Tetris 99 is a pretty great perk for joining Nintendo’s premium online service for the Switch, but the lack of any kind of offline functionality was a bit of a letdown. Well, now some premium DLC has been announced and, yep, it addresses that problem with a pair of new modes that can be played anywhere.
Over the weekend, Nintendo announced and launched the “Big Block” DLC bundle for Tetris 99. The core game features just a single mode, a battle royale take on Tetris that’s just crazy enough to work. The mode allows you to play a round of the popular brick-stacking game that pits you against 98 other players. The hook is that, while playing, you can choose to target other players to attack them with your junk blocks, which are triggered by clearing multiple lines.
There’s a rather brilliant system at play here that lets you freely target opponents, or focus your fire on folks close to being knocked out, those who are actively attacking you, etc. Each round lasts about five minutes, tops, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun.
Tetris 99 is a free download for anyone who has a subscription to Nintendo’s online service, but the “Big Block” DLC lets you expand on the game for a price. All told, the DLC costs $9.99 and includes a pair of new modes. More new modes are set to launch at a future date, all included for that initial cost. At present, those new modes include CPU Battle, which lets you play Tetris 99 against 98 AI bots, and then there’s Marathon, which lets you play a standard version of Tetris while trying to clear as many lines as possible. Even if you don’t have Nintendo’s online service, you can now fork over 10 bucks and play these two modes.
What’s great about this is that it lets you keep playing the game even when you’re away from the internet and, perhaps more important, gives you a way to practice this particular brand of Tetris without worrying about competition. I’m still terrible at the more complicated Tetris tactics like T-Spins, and Marathon mode will allow me to work at perfecting those moves without worrying about attacks from other players.
These seems like a smart move for Tetris 99, and now I’m super curious what those additional modes included in the DLC bundle might wind up being.
