Bandai Namco wanted Secret Level’s Pac-Man episode to be as weird as possible 

Although all of the episodes in Amazon Prime Video’s upcoming Secret Level anthology series are based on video games and their respective worlds, some are weirder than others. Case in point: the Pac-Man episode. While the classic video game revolves around a yellow circle eating pellets, fruits, and ghosts, the Secret Level episode seems to be focused on a robed alien and his spherical companion: 

If you’re still confused after watching the teaser video, you are not alone. Apart from the floating sphere that resembles Pac-Man and the line “Eat or be eaten,” which refers to the video game’s core loop, there seem to be little to no similarities or references between the Pac-Man we know and love and this strange episode. 

This disconnect seems to have been intentional, as a Danny Peña and Riana Manuel-Peña interview with Secret Level Supervising Director and Executive Producer Dave Wilson and Creator and Executive Producer Tim Miller reveals that Bandai Namco itself wanted audiences to “wonder WTF did they do to Pac-Man?”  

Wilson says that the initial pitches for the Pac-Man episode were very close to the source material. It was J.T. Petty, writer for the horror games Outlast, Outlast 2, and Outlast Trials, who came up with the outlandish script that was used for the final episode. Pac-Man’s weirder elements were also discussed in the writer’s room, such as the game’s “eat or be eaten” mentality and why the ghosts’ eyes are never consumed. 

Pac-Man’s Secret Level episode was directed by Victor Maldonado and Alfredo Torres, two of three directors who worked on the animated Netflix series Love, Death, & Robots’ episodes Alternate Histories and When the Yogurt Took Over. Maldonado and Torres’ unique brand of strangeness combined with J.T. Petty’s dark writing created a Pac-Man episode unlike any other. 

Secret Level streams on Amazon Prime Video on December 10, 2024.