2048

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Awards for 2048

Two thousand and forty-eight Make the 2048 tile. —

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About 2048

Updated 8 Sept 2026

Slide, combine, and try to reach 2048.

2048 was written in a weekend in 2014 and became the most-cloned browser game of the decade. The rules fit in a sentence and the difficulty comes entirely from the fact that every move affects the whole board at once.

You are never fighting the tiles you can see. You are fighting the one that is about to appear in the worst possible square.

Also searched for as

2048 game
2048 puzzle
2048 online
twenty forty eight
2048 tiles

Whichever name you know it by, it is the same game: it runs in this browser, with no download and no sign-up.

Think a rule is wrong?

Tell us and we will check it against the published rules.

How to play 2048

5 steps

Swipe or press an arrow key to slide every tile on the board in that direction at once.
When two tiles of the same number touch as they slide, they merge into one tile of double the value.
A new 2 or 4 appears after every move that actually changed the board.
Each tile can only merge once per move — four 4s in a row become two 8s, never a single 16.
The game ends when the board is full and no neighbouring tiles match.

Strategy that actually helps

5 tips

Pick a corner and never move your biggest tile out of it. Most players lose the moment their largest number ends up stranded in the middle.
Keep your top row filled and ordered from largest to smallest. If you only ever slide left, right and up, that row stays intact and the board stays predictable.
Avoid pressing down. It is the move that breaks a well-built top row, and once broken it is very hard to rebuild.
Merge upward from the bottom. Build small pairs low on the board and feed them into the big numbers above rather than chasing merges at random.
When the board fills, look for the move that creates the most merges at once, not the one that clears the most space. Space returns; a broken corner does not.

Controls

Mouse, keyboard, touch

Mouse and keyboard

Arrow keys, or WASD, to slide the board.
The on-screen pad works too if you prefer clicking.
Undo takes back your last move.

Touch

Swipe anywhere on the board in the direction you want the tiles to go.
Or tap the arrow pad below the board.
Undo is a button, so a mis-swipe costs nothing.

Questions

5 answered

How do you actually win at 2048?

You win by making a 2048 tile, which takes at least 1,023 merges. The reliable method is to keep your largest tile locked in one corner and build a descending row beside it, using only three of the four directions.

Can I keep playing after reaching 2048?

Yes. When you make the 2048 tile the game offers to continue, and the board keeps going as far as you can take it. 4096 and 8192 are both reachable.

Is this the original 2048?

It follows the same rules as Gabriele Cirulli's 2014 original: a 4x4 grid, a new 2 or 4 after each move with a 90/10 split, and one merge per tile per move. The code is our own.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. Swipe anywhere on the board to move, or use the arrow pad underneath. The grid is square and sized to your screen, so it never needs pinching or scrolling.

Does my best score save?

Your best score is kept in your own browser, on that device. There are no accounts, and clearing your browser data clears it.