2048 is played on a simple gray 4×4 grid with tiles of varying colors overlaid that slide smoothly when a player moves them. The game uses the arrow keys to move tiles left, right, up, and down. If two tiles of the same number collide while moving, they will merge into a tile with the total value of the two tiles that collided.Higher-scoring tiles emit a soft glow. Every turn, a new tile will randomly appear in an empty spot on the board with a value of either 2 or 4.
Additionally, a scoreboard on the upper-right keeps track of the users score. The users score starts at zero, and is incremented whenever two tiles combine, by the value of the new tile. Like many arcade games, the users best score is shown alongside the current score.
The game is won when a tile with a value of 2048 appears on the board, hence the name of the game. After reaching the target score, players can continue in a sandbox mode that continues beyond 2048. When the player has no legal moves (there are no empty spaces and no adjacent tiles with the same value), the game ends.