35 years after the iconic puzzler's release, someone has finally beat NES Tetris' 255 levels and achieved 'Rebirth'

NES Tetris' original creators deemed it impossible to beat the iconic blocky puzzler when it launched 35 years ago, but that's exactly what happened this weekend.

But, wait, didn't someone else already 'complete' NES Tetris last year? For the longest time, Tetris had no formal ending since exceeding a certain number of levels caused the game to go so fast, it was once thought to be impossible to progress without using AI scripts. Then some high-level players discovered "hypertapping" and "rolling" button-mashing strategies in 2016 and 2020 respectively, and opened up a whole new arena. 

That's how 14-year-old pro Willis Gibson, aka Blue Scuti, became the first person to naturally trigger the classic game's kill screen - the point at which the blocks fall so fast and the code becomes so unstable that the entire game crashes - at level 157. But there was another, once theoretical way to beat Tetris all along. 

The community has long been aware that you could (again, theoretically) somehow manage to avoid the crash, beat level 255, and then cause the game to loop all the way back to the beginning. The so-called Rebirth has been the game's mythical true ending the entire time, but it was, again, thought to be impossible.

Until now: Streamer and pro player Michael Artiaga, better known as dogplayingtetris, has now become the world's first ever person to trigger Tetris' Rebirth without AI. You can see his winning moment in the clip below, where he's clearly just as shocked as the rest of us at the monumental achievement. "Oh my god," indeed.

Of course, once you beat Tetris, the only logical thing to do is to continue playing Tetris. Artiaga carried on his Rebirth run all the way until he reached level 91 again, meaning he powered through 346 levels in one sitting. 

After years in his brother’s shadow, another Tetris player emerged to obliterate the game’s world record score earlier this year.