After courting gamers with NES and Super Mario sets, Lego is giving another arcade icon the brick treatment.
To mark the 43rd anniversary of Pac-Man’s first reveal, Lego has announced a new set based on the classic game. Shaped like an arcade cabinet, it features 2,650 pieces complete with a joystick and light-up coin slot.
Cranking up the nostalgia, the Lego set features a hand-crank on the side that lets you move Pac-Man and the ghosts around the maze. On top of the cabinet sits a pedestal with larger versions of the characters, which can also be detached and displayed separately. In addition, you’ll get a diorama of a female playing Pac-Man that can be hidden inside the cabinet.
The new Lego set will cost £230 when it goes on sale on June 4, with Lego VIP members getting early access on June 1. As the price and brick count indicates, Lego says the new set is aimed at adults.
Pac-Man was originally released in Japan by Bandai Namco Entertainment on May 22, 1980. The game involves players gobbling up yellow dots inside a maze, while alternatively evading or devouring four colourful ghosts. Following its launch, the game was installed in 293,822 arcade units in the seven years after its original release.
Alongside numerous video-game appearances, Pac-Man was later turned into a hit cartoon by Hanna-Barbera in the 80s. It also appeared in Disney’s Wreck-It-Ralph movie in 2012 and its 2018 sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Revealing a fun bit of trivia, today’s announcement notes that Pac-Man’s yellow colour drew inspiration from the “iconic yellow of the Lego brick,” according to the game’s original creator Toru Iwatani.
Lego clearly has the gaming bug as the Pac-man arcade machine follows its Atari set and its upcoming Donkey Kong sets. The toy brick brand also recently released its latest video game, a free-roaming racer in the style of Need for Speed called Lego 2K Drive.
