Game Review: History 2048 (Nintendo Switch)

A popular staple of the mobile market once upon a time (it seems to have faded away for now), History 2048 is a merge game. This is where you merge two of the same tiles together to create a new one and so on and so on.

The gameplay style is very simple but surprisingly addictive and Run-Down Games’ History 2048 nails this aspect.

What History 2048 does differently to all those mobile games is the tiles. 3D areas themed around historic stepping-stones in humanities history. Starting with man creating fire to woolly mammoths to the rise of the Roman Empire and onward to modern civilisation.

Significant moments that are well designed and as you unlock more you can view all of the events with a simple press of a button. It’s worth taking a look at these designs too as they all have minor animations going on.

They needed to be visually good to look at though as History 2048 doesn’t have much else going on. After all, it’s a merge game where all you do is match tiles, combine them and evolve the set. Every move you make sees another tile dropped on the board. As the board fills up, combos become tougher and eventually your moves become limited. The game ends when every space on the board is filled up.

It does get more difficult but thanks to an ‘undo’ feature, you’re able to go back a step if you make a move that doesn’t work out. All you have to do is wait out a 20-second timer to use the undo feature over and over again.

There’s not much else to History 2048. The controls are super simple – just use the joystick to move your tiles in the direction you choose. There’s no music and only the odd sound effect for when you move tiles and one levels up. It’s basic stuff and the price point reflects that.

Like the mobile games it eschews, there’s no longevity here. You’ll get an hour or two out of it before boredom sets in.