Pac-Man Has Remarried? See The Ridiculous New Ms. Pac-Man
Pac-Man is one of the most iconic characters of all time, and it appears as if he has found himself a new family, or ditched the old one.
In one of the strangest occurrences of rebranding, it appears as if Pac-Man now has a new wife and baby. It appears as if the long-standing family of Pac-Man has gone through a significant change overnight. The original 1984 game known as Pac-Land showed the image of Ms. Pac-Man as we all know her. Red bow, red gloves, and red boots. This is how she has been portrayed throughout the titles she has been a part of. The same goes for Baby Pac-Man, who copies its mother in every way. Red bow, red shoes, and a red pacifier. Now both have been changed with a pink-colored ensemble. You can see the images below:
Ms. Pac-Man has officially been switched into this monstrosity you see above. This new rebrand was pointed out by a gamer on Twitter after the re-release of Pac-Land happened. What is even odder about this situation, is that this new version is that of Pac-Mom, from Pac-Man Museum+. A Pac-Man expert by the name of Ryan Silberman spoke to a representative from the Arcade Archives, and both parties were surprised to find out these details. You can see the tweet below:
For some odd reason, Pac-Man’s original family is now gone, and instead, we get this Pac-Mom variation that popped up overnight. Per the above tweet, it seems as if some of the Arcade Archives team had no idea about this change too. There have been rumors growing about the wild nature in which Ms. Pac-Man and Baby Pac-Man existed in the first place. The characters were made by some Americans via a Pac-Man mod, with the blessing of Bandai Namco. This meant that Bandai had to then pay royalties for the characters whenever used. That company that originally made the characters went out of business and sold the royalties to that of AtGames, infamous makers of the Sega Genesis Throwback console that crashed and burned a few years ago from the units being supposedly faulty. Bandai Namco no longer wanted to pay that company royalties for the characters, so now we all get to deal with Pac-Mom.
Another supposed reason for this overnight change could be because that Ms. Pac-Man is meant to look “racy” in her boots, gloves, and bow. This sexualized version of the character could be a big issue going forward, so Bandai Namco might want to get ahead of the bad publicity that the older version of the character might cause. Also, Ms. Pac-Man is technically not married to Pac-Man, considering the “Ms.” and not “Mrs.” designation. Maybe they want to portray her as a single mother working her way through killing ghosts to feed her child on her own. What a story that would be. This one might be more of a stretch, but stranger things have happened.
Pac-Man is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time. While he certainly has changed his look at all, except in more updated versions like Super Smash Bros., it seems his family has been changed. Pac-Mom might also be his mother-in-law, who knows. One thing is certain, there is a lot of Pac-Drama going on right now.
