The block falls, and you slide it into place. The line backs up. The score multiplier flashes a new, higher number. The next block falls. The repetition of Tetris is rooted in the history of the game. Despite the 40 years and more than 50 titles sporting the Tetris name, every iteration is the same. How do you analyze the history of a game that hasn’t changed? Digital Eclipse’s first real attempt to do so is through an interactive documentary Tetris Forever present the players with the same question.
Digital Eclipse, now owned by Atari, built its legacy in sports by paying attention to the legacy of games. Judging by what I see Tetris Foreverthe team’s attention to detail has not changed since the studio’s acquisition in 2023. We previously wrote about the painstaking process Digital Eclipse goes through to update older games, including the final versions of many of the studio’s games, Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition again Atari 50: An Anniversary Celebration.
Tetris Forever an extended look deep into the early history of the line-clearing puzzle game, from Alexey Pajitnov’s original creation in Electronika 60—which lacked a scoring system, music, or colors—through publisher Henk Rogers’ popular distribution system to the present day, where it remains the best-selling game of all time all of them. A more sober history lesson than a 2023 movie with all its spy thriller antics. Like other Digital Eclipse titles, the game is formatted as a timeline. You can see original design documents for the original title and watch interviews with developers and other notable people in the gaming industry. Then, you can play some of these historical versions of the classic puzzle game.
Tetris aficionados may scoff at the fact that there are only 15 versions of Tetris on disc. That’s because of the current Tetris licensing morass. The game is the most downloaded title of all time, earning a place in the Guinness World Records. It’s also a game in perpetual licensing hell. Atari owns the versions, of course, but many different companies like Microsoft and Warner Bros.
There is no exact emulation of the classic Game Boy version Tetris Forever. Nintendo owns that license, and isn’t giving it up. However, the game has several titleslike Tetris Battle Gaiden, which never officially saw their way out of Japan. There are also a few lesser-known versions of Tetris, such as Super Bombliss, which sees players facing blocks that can explode and destroy multiple rows at once.
Then, there is a new version of Tetris. Jason Cirillo, the lead producer on the show, sat next to me to watch me completely fail to decipher the lines. Tetris ForeverNew Time Warp mode. It’s your typical Tetris game, except for the weird-looking “Time Warp” block that drops once you’ve cleared ten rows. Every time you clear a line with that special block, you are taken to a different version of Tetris from four eras: 1984, 1989, 1993, and If you can’t beat the timed challenge in that area, you can get more bonus points. .
Time Warp is also available in multiplayer from above. In this mode, if you clear a row with a Time Warp block, you send your opponent back to a version of Tetris. While fighting their way out, they cannot defend themselves from any attacks.
Either way, it’s still Tetris. Cirillo told Gizmodo how their team designed Time Warp from the ground up, thinking they were making another Tetris game. Then when they presented their work to the Tetris Company, owned by Rogers’ scions, they found page after page of all the little things that needed to be changed to make it a “real Tetris game.” The Tetris company determines the size of the playing field, the layout of the blocks, and more from the minute to the millisecond it takes for a block to fall.
“At first, I was upset, but then I realized that this is exactly what we are doing,” said Cirillo. The Tetris Company may want to preserve the legacy of Tetris, but Digital Eclipse is building its own modern brand by doing everything to make the classic game feel like the original, as if you’re stepping back in time and playing the game. under the soft light of a CRT.
Some versions of Tetris, including earlier DOS versions, did not include any music. Digital Eclipse included a Game Boy-like black-and-white recreation of the classic Tetris, though technically it doesn’t use the same soundtrack from that version, even if it sounds very similar. From what I’ve played, there’s something very detailed yet unique about this simulation. This latest game in the long-running series doesn’t seem like an interactive documentary, so much as it’s a new chapter. It’s a continuous game, no matter how many lines you clear.
Tetris Forever will be released on Nov. 12 on all modern consoles, including PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as well as Steam and GOG for PC. Digital Eclipse hasn’t decided whether to make a portable version, but that will have to come later.
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