2048

How to play 2048

2048 is a sliding puzzle played on a grid of numbered tiles. Every move slides every tile as far as it can go in one direction, and tiles showing the same number fuse into one tile of twice the value. Two 2s make a 4, two 4s make an 8, and so on up.

After each move a new tile appears in a random empty square. The board therefore fills up whether you are making progress or not, and the game ends when it is full with no two neighbours the same.

The rules

Swipe on a touchscreen, or use the arrow keys or W A S D on a keyboard. There is no way to move a single tile: a move takes the whole board in one direction at once, which is the thing that makes the game hard.

Two tiles fuse only if they show the same number and nothing sits between them. A tile that has just fused cannot fuse again in the same move, so a row of four 2s becomes two 4s rather than a single 8.

A move that changes nothing is not a move — no tile slides, nothing fuses, and no new tile appears.

Choosing a board

Three sizes, with the target scaled to the room available.

• 3 x 3 — reach 256. Nine squares is cramped and unforgiving; one careless move can lock the board. 256 here is a real achievement.
• 4 x 4 — reach 2048. The classic board and the one the game is named after.
• 5 x 5 — reach 4096. More room to manoeuvre and more room to recover, so the target goes up.

The strategy that actually works

2048 rewards one discipline more than any other: keep your largest tile in a corner and never move it out.

• Pick a corner and commit. Bottom-left is as good as any. Your biggest tile lives there for the whole game.
• Use only two directions most of the time. If your corner is bottom-left, play down and left almost exclusively. Every down-or-left move keeps the big tile pinned.
• Build a ladder along the bottom row. Largest in the corner, then descending along the row. When the second-largest fuses into the largest, the whole row shifts along and you start again.
• Treat up as an emergency. Moving up can lift your corner tile away and let a 2 slide underneath it, which is how most promising games fall apart.
• Keep the board empty when you can. Fusing whenever you get the chance costs nothing and buys you space, and space is the resource you actually run out of.

Undo

One move can end a good game, so undo is there. It steps the board back, new tile and all, which makes it useful for learning what a particular move actually does rather than only for rescuing yourself.

Your best score for each board size is kept on your own device, and a game in progress survives closing the tab.

Common questions

Does reaching 2048 end the game?

No — you can carry on and see how much further you get. The target is the milestone, not the finish.

What number does the new tile show?

Usually a 2, occasionally a 4. That occasional 4 is what stops a perfectly played board going on for ever.

Is the game ever unwinnable from the start?

No. Every game starts with an almost empty board; boards are lost through play, not through the deal.