Willis Gibson, a 13-year-old from Oklahoma, became the first person to conquer the classic video game Tetris. Known by his online alias Blue Scuti, Gibson accomplished a feat on January 2 that was previously believed to be beyond human capability, forcing the iconic game into a 'kill screen' where it ceased to function due to the rapid pace of gameplay.

This remarkable moment was captured in a video, now circulating widely on YouTube, showcasing Gibson's intense 38-minute gameplay, culminating in an awe-inspiring score of "999999". As the blocks accelerated beyond human reaction times, Gibson, with unwavering focus, implored the game to crash, which it eventually did, marking his historic victory. Overwhelmed by the moment, he exclaimed, “Oh my God! Yes! I’m going to pass out. I can’t feel my hands.”

Vince Clemente, President of the Classic Tetris World Championship, expressed his astonishment to Reuters, noting that this achievement was "unbelievable" and a milestone previously thought to be an impossibility. "Developers never envisioned that the game would be pushed to such limits by a human player," he added.

Tetris, a brainchild of Alexey Pajitnov from the Moscow Academy of Science, was released in 1984 and rapidly became a global phenomenon. Its simple yet challenging gameplay involves rotating and aligning falling block shapes. With over 520 million copies sold, Tetris holds the record as the best-selling video game of all time.

Gibson, who practices approximately 20 hours a week on a cathode-ray tube television, dedicated his win to his late father, Adam, who passed away last month. His journey to this triumph began just two years ago, and in that short span, he has risen to become one of America’s top Tetris players. Gibson's success is partly attributed to his mastery of a controller technique known as “rolling,” popularized in 2021, which allows rapid manipulation of the game's directional pad.