During the infancy of the video game industry, the end wasn't actually a thing. Sure, every modern game has a definitive beginning and ending, but back when gaming was all about how many quarters you had, beating a video game just didn't make sense. For the most part, if someone managed to make it through a game's final stage, the whole thing would just start over from the beginning.
There is, however, one classic arcade game with a different sort of ending. Pac-Man may be known today for his appearance in the latest Super Smash Bros. game, but back in the '80s and '90s, he was infuriating for an entirely different reason. See, Pac-Man was different from other arcade games in having an actual ending... the only caveat being that the game's "ending" was an impossible-to-beat level made up entirely of glitches.
Basically, if you somehow managed to survive 255 levels of ghosts and fruit, you were greeted with an absolute mess of a final stage. To this day, no one has managed to beat the Pac-Man "killscreen" level... though that might be about to change.
For more than 35 years, Pac-Man's killscreen has remained undefeated. If everything goes according to plan, that'll change on July 25.
As part of a massive streaming marathon, four Pac-Man champions will attempt to play through and complete the game's final level. This won't be an updated port of the game with a de-glitched stage, either: players will have to navigate through a mess of glitchy text and an invisible maze while avoiding equally invisible ghosts to beat the stage. It'll be like playing through the hardest level of a game with one eye closed — suddenly, it's clear to see why no one's done it before.
With any luck, Pac-Man's final stage will finally be conquered — if you want to watch the marathon live, just head over to TGLive.com on Saturday, July 25.
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