A new era of mobile Tetris has begun and you can start playing now

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Play "the foundation of an incredible Tetris app experience"

(Image credit: The Tetris Company/N3twork)

The people of the world are no longer in danger of not being able to play an official game of Tetris on their smartphones. Now that fear is gone, thanks to the arrival of the simply named Tetris app from mobile developer N3twork. Tetris is taking the place of a trio of Tetris mobile apps from Electronic Arts, all of which are planned to shut down on April 21, 2020. EA previously held the exclusive license to make mobile Tetris games for more than a decade.

The new Tetris app, which you can find on the App Store and on Google Play right now, is… well, it's Tetris on your phone. It's free to play, though it will show you a video ads unless you pay $4.99 to get rid of them. It has the modern Tetris amenities, including a hold option to store one block that you don't want to use right away, and probably T-Spinning? I wish I could independently verify that for you but I'm afraid I suck at Tetris too much. You can also take your pick of five themes, which include a monochromatic tribute to the beloved 1989 Game Boy version, and the default neon theme that has some strong Tetris Effect vibes (no space whales though).

It's minimal for the moment, but N3twork says this version of Tetris is "just the foundation of an incredible Tetris app experience we’re building." The company previously announced it's working on a project called Tetris Royale, a 100-player battle royale version of Tetris. In case you're keeping score, that's one more player than Tetris 99, the Switch-exclusive Tetris battle royale game that first came out in February of last year.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.