe Pack costs $29.99 and includes everything from the Mode Unlock DLC as well as 20 custom themes which make the game look like other retro Namco titles. These too will still function after October 6 (though only in the offline modes).

Further reading

Review: Pac-Man Birth of an Icon is an exceptional book about a legendary character

This hefty tome tells everything there is to know about Namco's iconic pill-muncher

Nintendo says that while the game will be discontinued and removed from the eShop on October 8, purchased content can still be re-downloaded after this date.

Pac-Man 99 was added to Switch Online in April 2021, following the removal of its popular Super Mario Bros 35 battle royale game.

The first massively multiplayer game made available to Switch Online members was Tetris 99, which was added to the eShop in February 2019. It still remains active and there are no known plans to terminate it.