The best ways to play Tetris in 2023
The new Tetris movie on Apple TV Plus plays fast and loose with facts, but there’s one thing it gets right: the game absolutely rules. Watching the movie is very likely to give you the urge to get back to moving falling blocks around until your eyes bleed. And there are a lot of ways to do that.
The best way remains grabbing the original cartridge and slotting it into a Game Boy (or an Analogue Pocket, if you’re fancy). But many of the other options are terrible, like the main mobile app, which is riddled with lengthy ads and a Candy Crush-like structure that sucks the joy out of the game.
Luckily for you, I have multiple versions of Tetris installed on basically every device I own, so I’ve pulled together a few options of the best ways to play the game on modern hardware.
Tetris Effect
Switch, PC, Playstation, Xbox, VR
No modern interpretation of Tetris understands the game as much as Tetris Effect. At its best, the game is a meditative experience, where you lose yourself in the process of making blocks line up perfectly. There’s an entire phenomenon named after how it influences your brain. Tetris Effect doesn’t mess with that — it amplifies it. The gameplay is pretty straightforward Tetris, but it’s augmented with beautiful and trippy visuals and soundscapes that make it easier to slip into that zone. It even tells a story along the way, and it’s surprisingly great in VR. Read More…