Tetris Grand Master
Image: Akira / The Tetris Company

Tetris: The Grand Master is a series of really hard Tetris games developed for arcades by Japanese company Arika – and it looks like they're finally coming to home consoles.

The news broke following a tweet from Arika vice-president Ichiro Mihara, who stated that the official announcement of the ports was supposed to be today, but it "had to be withheld for reasons beyond our control". So basically, the delay of the announcement is the announcement.

Mihara adds that Arika has been considering an all-new Grand Master entry, but adds that the licensor – The Tetris Company, we'd assume – "has made it conditional on the success of these ports".

Inspired by Sega's arcade version of Tetris as well as the fan-made Shimizu Tetris, Arika's series has a focus on obtaining a high score via a special ranking system. The first game was released in Japanese arcades in 1998 and was followed by Tetris: The Absolute - The Grand Master 2 in October 2000 and Tetris: The Grand Master 3 - Terror‑Instinct in March 2005. The only console version so far is a spin-off for the Xbox 360, Tetris: The Grand Master Ace.

The most recent entry, Tetris: The Grand Master 4 - The Masters of Round, was announced in 2009 but was formally cancelled the following year. It would later resurface in 2015 as The Grand Master 2015, due to the lack of a licencing deal; it was location-tested in Japan and North America but never officially released.

While platforms haven't been announced, we'd imagine Switch will be included. Nintendo's system isn't short of Tetris these days, with Tetris 99, Tetris Effect, Puyo Puyo Tetris (and its sequel) all already available on the platform.

[source twitter.com]