Nintendo is releasing a free battle royale version of Tetris

Published February 13, 2019

It came right in the middle of the Nintendo Direct announcement this afternoon: “99 players… but only one reigns supreme.”

It could be a tagline for just about any of the run-and-gun shoot ’em up battle royale games that are so popular right now, à la Fortnite or Apex. Instead, it’s the tagline for the new… Tetris?

Nintendo only touched on it for about 40 seconds (so details are a bit light), but the company says it’s releasing later today a free-to-play, 99-player version of Tetris called Tetris 99. It’ll be a free download for Nintendo Switch Online members.

It seems to mostly be the Tetris we all know, with a twist: performing particularly well will let you attack other players with garbage, filling their carefully curated rows with a bunch of junk.

No word yet on if you’ll be able to make your blocks Floss or do the Carlton dance.