Pac-Man 99

The gameplay echoes that of the original Pac-Man; with maze chase gameplay, the player controls Pac-Man, navigating a board and eating the white dots – called "Pac-Dots" – he comes across. While doing this, four ghosts are eventually released at different intervals and will begin to chase Pac-Man, each in their own unique way. In the four corners of the maze are large flashing dots called "power pellets", and when consumed by Pac-Man the ghosts will turn blue and flee; Pac-Man can eat the ghosts during this brief period of time. Various bonus fruit can also be consumed to reset the level.

As an online battle royale game, the player will be playing alongside 98 others, their screens being visible to the player and are displayed on the left and right. When one player chooses to target another, every ghost Pac-Man eats will cause a "Jammer Pac-Man" to be sent to the opponent, which will target their Pac-Man and slow them down on impact, but can be removed by eating a power pellet. Red variants of the Jammer Pac-Man will eliminate the player on impact, and become still when the player has a power pellet active. Red Jammer Pac-Men are eliminated when the player eats a fruit.

Pac-Man 99 was developed by Arika, which had previously designed the similar battle royale games Tetris 99 and Super Mario Bros. 35, and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Pearl Lai, brand manager of Bandai Namco Entertainment of America, believed the game was a good concept as it combined multiplayer battle royale gameplay with the already competitive Pac-Man. The game was announced on social media on April 6, 2021, five days after the discontinuation of Super Mario Bros. 35, and released the following day on the Nintendo Switch for consumers who have purchased a Nintendo Switch Online membership.

Alongside release, there was also a variety of purchasable downloadable content (DLC). DLC was released in separate forms: the Mode Unlock DLC comes with offline and extra modes such as private matches and score attack modes, in addition to several themes. Special DLC themes were released separately, which change the look of the graphics to the likes of other classic Namco arcade games, featuring themes based on Galaga, Dig Dug, Xevious, The Tower of Druaga, The Return of Ishtar, Metro-Cross, New Rally-X, Mappy, Genpei Tōma Den, Cosmo Gang the Video, Yokai Dochuki, Dragon Buster, Valkyrie no Densetsu, Rolling Thunder, Dragon Spirit, Wonder Momo, Baraduke, Toy Pop, Bravoman and Sky Kid. An all-in-one bundle labelled the Deluxe Pack was released on the same day, containing all DLC. Additional themes based on Namco games such as Hopping Mappy, Warp & Warp, The Tower of Babel, Wagan Land, Tank Battalion and Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti were released for free post-launch.

Pac-Man 99 received a 76 out of 100 on review aggregator website Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 58% of critics.