How to play Orb Arena

• Steer: move your mouse. Your orb always heads towards the pointer, so keep the pointer a little ahead of where you want to go.
• Split: press Space. Every piece big enough (mass 36 or more) splits in half and the new half shoots towards the pointer. You can have up to 16 pieces at once.
• A small hint at the bottom of the screen reminds you of the controls during a round.

• Steer: touch the screen and drag. A floating joystick appears where your finger first lands, and your orb follows the direction you drag.
• Split: tap the round Split button in the bottom-left corner.

The arena is scattered with hundreds of small glowing orbs. Each one you touch adds mass. Mass is your size and your score: the more you have, the larger you become, but larger orbs also move more slowly.

You can eat another orb (a computer-controlled rival or one of their pieces) only if you are at least 25% bigger than it. The same rule works against you, so anything 25% bigger than you is a threat. Ten rival orbs with names like Nova, Pixel and Vex share the arena with you.

Splitting is both an attack and an escape. The thrown half travels fast for a moment, which lets you catch a smaller rival that thinks it is out of reach. The catch: each piece is half the size, so bigger rivals can now eat it. Pieces push apart, then rejoin automatically after a timer that starts at about 10 seconds and grows slightly the bigger you are. You are only out of the round when your last piece is eaten.

Every round in Orb Arena is a Storm round. A three-minute countdown runs at the top of the screen, and a neon ring marks the safe zone.

• The ring tightens every 30 seconds. Twenty seconds into each stage, the next safe zone appears as a dashed outline and the ring pulses as a warning. Five seconds later the ring starts closing towards that outline.
• Outside the ring you lose mass steadily, and faster the bigger you are. Rivals take the same damage and try to reach safety too.
• Once the Storm starts closing, eaten rivals no longer come back, so the arena gets emptier as the round goes on.
• The round ends when the timer reaches 0:00, or earlier if you are the only orb left. If you are the biggest orb at the end, you are the Storm Survivor.

The Storm ring also shows on the minimap in the corner, so you can plan your route. Read how the Storm works for detailed tactics.

Your live mass and rank show at the top, and a leaderboard lists the top ten orbs. When you are eaten you see who got you, your final mass, how long you survived and your placement. At the end of every round you earn XP based on your mass, how long you survived, how high you placed and whether you won. XP raises your player level and unlocks free skins and trails — see Skins, trails and XP levels explained.

Your best mass, games played and time played are saved on your device. You can wipe them any time with Reset progress in the lobby.

Orb Arena has no power-ups inside the arena — everyone plays by the same rules. Instead there are two optional rewards outside of play:

• Mass boost: from the lobby you can activate a boost that doubles the mass you gain from eating for ten minutes. A gold timer shows how long it lasts.
• Second chance: if you are eaten with mass 40 or more, you can respawn once with half of your previous mass instead of starting from scratch.

On our own website these rewards are currently free. On some game portals they may play a short optional video first. Ads never appear while you are in the middle of a round.

New players get a little help. You always spawn far away from rivals big enough to eat you, and you are protected by a pulsing shield for the first 3 seconds after spawning (you can still eat while shielded). During the first 45 seconds of a round, rivals mostly ignore small players under mass 40.

• Eat orbs early, while rivals leave you alone.
• Only split when the target is clearly smaller than your half.
• Watch for the dashed outline and move before the ring closes.
• Never sit at the edge of the arena — you have nowhere to run.

For more, read the beginner strategy guide, our beginner tips, how splitting works and the Storm guide.

Questions? Use our contact form.