Tips & answers
Strategy that actually helps
- Pick a corner and commit. Keep your largest tile locked in one corner and build a descending row towards it.
- Use two or three directions. If your big tile sits bottom-left, favour left and down moves and treat up as a last resort.
- Keep the anchor row full. A gap in the row holding your biggest tile is what lets it get displaced.
- Merge small tiles early. Clearing 2s and 4s keeps space free for the merges that matter.
There is a much fuller walk-through in the strategy guide, and Beyond 2048 picks up where it leaves off.
Frequently asked questions
Is 2048 free to play?
Yes. The game runs entirely in your browser, with no sign-up and nothing to install.
Does my progress get saved?
Your current board, best scores and settings are stored locally in your own browser. They never leave your device, and clearing your browser data will reset them.
Can I play offline?
Yes. After your first visit the game is cached, so it keeps working without a connection. You can also install it as an app from your browser menu.
Can I change the board size?
Any size from 3 × 3 to 8 × 8, from the picker above the board. Each size keeps its own best score.
What is the highest possible tile?
On a 4 × 4 board the theoretical maximum is 131072, which requires an almost perfect game. Larger boards raise that ceiling considerably.
How does the merge algorithm decide what combines?
Each move slides every tile as far as it can go in the chosen direction, working outward from the edge you are moving toward so a tile never merges into a cell that hasn't been vacated yet. A tile merges only with the very next tile it meets in that direction, and only if the two share a value and neither has already merged this turn — so a row like 2, 2, 4 sliding left becomes 4, 4 in one move, not 8 outright, because the freshly merged 4 cannot merge a second time in the same move.
What are the exact spawn rates for new tiles?
After any move that actually changes the board, exactly one new tile appears in a randomly chosen empty cell: a 2 nine times out of ten, and a 4 the remaining one time in ten (a 10% spawn rate for 4s). The board never spawns anything higher than a 4; every larger tile is the result of a merge. Spawns come from a seeded pseudorandom generator, so the exact sequence for a given game is reproducible — that determinism is also what makes undo exact and lets a saved game resume with the same next spawn it would have had if you'd never closed the tab.
Changelog & patch notes
- 17 Oct 2026 — A cleaner look, a booster dock under the board with Undo, Swap and Shuffle, and three lives per game.
- 16 Oct 2026 — Added full guide pages — how to play, strategy, beyond 2048, board sizes, FAQ and history — plus about, contact and terms pages, a tile ladder for each themed edition, and a corrected privacy policy that now describes the analytics in use.
- 22 Sep 2026 — Added privacy-respecting site analytics, so we can see which board sizes and editions people actually enjoy.
- 12 Sep 2026 — Accessibility pass: every colour in the interface — board, toolbar, score chips and the privacy page — now meets a 4.5:1 contrast ratio, and dark mode follows your device automatically. Also fixed the site's 404 page.
- 11 Sep 2026 — Added a rewarded "watch an ad to continue" option that clears two small tiles after a loss, two new tile-skin editions (Doge and Anime), and shareable milestone cards. Keyboard control hints now only show on devices that have a keyboard.
- 10 Sep 2026 — Reworked the layout so the board fits one viewport with no page scrolling, and moved the rules and strategy into this flip-card guide.
- 10 Sep 2026 — Initial release: a dependency-free, installable, offline-capable 2048 with undo and per-size best scores.