Tetris 99 is (probably) getting a physical release in the West

Tetris 99, a multiplayer battle royale version of Tetris, had a surprise launch in February of this year, free for Nintendo Switch Online members. Since then, it’s also gotten paid DLC, allowing anyone to play its offline modes, provided they’ve paid for it. Now, it might be getting a physical release.

A new listing on the Australian Classification Board website suggests that Tetris 99 could be getting a release at retail in the near future. Submitted by Nintendo Australia on behalf of their Japanese counterpart, Nintendo Co., Ltd., this is the second listing for the game that’s appeared on the website.

The first, which shows the game as having been classified back in January, was submitted by IARC, the International Age Rating Coalition, which is an international organisation that handles classification in over a dozen countries. However, IARC classifications generally only apply to digital releases — if a game were to be released physically, it would have to be submitted to each country’s classification authorities. And that’s what we think has happened here.

If we had to guess, we’d say that a physical release would include the base game, all the DLC, and possibly a year of Nintendo Switch Online, much like a bundle that was recently announced for Japan. In any case, we’ll probably find out pretty soon; classifications usually come to fruition 3-4 months after they appear on the website.