Google’s Homepage Has a Halloween-Themed PAC-MAN Game Right Now
Even in 2025, Google.com still knows how to have fun. If you tend to rely on your browser’s address bar for Google search, you might miss the company’s latest “Doodle.” But today, October 30, if you head over to Google’s homepage, you’ll find a Halloween-themed surprise: a fully playable PAC-MAN game, complete with mazes and spooky characters.
The Halloween part makes sense, considering the holiday is tomorrow. But why PAC-MAN? This year happens to be the game’s 45th anniversary. For this Doodle, Google says it has partnered with PAC-MAN’s parent company, Bandi Namco Entertainment, to offer a celebratory PAC-MAN game on the homepage.
If you’re familiar with PAC-MAN, you’ll have no trouble accessing Google’s version. This is the core PAC-MAN experience that players have lived in since 1980: you control PAC-MAN through a maze, eating all the dots along the way. If you hit one of the four ghosts floating in the maze (Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde), you die, unless you eat a “Power Pellet”, in which case you are free to eat the ghosts. According to Google, this game has eight levels, with four haunted house mazes.
I appreciate the effort put into this experience. Sure, the gameplay in PAC-MAN is still the same, but the Halloween-themed mazes are fun. I also like the attention to detail with the graphics: the visuals have sweep lines, which sell the retro look. You won’t get crisp 4K pixels in this game, and that only makes it feel like you’re back in your local arcade.
What do you think of it so far?
Google says the game is only available today (October 30) and tomorrow (October 31) on the home page, although I hope it will be available elsewhere (Google Doodle games are usually archived). But if you want to try it, try it now, just in case.
