Play 2048 Online for Free

How to play

The board is 4×4 and starts with 2 tiles. Make a tile that reads 2048.

1. Swipe on the board, or press an arrow key. Every tile slides as far as it can that way.
2. Two equal tiles that meet merge into one tile worth their sum: two 8s make a 16.
3. A new tile then appears in a random empty cell: a 2 nine times in ten, otherwise a 4.

A tile merges once per move, and the pair nearest the wall you slide toward goes first: 2, 2, 2 slid left becomes 4, 2. A swipe that would change nothing doesn’t count as a move, and no new tile appears.

The game is over when the board is full and no two neighbors in a row or column match.

Controls

Action	Touch	Mouse	Keyboard
Slide the tiles	Swipe on the board, or tap a slide button	Drag on the board, or click a slide button	Arrow keys or W, A, S, D
Pause or resume	Pause or Resume button	Pause or Resume button	Esc
Start over	New game button	New game button	Tab to it, then Enter
Sound on or off	Mute sound button	Mute sound button	Tab to it, then Enter
Full screen	Full screen button	Full screen button	Tab to it, then Enter

The keys work once you press Play; if they stop, click the board or Tab to it. With a screen reader, every move is read out, and R reads all 4 rows.

Tips and strategy

The numbers here come from a computer player keeping each habit.

Keep your biggest tile in one corner

Pick a corner, say the bottom-left, and slide mostly down and left. That habit roughly doubled the highest tile a game ends on, from 128 with random moves to 256. Press up only when nothing else moves: it can lift your corner tile and let a new one drop in under it.

Keep the bottom row full

If your bottom row reads 16, 8, 4, 2, a slide right leaves it where it is. With a gap or a matching pair in it, the same slide drags the 16 out of the corner.

Pick the move that leaves the most empty cells

The game can’t end while a cell is empty. Of the moves that keep your corner, take the one that leaves the most cells free. Doing this made a 512 in about 1 game in 5, and almost never got further.

Line tiles up so merges chain

Build the bottom row out from the corner, each tile half the one before, ending on a pair: 64, 32, 16, 16. Slid left three times, it becomes 64, 32, 32, then 64, 64, then 128.

About 2048

Italian developer Gabriele Cirulli put 2048 online as a free browser game in March 2014. He called it a weekend project. His own notes call it a clone of an earlier mobile number game.