66/100
Players43 ratings

Where to get it

2016 · .io · Action

Slither.io

Slither.io is a massively multiplayer browser game where players control a snake-like avatar, which consumes multicolored pellets from other players, and ones that naturally spawn on the map in the game to grow in size. The objective of the game is to grow the longest snake in the server.

Released: 25 March 2016
Platforms: Android Browser Windows iOS
Genres: .io Action Arcade MMO Simulation
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Multiplayer
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action
Country: United States
Age ratings: ESRB E CLASS_IND L
Languages: English

About

Slither.io (stylized as slither.io) is a multiplayer online video game available for iOS, Android, and web browsers, developed by Steve Howse. Players control an avatar resembling a snake, which consumes multi-colored pellets, both from other players and ones that naturally spawn on the map in the game, to grow in size. The objective of the game is to grow the longest snake in the server. Slither.io is similar in concept to the popular 2015 web game Agar.io and is reminiscent of the classic arcade game Snake.

The game grew in popularity following its promotion among several prominent YouTubers such as PewDiePie, Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, DanTDM, Fernanfloo and JuegaGerman, topped the App Store soon after its release. Slither.io's browser version was ranked by Alexa as one of the 1,000 most visited sites in July 2016, while the iOS version ranked first in the most downloaded apps on the App Store. A mobile version of the game for Android was released on March 27, 2016. The reception of the game was positive, with reviewers praising its appearance and customization but criticizing it for its low replay value and the high price users were required to pay to remove advertisements (although as of 2026, most versions of the game no longer show them).

Keywords

online
freeware
snake
digital distribution
non-humanoid protagonist
character growth
leaderboard
eat or be eaten

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The objective of the game is to control a snake, also known as "slithers", around a wide area and eat pellets, defeating and consuming other players to gain mass to grow the largest and longest in the game. Once players are spawned into the virtual world, their avatar remains in constant motion. If the player's snake's head collides with another slither's body, the player will die. The defeated avatar's body turns into bright, larger shining pellets for other players to consume.

These pellets that remain from "death" of an avatar will correspond to the color of the avatar itself, and are both brighter and bigger than "normal" pellets, which spawn naturally throughout the world. Normal pellets do not give as much mass as pellets dropped from other snakes. "Chase" pellets will appear individually in various places of the world and can be obtained by boosting; when eaten, they give a greater amount of mass than pellets dropped by other snakes. Chase pellets avoid snakes and flee when they draw near.

Development

According to game creator Steven Howse, he was inspired to create the game while he was experiencing financial problems. io. He had long wanted to create an online multiplayer game, however Adobe Flash was the only development option at the time, and not wanting to use this method, he paused the idea for a while. io.

The most difficult part of the development was in making each server stable enough to handle 600 players at a time. Howse struggled to find space on servers with enough space in regions where there was more demand and tried to avoid cloud services like Amazon Web Services, owing to the high cost that these services would incur based on the amount of bandwidth used.

Reception

Soon after release, Slither.io reached the top of the App Store sales charts in the free software category in several regions, including the United States and the United Kingdom. By the end of 2016, Slither.io had become Google's most searched video game of the year in the United States.

io's popularity. She noted the game's fast pace. Boing Boing compared the game's core mechanic to that of the 2009 game Osmos. io will be leaving my home screen anytime soon."