Tetris Forever's playable museum managed to change my perspective on the most familiar game in the world

GamesPuzzleTetrisTetris Forever’s playable museum managed to change my perspective on the most familiar game in the worldWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Tetris Forever

If there’s one game everyone—and I mean almost literallyeveryone—has played, it’s Tetris. It’s on every digital device going. We all end up with at least one copy even if we don’t remember buying it, the gaming equivalent of a Queen’s Greatest Hits CD that somehow, some way ends up on your shelf. There are at least four different versions of it in the room I’m sitting in right now, and almost certainly as many in another.

And the rest? Well, they’re just more Tetris, aren’t they?

Image1of4(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Image1of4

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Tetris Forever

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Tetris Forever

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Tetris Forever

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Tetris Forever

What I was missing was the context Forever’s playable timeline provides. Playing the original Electronika 60 version of the game (the Soviet-era PC Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris on), with its monochrome display and pieces crudely made out of square brackets, really brought home just how quickly—instantaneously, really—Tetris came together. Not as a brand or even as an entertaining game, but as a timeless puzzle concept.

Without wishing to diminish Pajitnov’s astounding work, Tetris feels less like something invented and more like something that naturally emerges whenever people are found, like fire and basket weaving.

There’s something almost primal about it. The seven shapes are always instantly recognisable, whether rendered in soft SNES tones, fuzzy Apple colour, or the crisp lines found in the more modern versions of the game. It’s easily understood within moments—of course the falling blocks need to be neatly arranged, what else would I do with them? Slotting the long “I” block into place and clearing four lines at once will forever be one of the simplest yet most satisfying actions ever committed to code. But further time spent with Forever’s collection, where DOS games with ASCII borders rub shoulders with cute SNES titles, reveals just how diverse and malleable this apparently unchangeable game is—and actually always has been.

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

Even the number of players fluctuated. Tetris Battle Gaiden generally plays a lot like recognisably “ordinary” modern Tetris apart from the ninjas, pink bunny creatures, princesses and the special skills they can use to cause trouble for the game’s mandatory second player. Super Tetris 3’s “Familiss” mode allowed four players to puzzle it out at once.

Tetris® Forever - Launch Trailer - YouTubeWatch On

Tetris® Forever - Launch Trailer - YouTube

More Digital Eclipse(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)Like Tetris Forever’s approach to interactive history? Check out our feature on its previous game:The Making of Karateka proves the best way to tell gaming history is with a game, and the rest of the industry must follow its lead

More Digital Eclipse

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)Like Tetris Forever’s approach to interactive history? Check out our feature on its previous game:The Making of Karateka proves the best way to tell gaming history is with a game, and the rest of the industry must follow its lead

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

The Making of Karateka key art

Like Tetris Forever’s approach to interactive history? Check out our feature on its previous game:

The Making of Karateka proves the best way to tell gaming history is with a game, and the rest of the industry must follow its lead

All of this is without mentioning thereallyodd parts of the series' history when it wandered off to be Hatris—a hat-stacking game—for a bit, or the time it pondered whether what Tetris' formula had been missing all along was screen-clearing explosives and new shapes.

Tetris’s presentation shifted just as freely, changing with the era, the gamers the developers hoped to entice, and even the sort of mood they wanted their version of the game to convey. Many of the earlier games lean hard into the Russia-flavoured advertising of the time (“The Soviet Challenge”, as the DOS/Apple II box says), and make the effort to show space scenes, hockey matches, and of course the iconic form ofSaint Basil’s Cathedralin Moscow. In context it’s striking and “worldly”, almost as if this brand-new game was so strange and special it had to be imported from another country.

Image1of4(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Image1of4

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Tetris Forever

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Tetris Forever

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Tetris Forever

(Image credit: Digital Eclipse)

Tetris Forever

Tetris Forever’s curated selection of experiences show this primal creation’s true strength over and over again, and I was surprised to realise that greatness wasn’t as closely tied to the minutiae of block-tidying as I’d previously assumed. Fussing over wall kicks and T-spins is all well and good, but Tetris is really at its best when it’s trying to capture a feeling.

It can be cozy, like Tetris 2.

It can be a chaotic tetrimino-stealing scrum, like Battle Gaiden.

It can be an awe-inspiring home theatre experience likeTetris Effect, a simple thing played on a battered old Game Boy in the park, or anything in between.

It is always bigger and more important than any rules, and will not just survive butthrivewhenever it tries to connect with the people playing it, wherever and whenever it finds them.

Forever, even.

More about puzzleToday’s Wordle answer for Friday, January 10Track down a missing person in this ‘Geoguessr-inspired detective game’ set on an alien planetLatestI tried a sim racing rig that generates ‘wind’ at CES 2025 and it’s claimed to help keep VR nausea at baySee more latest►

More about puzzleToday’s Wordle answer for Friday, January 10Track down a missing person in this ‘Geoguessr-inspired detective game’ set on an alien planet

More about puzzle

Today’s Wordle answer for Friday, January 10Track down a missing person in this ‘Geoguessr-inspired detective game’ set on an alien planet

Today’s Wordle being played on a phone

Today’s Wordle answer for Friday, January 10

A map of an alien planet

Track down a missing person in this ‘Geoguessr-inspired detective game’ set on an alien planet

LatestI tried a sim racing rig that generates ‘wind’ at CES 2025 and it’s claimed to help keep VR nausea at baySee more latest►

Latest

I tried a sim racing rig that generates ‘wind’ at CES 2025 and it’s claimed to help keep VR nausea at bay

Nitro Concepts CES 2025 booth with a sim racing rig that offered wind simulation from twin fans near the wheelbase.

I tried a sim racing rig that generates ‘wind’ at CES 2025 and it’s claimed to help keep VR nausea at bay

See more latest►

Most Popular

These are the 14 biggest upcoming RPGs of 2025—get ready for another amazing year for the genre

Five new Steam games you probably missed (January 6, 2025)

I’ve seen enough: No more forcing singleplayer studios to make mediocre live service games

6 games that could be bigger hits than you’re expecting in 2025

What are your 2025 gaming resolutions?

The FBI put a $5 million bounty on the ‘Cryptoqueen’ last year but still hasn’t found her, so take your pick: Russia, South Africa, or murdered on a yacht in 2018

The Witcher season 4: Everything we know about Hemsworth’s debut on The Continent

8 bold gaming predictions for 2025

The PC game releases we’re most excited about in January

Twitter is dead, X is a cesspit, let’s make 2025 the year of the message board

HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: An anarchic treasure trove of jokes and skits2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review—like juggling chainsaws on horseback3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS

1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

A bunch of the best Steam Deck accessories on a blue background.

1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop

Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop

3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most

Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most

4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands

Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands

5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested

Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested

1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: An anarchic treasure trove of jokes and skits

Thank Goodness You’re Here review

1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: An anarchic treasure trove of jokes and skits

Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: An anarchic treasure trove of jokes and skits

2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review—like juggling chainsaws on horseback

Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review—like juggling chainsaws on horseback

3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review

WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review

4Ikea Utespelare desk review

Ikea Utespelare desk review

5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals#

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals