Okay, with Tetris celebrating its 40th anniversary this year the Tetris Company Ltd. commissioned the release of Tetris Forever. American developer Digital Eclipse worked on this title, releasing this in November 2024.

It’s a compilation game, featuring some of Tetris’ finest moments over the last 40 years. Tracing the title’s early days in Soviet era Russia through to where it is now.

There’s no stopping it. Tetris is the best selling video game in history and its popularity is unabated, which is wonderfully highlighted in this tribute collection.

Tetris Forever Captures the Joy of Falling Blocks

The remarkable thing about Alexey Pajitnov’s creation is its perfection. Not only is Tetris adaptable to new styles and formats, it’s seamlessly bulldozed its way through two generations of technology.

Gaming in 1984 just wasn’t anything like it is now. Pajitnov got a primitive version of the game together for a minor side hobby, distributing it to his colleagues at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Everyone was addicted to it immediately and the game spread across the USSR, but with no access to rights its creator didn’t make any money from it.

It then spread (kind of like a good version of the plague) to Europe and North America.

Sensing a money-making opportunity, a capitalist bidding war began. This actually got very nasty at times, with Robert Maxwell’s business efforts involved. It’s actually a very captivating story, as retold in David Sheff’s excellent 1993 book Game Over.

That was then adapted into a 2023 film Tetris, which was good fun (just, historically, wildly inaccurate with the many liberties it took).

Thankfully, Pajitnov partnered with Dutch/Indonesian game designer and entrepreneur Henk Rogers (the pair are now lifelong friends) and Rogers won the bidding war for Nintendo. That brought Tetris to the Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System, and the rest is history!

The Many Variations of Tetris

Behold, above, the original Tetris in all its glory!

There are some 15 version of the game in Tetris Forever. This includes a recreation of the original version, which was playable on the Soviet era computer the Electronika 60 (again, this version wasn’t something you could go to the shops to buy, it was shared by friends on floppy disks).

There’s stuff like the 1988 Tetris by Spectrum HoloByte for the IBM PC DOS. But it was the 1989 merger of Tetris and Nintendo’s Game Boy that turned this game into an international phenomenon. People with zero interest in video games were suddenly addicted to the thing.

The handheld combo was just impossible in their joined perfection—Tetris on the go, at any time, wherever in the world. It was sold with the North American and European Game Boys (Henk Rogers had seen the potential to do so) and was a smash hit, together with its iconic music adapted from the Russian folk song Korobeiniki, shifting 35 million units worldwide.

It fuelled variations on other consoles, such as Tetris 2 + BomBliss (1991). This is included with the collection.

There’s even a chance to play the often forgotten Hatris concept, which is a rarity (naturally, we did a feature on that a while ago). It’s very difficult to get that thing on anything other than dodgy ROMs.

Alongside these rarities there’s an exclusive documentary celebrating the 40th anniversary, with Pajitnov and Rogers on hand to discuss the ever-popular nature of the game.

The game is lovingly crafted, but we’ve read some gamer reviews on Steam who are unhappy with it all. We should stress this is more of a retro ideal, rather than modern realisation of the title.

Tetris Forever’s Tribute to Retro Glory Over Modern Sensibilities

Another big hit Henk Rogers pursued for Nintendo was the popular Japanese game Go. He designed the game for the NES and it became Igo: Kyuu Roban Taikyoku. It was a Japan-only release in 1987.

Then President of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi (1927-2013), was tempted to give the finished game a “go” by Henk Rogers. Yamauchi didn’t like games, though, and after a brief whirl gave up on the thing. Not that he was clueless. The guy transformed Nintendo into an international behemoth, recognising creative genius Shigeru Miyamoto in the late ’70s and bringing him in to spearhead projects.

A long way for us to explain Igo: Kyuu Roban Taikyoku is available for Westerners to play FOR THE FIRST TIME! Huzzah. Even if we don’t understand what the hell to do.

So, yes, Tetris Forever is kind of a compendium and tribute than a new gaming experience. For £30 you could argue that’s too pricey for what you’re getting, but it is great to see the game’s earlier versions saved for posterity.

Some have suggested it’s “incomplete”.

Technically, that’s true. EVERY game in the series isn’t available here—in fact, it’s only a smidgen. For sure, it would have been great to have titles such as Tetris 64 (1998), which used technology to monitor the player’s heartbeat. Play increased/decreased in intensity based on how panic-stricken they got. Just another indication of how much potential a, seemingly, simple game can have.

But the titles have been picked for historical value.

Tetris has actually gone from strength to strength, with the best titles from its lofty history launching over the last five years or so. These days there’s the brilliant madness of Tetris 99 (2019) and the beautiful Tetris Effect (2018), which is arguably the greatest ever version of Tetris. A mesmerising tribute to its calming qualities. Look at this!

Tetris Effect is from a different developer, so isn’t on Tetris Forever. The compilation offers a retro focus, covering the ’80s and ’90s. It may disappoint, then, that modern takes like the above are missing.

But as mentioned earlier, some of those older games faced slipping off into total obscurity.

Whilst you’d choose Tetris 99 or Effect over Hatris any day of the week, having them all together in one nifty package (backed by the creator of the game) is a neat little touch. Even if it doesn’t make the coda to this story.

Tetris will continue on. In 100 years, we’re willing to bet it’ll be around in some form or another. A shining tribute to its brilliance and the great mind that thought it up.