by The original creators of NES Tetris thought it impossible to beat the iconic block puzzle game when it launched 35 years ago, but that’s exactly what happened this weekend.
But wait, didn’t someone else already ‘complete’ NES Tetris last year? Tetris didn’t have a formal ending for a long time, because crossing a certain number of levels made the game so fast-paced that it was once thought impossible to progress without using AI scripts. Then, in 2016 and 2020 respectively, a number of high-level players discovered “hypertapping” and “rolling” strategies, opening up a whole new arena.
Thus, 14-year-old professional Willis Gibson, aka Blue Scuti, became the first person to naturally trigger the classic game’s kill screen – the point at which the blocks fall so quickly and the code becomes so unstable that the entire game crashes – at level 157. But there was another, once theoretical way to beat Tetris.
The community has long been aware that you can (again, theoretically) somehow avoid the crash, beat level 255, and then have the game go all the way back to the beginning. The so-called Rebirth has been the mythical true ending of the game all along, but once again this was thought to be impossible.
So far: Streamer and professional player Michael Artiaga, better known as dogplayingtetris, has now become the first person in the world to activate Tetris’ Rebirth without AI. You can see his winning moment in the clip below, where he’s clearly as shocked as the rest of us by the monumental feat. “Oh my god,” indeed.
35 years after its release, @dogplayingtris just became the first person to get the rebirth of NES Tetris. He reached level 255, after which the game turned around and started again from level 0. pic.twitter.com/Igwa2fIrmJOctober 6, 2024
Of course, once you’ve beaten Tetris, the only logical thing to do is continue playing Tetris. Artiaga continued his Rebirth run all the way until he reached level 91 again, meaning he got through 346 levels in one go.
After years in his brother’s shadow, another Tetris player emerged earlier this year and smashed the game’s world record score.
