Pac-Man 99 is being shut down in October

Servers for the online battle royale game Pac-Man 99 will be closing down in October 2023, with a gradual shut-down process beginning in August.

The details:

• The Pac-Man battle royale will be shut down on October 8, 2023, according to Nintendo's support site, with the end-of-service schedule beginning on August 8 with the removal of the paid custom themes DLC from the eShop. The Mode Unlock and Deluxe Pack DLCs will also be removed from the storefront a month later, on September 8, as part of the second stage of the shutdown.
• According to the company, those who previously downloaded the game can still redownload and play it. This includes any of the previously mentioned DLC content. The game's offline mode will remain playable, but its online public and private match modes, as well as its leaderboards, will be affected.
• Nintendo and Bandai Namco have not explained the closure. The game was released after the temporary Mario 35 battle royale created to commemorate the series' 35th anniversary was shut-down, and it followed a similar format to Tetris 99, pitting 99 players against each other in the classic game with the goal of being the last man standing.

More Nintendo news:

• Following the massive success of The Super Mario Bros. movie, TOTK's producer Eiji Aonuma and game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi recently stated in an interview that they were "interested" in a potential Zelda film, but made it clear that their interest is not proof that a film is currently or is set to be produced.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has received universal acclaim, receiving perfect or near-perfect scores from several major publications, and fans have given the game a solid 8.7 out of 10 on Metacritic. The game still has a 97 on OpenCritic, making it the highest-rated game on the site.