How to play PewPewPew

PewPewPew is a free multiplayer space shooter that runs in your browser. You fly a small ship in a live room, shoot the other pilots and try to stay alive. Here is everything you need to know before your first dogfight.

A live PewPewPew match: pilots fly among rocks and trade fire

In your browser, on phone or computer. No download, no account.

Play free now

Start in seconds

Open pewpewpew.io. The live match is already playing behind the join card.
Type a name, or press the dice for a random one.
Press Play now. You join that same room at once, with a short shield while you get your bearings.

How your ship flies

Your ship turns fast and keeps its speed when you let go of thrust: there is no drag in space, so you drift until you push the other way.
Reverse pushes you backwards, which is the quickest way to brake or back away from a fight.
The arena wraps around. Fly off one edge and you come back on the other side, and so do bolts and rocks.
Ships do not crash into each other, but rocks hurt: flying into one costs a big part of your life bar and breaks the rock.

Shooting

Hold Fire to shoot without pause. Your bolts fly straight and carry your ship's own speed, so shots fired while you charge in go further.
A rock stops a bolt, so rocks are cover for you and for everyone else.
Your aim gets a small helping nudge towards a ship right in front of you, as long as no rock is in the way.
Pick up Double Shot to make your cannon stronger. See power-ups and cannons.

Controls

Action	Keyboard	Phone or tablet
Thrust	W or Up arrow	Push the stick
Turn	A and D, or Left and Right arrows	Point the stick
Reverse	S or Down arrow	Pull the stick back (Arrows stick)
Fire	Space	FIRE button
Use a power-up	E, Ctrl or Shift	USE button
Scoreboard	Tab	Scores button
Settings	Esc, or the gear at the top right	The gear at the top right

Keys follow their place on the keyboard, so on an AZERTY keyboard you fly with ZQSD. In Settings you can give each action up to three keys of your own, put the touch buttons on the left for a left hand, and switch the touch stick from Point (the ship turns to where you point and thrusts near the rim) to Arrows (up, down, left and right like the arrow keys).

Score, life and respawn

Your score is your kills minus your deaths. Only a bolt from another pilot counts as a kill; crashing into a rock is a death that gives nobody a point.
Your life bar grows back slowly all the time, so backing off for a moment really helps.
When you are shot down, the kill cam replays the moment. Press Play again, or Fire, to fly back in.
Every new life starts with a short shield, the room's start cannon and an empty power-up slot.

Kill streaks and badges

Badges show next to your name while you live and are gone when you die. A higher badge replaces a lower one of the same kind.

First blood: The first kill of the room or of the round.
Killing spree, Monster kill, Rampage, Unstoppable: Kills in a row without dying: 3, 5, 10 and 20.
Double kill, Multi kill: Two kills within two seconds, then a third within two seconds of the last.
Revenge: Shoot down the pilot who last shot you down.
Shutdown: End another pilot's streak of three or more.
Kingslayer: Shoot down the pilot leading the room.
Close call: Get a kill while your life is under a quarter.
Rock breaker: Hit twelve rocks in one life.
Fully loaded: Reach the triple cannon.
Survivor, Veteran: Stay alive for one minute, then three.

Pilot tips

Keep moving. A drifting ship is hard to hit, and you can turn and shoot while you drift.
Fight near rocks. Duck behind one when your life is low and let it soak up the shots.
Shoot the smallest rocks: they can drop power-ups, and Double Shot makes every hit count for more.
Save Health for a close fight and Shield for when two pilots chase you at once.
The pilot at the top of the scoreboard is worth a Kingslayer badge.