Tetris: Teen first known player to reach fabled ‘rebirth’ after Level 255

Gamers person been stacking Tetris blocks since the ’80s, but lone present has 1 teen go the archetypal known subordinate to ever bushed the retro crippled and execute a reset to Level 0.

American teen Michael Artiaga, who livestreams nether the surface sanction “dogplayingtetris,” broadcast his legendary accomplishment Sunday connected Twitch.

Artiaga, 16, had been playing Tetris connected his Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for astir an hr and 20 minutes earlier beating Level 255, the game’s highest. The level triumph triggered what Tetris fans telephone a “rebirth,” meaning the crippled looped backmost to the beginning.

At the rebirth, Artiaga jumped from his spot successful solemnisation and repeatedly shouted, “Oh my God!”

“Am I dreaming, bro?” helium asked his viewers.

“I’m truthful gladsome that crippled is over,” Artiaga said astatine the decision of his stream. “I ne'er privation to play this crippled again.”

By the clip helium yet hung up his controller and stretched his fingers, Artiaga had racked up a whopping 29.4 cardinal points.

Artiaga’s Twitch watercourse has since been reuploaded to his YouTube transmission and viewed much than 116,000 times. Throughout overmuch of the stream, Artiaga is soundless and displays aggravated focus. Like astir superior Tetris gamers, Artiaga wore a mitt connected 1 manus arsenic helium played to trim friction connected his drumming hand, a communal technique.

Artiaga was reportedly playing a circumstantial mentation of Tetris for NES that prevents the crippled from crashing aft passing Level 155.

Already a pro, the teen became the world’s youngest Tetris satellite champion erstwhile helium was 13. At 2020’s Classic Tetris World Championship final, helium bushed retired his member for the coveted title.

In January, the antheral who secured the Tetris organisation rights for Nintendo’s Game Boy system, Henk Rogers, told Global News the crippled was ne'er designed to person an ending.

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Regardless, Artiaga is not the lone subordinate to person ever “beaten” Tetris.

Rogers said it was “kind of a miracle” that 13-year-old Willis Gibson became the archetypal known idiosyncratic to ever implicit the crippled erstwhile helium precocious truthful acold (at Level 157) that the crippled fundamentally ran retired of representation and froze, known arsenic the “kill screen.” This was antecedently lone accomplished by an AI program.

Gibson filmed the legendary circular of Tetris, which lasted astir 40 minutes.

The communicative of Rogers’ travel to bring Tetris to North America was precocious dramatized successful the 2023 movie, Tetris.

Two decades earlier Gibson and Artiaga were born, Rogers went to Moscow to unafraid the rights to Tetris for Nintendo’s Game Boy system. He successfully brought the crippled retired from down the Iron Curtain and became lifelong friends with its creator, Alexey Pajitnov.

The classical video crippled remains fashionable successful its iterations today.

— With files from Global News’ Abigail Bimman