First-ever killscreen-less "Rebirth" achieved in NES version of Tetris, 38 years later

The NES Tetris arms race finally seems to be over— while Tetris (NES) was finally "beaten" at level 157 in December 2023, culminating in the first human-reached "Kill screen" crash, it has always been theorized that a human player with a version of the game less prone to those crashes could go even further beyond and hit "Rebirth", where the game (and your score!) survive a reset back to Level 00.

This was traditionally thought to be impossible thanks to increasing speed and glitches at higher levels of Tetris, but as of October 6, Michael Khanh — aka dogplayingtetris — achieved both full "Rebirth" and the first-ever Line Count Overflow, wherein the in-game lines counter begins showing negative numbers.

Color schemes began glitching for every few levels past Level 137, which was just 33 minutes into the overall record-setting run. The subsequent first-ever Line Count Overflow error happens at post-Rebirth Level 30 at a total of 1 hour and 46 minutes, 30 seconds of uninterrupted playtime. Of that runtime, Level 235 and its infamous 800 line completion barrier never previously cleared by a human player took a full 20 minutes of full-speed play with a low-visibility color scheme. Even just reaching Level 235 is world record material — but going yet past it to achieve Rebirth wasn't proven possible until now.

So, are there any greater heights to achieve in Tetris NES? It only took 38 years, but it seems that the answer to that question is finally an emphatic "No!" Sixteen-year-old Michael Khanh has made history among Tetris players for achieving a Rebirth once thought completely impossible thanks to tireless practice over many years, truly epitomizing the energy of a dog playing Tetris in doing so.

The previous NES Tetris record, at which point the more crash-prone version of the game could be considered "beaten" by a human player, occurred at a Level 157 killscreen achieved by Willis aka "Blue Scuti" in December 2023. Now, here in October 2024, a slightly less crash-prone version of NES Tetris has been well and truly defeated by Michael Khanh, perhaps leaving no milestones but high speed and high score for the rest of the NES Tetris community to chase.

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.