Pac-Man World's ending has been noted for containing darker humor compared to the game's otherwise lighthearted tone. The game's antagonist Toc-Man, the robot impostor who kidnapped Pac-Man's family, is revealed to be Orson, a tearful grey ghost who just wanted to be as famous as Pac-Man, who responds to this by pretending to show sympathy before eating him. According to the game's designer, Scott Rogers, his reasoning for this tonal shift was:


Rogers also noted that they wanted to have Pac-Man respond to Orson's cry of "nobody loves a ghost!" with "I do!" (in the sense of loving to eat a ghost), but this was scrapped alongside Pac-Man's voice as a whole.

Pac-Man World: Re-Pac amends this divisive ending by designating it as a bad ending and adding a new good ending. If the player fails to rescue Pac-Man's family, the ending plays out as it did in the original game, with an added scene where Orson's ghost minions choose to rescue Pac-Man's family themselves, but if the player successfully rescues Pac-Man's family, he opts to forgive Orson.