Digital Eclipse’s Tetris Forever continues the developer’s museum-like approach to game compilations, and the Tetris story is certainly worth that approach! Although there’s already a Tetris movie, the sheer quantity of footage in this release makes for a feature film of its own, and oh yeah, there are also games in it. Perhaps one in particular?

The short documentary videos for this collection, produced by Area 5, largely consists of interviews with core figures in Tetris’ history. That includes creator Alexey Pajitnov, company founder Henk Rogers and current CEO Maya Rogers, and it focuses on the insights of these three. There are also appearances by a few collaborators, like Tetris Effect creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi and former Spectrum Holobyte head Gilman Louie. It's augmented in spots by Henk Rogers’ tendency to record video of his travels, adding original footage of meetings and events.

When we talk about smart recycling of work, the Gold Master series is exactly what we want. There’s no reason to reinvent the systems for showcasing photos and video like this! Just keep making more of these and letting the subject matter do the work. And like The Making of Karateka and Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story, Tetris Forever takes the setup designed for Atari 50 and keeps using it largely as-is. There’s a generous amount of ads and manuals and other materials for the games, which is nice to see! The Atari 50 approach seemed more about curation, given the vast scope of that release’s subject matter, but since Tetris Forever is a bit more focused, Digital Eclipse seemed less hesitant to just give you a pile of scans at once.

Though Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master approach makes for more than just a pile of games, it does include a pile of games and that’s helpful! It largely consists of the earliest iterations of the design — including a recreation of the Electronika 60 original — in addition to the subsequent games developed by Bullet-Proof Software. The Electronika remake simulates different monitor types and shows the differences between the earliest playable build and a later version, as well as translates the prompts into English if you want that.

Tetris Forever is very much an “early days” collection. No NES or Game Boy versions are here, which we partially understand; Nintendo is stingy about that stuff. It would have been nice given Digital Eclipse is owned by Atari to see its Tengen and arcade versions, but from what we can tell, those are the part of the company that ended up with Warner, while weirdly the rights modern Atari holds are those of the included Spectrum Holobyte releases. (The whole Hasbro Interactive lineage is a mess!) The documentary materials mention later stuff, but none of it’s actually included. We’re sure the licensing would be expensive, but we’d really love to see some of that era’s experiments collected and preserved. (The late 1990s in particular were home to some weird stuff!)

Bullet-Proof would eventually become the Tetris Company we know today, so it was probably simple to work out the rights to those releases. As a result, a lot of the collection is devoted to Bombliss, a variant in a lot of BPS games centered around building and exploding larger bombs in the Tetris well. It’s a bit weird to give it that much attention? The mode wasn’t designed by Pajitnov, and it didn’t exactly catch on outside of Japan. It did see some release here, and you may know it as Tetris Blast. But yeah.

Tetris Battle Gaiden is an absolute treasure, and it’s wonderful to see it finally get a wide release. It’s not talked up much in the collection — the Henk Rogers video about it calls it “cute” and leaves it at that — but people who have played it know its value. In this versus-focused Tetris game, some blocks are “magic,” and clearing them fills a meter. Each character has different spells for one, two, three and four magic, and you use the one that matches your maximum meter when hitting up on the directional pad. The resulting game isn’t the most carefully balanced, but it’s certainly the highlight of this release.

In addition to the retro compilations, Tetris Forever includes its own new mash-up game. Tetris Time Warp follows in the footsteps of some of Digital Eclipse’s Atari 50 creations, putting together different elements of older Tetris games into one (low-budget) experience. It’s definitely more of a celebration piece than an attempt at making the best new way to play Tetris! Occasionally, pieces fall that, when cleared, send you into short challenges based on older games. It’s educational, if a bit disorienting, that the controls change accordingly. You’ll need to hammer left and right to move in the Electronika challenge, and you can forget about a hold function.

Tetris Forever is, ultimately, a well-crafted educational documentary about the franchise that’s a joy to work your way through, at which point it becomes a vessel for Tetris Battle Gaiden. The rest of the game library doesn’t offer much to modern players who could instead play Tetris Effect, Tetris 99 or Puyo Puyo Tetris! But the preservation aspect of the release is nice for its own sake.

Tetris Forever launches November 12, 2024 on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series, Xbox One and PC.

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All the games in Tetris Forever have been revealed by the collection’s developer, Digital Eclipse. The fifteen games in the collection feature multiple variations of Tetris, including a recreation of the original version created by Alexey Pajitnov on a Soviet Electronika 60 computer.

Here are all the games revealed for Tetris Forever:

• Tetris (1984) – the original version made for the Electronika 60 computer
• Tetris (1988) – Apple II
• Tetris (1990) – Famicom
• Hatris (1990) – Famicom
• Tetris 2 + Bombliss (1990) – Famicom
• Hatris (1991) – Game Boy
• Hatris (1992) – NES
• Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss (1992) – Super Famicom
• Tetris Battle Gaiden (1993) – Super Famicom
• Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss Genteiban (1993) – Super Famicom
• Super Tetris 3 (1994) – Super Famicom
• Super Bombliss (1995) – Super Famicom
• Super Bombliss (1995) – Game Boy
• Super Bombliss DX (1998) – Game Boy

In addition, a new game called Tetris Time Warp is also included. This game was developed by Digital Eclipse themselves, and will feature the ability to switch between different eras of Tetris on the fly.

Almost all of the Tetris games in Tetris Forever were originally published by Bullet-Proof Software. Other versions from other publishers are absent, including the iconic 1989 Game Boy game published by Nintendo. This version of the game is available through the Nintendo Switch Online service.

Tetris Forever was revealed earlier this year during the August 2024 Nintendo Partner Direct. It’s part of Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master Series, which are game collections that set out to preserve the history of the games they’re representing. As such, the collection also includes documentary footage and archival materials representing the history of Tetris. Previous Digital Eclipse collections in this style have included The Making of Karateka, Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story and Atari 50.

Tetris Forever will release sometime in 2024 for PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

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During the August, 2024 Nintendo Partners Direct, Digital Eclipse announced Tetris Forever, a title celebrating the 40th anniversary of the classic puzzle game Tetris. The new game contains everything from classic titles, to documentary footage about the making of Tetris, to an entirely new game mode.

You can take a look at the announcement trailer below:

Some of the classic Tetris games included in the collection are the following: Tetris, Tetris 2 + Bobliss, Tetris Battle Gaiden, Hatris, and more. Tetris: Time Warp, an entirely new entry in the Tetris franchise, will have players going through different styles of gameplay from across the series' history.

Beyond the gameplay, Tetris Forever will also feature a full documentary on the history of the game, talking about its creation and the key figures in its development. In addition, Nintendo Switch Online will bring the original Nintendo Entertainment System version of Tetris to all subscribers alongside a new Tetris 99 Grand Prix in Winter of 2024.

Tetris Forever will be released on Nintendo Switch in the 2024. Tetris NES and the Tetris 99 Grand Prix will appear through the Nintendo Switch Online service in Winter of 2024.

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