Play 4x4 Rubik's Cube Online
Play a 4x4 Rubik's cube online for free: a virtual Rubik's Revenge you turn with mouse, touch or keyboard, inner slices and wide turns included, with a scramble button, undo, a move list, an optional timer and a direct line to the 4x4 solver.
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Your moves show up here.
Drag a face to turn it, drag the background to rotate the cube. Keyboard: U D L R F B turn a face, add Shift to turn it counter-clockwise. Press a layer number first (2, or 3 on a 5x5) to turn an inner layer, W switches wide turns on or off, Backspace undoes. Drag with Shift held for a wide turn.
How to play the 4x4 Rubik's cube online
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Scramble the virtual 4x4
Press Scramble and the cube jumps to a position made of 40 random turns, mixing outer faces and two-layer wide turns. You can also start from the solved cube and mix it by hand.
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Drag to turn any layer
Drag across a sticker in the direction it should move. An outer-row sticker turns that face; one in an inner row turns only that inner layer, which the move list writes as 2R, 2U and so on.
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Switch on wide turns
Tick Wide turns, press W or hold Shift while dragging to move two layers together (Rw). With the box ticked, the move buttons and the face keys turn two layers as well.
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Solve it or hand it over
After a scramble, the simulator shows Solved! as soon as every face is one color again. If you lose your way, Solve this state opens the exact position in the 4x4 solver.
Inner layers, wide turns and the keys for them
| Move | Mouse or touch | Keyboard |
|---|---|---|
| Outer face (R) | Drag across a sticker in an outer row or column | U, D, L, R, F, B; Shift reverses |
| Inner layer (2R) | Drag across a sticker in one of the two inner rows | 2, then the face letter |
| Two layers (Rw) | Hold Shift while dragging, or tick Wide turns | W switches wide turns on or off |
| Look around | Drag the background, right-drag or use two fingers | – |
Each drag is exactly one quarter turn, and its direction, not its length, decides which way the layer goes; a plain tap turns nothing. A layer number counts for the next letter only: 2 then R turns the inner layer, and a second R on its own turns the outer face again. Inner layers are always logged from the nearer face, so a drag next to the left face shows as 2L rather than 3R. With Wide turns ticked, the twelve move buttons turn two layers instead of one, and Undo or Backspace takes back one turn at a time.
No fixed centers: how a 4x4 differs from a 3x3
A 4x4 has 56 visible pieces: 8 corners, 24 edge pieces and 24 center pieces, four on each face. None of the centers is fixed. They slide from face to face whenever an inner layer turns, so on a scrambled 4x4 nothing tells you which color belongs where. You decide that by building the first center, and the color scheme settles the rest: white opposite yellow, red opposite orange, green opposite blue.
The edges are different too. Each edge of the cube is two separate pieces that only look like a single edge once they are paired, and they can be paired the wrong way round. That is where parity comes from: after reduction, a 4x4 can show one flipped edge pair or two swapped ones, positions no 3x3 can reach. The simulator models all of this piece by piece, so every parity case can happen here exactly as on a real cube.
Scrambling the 4x4 online
Scramble jumps straight to a mixed cube, without animation. The position comes from 40 random turns, a mix of outer faces and two-layer wide turns in quarter and half turns, never turning the same axis twice in a row. That is a random-move scramble, not the random-state kind used on the 3x3 simulator and at official competitions, but 40 turns mix the centers and edges thoroughly. The sequence is not shown, and a new scramble clears the move list and the clock.
To start from one particular position, write the moves into the address instead, for example /simulator/4x4?alg=Rw U2 2R F'. Rw, lowercase r and 2R are all understood, and a sequence the page cannot read is ignored without a warning.
Practising centers, edge pairs and parity on a virtual 4x4
A virtual cube is a patient place to learn reduction, because Undo takes back any experiment. For the centers, the usual trick is an inner-slice round trip: turn an inner row to lift a center piece onto the face you are building, turn that face to line it up, then turn the same row back. Edge pairing uses the same idea with wide turns; tick Wide turns for moves such as Uw and untick it for single slices.
Parity cases can be set up on their own with the address trick. /simulator/4x4?alg=2R2 U2 2R2 Uw2 2R2 2U2 opens a solved cube whose front-top and back-top edge pairs have swapped places, ready for you to fix. There are no half-turn keys, so 2R2 means pressing 2 and R, twice. The algorithms themselves, with 3D demonstrations, are in how to solve a 4x4 Rubik’s cube step by step.
Timing a solve on the 4x4x4 cube online
Tick Time my solve and a Timer appears next to the move counter. It does not start when you press Scramble but with your first turn afterward, so you can look the cube over first. When all six faces show one color, the clock stops and one line reports your move count and your time.
Because every drag and key press is a quarter turn, a half turn counts as two moves here. Turning a 4x4 with a mouse or a finger also takes far longer than by hand, so compare these times only with each other. Nothing is stored, so note down a result you want to keep.
Stuck halfway? Send your 4x4 to the reduction solver
Solve this state opens the 4x4 Rubik’s cube solver with all 96 stickers of your virtual cube already filled in. Press Solve there for a reduction solution in four stages, Centers, Pair the edges, Parity and Finish it as a 3x3, each with a short explanation and a 3D replay you can step through. Its Play with this cube button sends the position back here, so you can read a stage there and try it on the virtual cube. When the 4x4 feels comfortable, the 5x5 Rubik’s cube online takes the same plan further, with fixed centers and three-piece edges.
4x4 Rubik's cube online: questions from players
Is 4x4 harder than 3x3?
Yes for most people, mainly because there is more to do rather than because the ideas are harder. Before the familiar 3x3 solve you build six centers and pair 24 edge pieces into 12 edges, and two parity cases can appear that a 3x3 never has. If you can already solve a 3x3, most of what you know carries straight over.
What is a 4x4 Rubik's cube called?
Its original name is Rubik's Revenge, from its 1981 launch as the harder follow-up to the 3x3. Other makers sell it as the Master Cube or simply the 4x4x4, which names its three dimensions. Whatever the label, it is the same puzzle with 56 visible pieces and no fixed centers.
Can I play the 4x4 online for free, without downloading anything?
Yes. The virtual 4x4 is an ordinary web page, so it runs in the browser of a computer, tablet or phone with no app, no download and no account. Every feature is included: inner slices, wide turns, scrambles, undo, the timer and the hand-off to the 4x4 solver.
Can I play the 4x4 online with a friend?
Not together in real time. You can pass a position along, though: press Solve this state, then use Copy share link on the solver page and send it. Your friend opens the link, presses Solve and then Play with this cube to get the same 4x4 in their own simulator.
Can I change the colors on the virtual 4x4?
Yes. Colors opens six color pickers, one for each face color, so you can match your own cube or make red and orange easier to tell apart. The choice is saved in this browser and repaints the other cubes and the solvers too. Reset to default colors restores the standard six.
Is the virtual 4x4 good practice for a real one?
For learning, yes: you can rehearse the order of the stages, set up parity cases on purpose and undo any mistake. For speed, no: a drag is slower than a finger trick and the hand movements are different. Learn the method here, then build speed on a real cube with the timer.