10 Best Browser Games for Power Outages (Offline)

Storm warnings or rolling blackouts can knock out power for hours or days. If you have a phone or laptop with charge but no WiFi (because your router is unpowered), your entertainment options shrink fast. The best browser games for power outages are simple single-player games: once a game page has fully loaded, it runs in your browser without talking to a server, and none of these need a powerful laptop. Here are 13 to open on your devices before the outage, while you still have a connection.

Key takeaways

Open each game in its own tab while you still have internet, and leave the tabs open.
A loaded tab keeps working offline, but reloading it without a connection usually fails.
Puzzle and card games with endless deals or generated puzzles last longest: Sudoku, Solitaire, Chess, Picross.
Keep your phone charged for calls and updates first; play on the device you can afford to run down.

What makes a good power-outage game

Three things matter when the power is out. The game has to work after it has loaded, with no server, login or daily puzzle to download. It should be light, so it doesn’t drain an older laptop or phone faster than necessary. And it needs replay value, because you can’t switch to a new game once you are offline.

Every pick below is a single-player game that runs inside one page. Most of them either generate new puzzles in the page or deal a fresh shuffle every time, so one open tab can last a long evening.

1. Sudoku

Six difficulty levels, from Easy to Inhuman, and every puzzle is generated in the page, so you never run out. Progress isn’t saved, so finish a puzzle before closing the tab. Play Sudoku.

2. Wordle

Our version picks a random word from a list built into the page (unlike the NYT game, which serves one puzzle a day), so a loaded tab keeps giving you new words with no connection. Press New word for another round. Play Wordle.

3. Klondike Solitaire

Endless deals. Drag-and-drop, undo, hint — full feature set. Play Klondike Solitaire.

4. FreeCell

Variant of solitaire where all the cards are dealt face up, and nearly every deal is solvable. Will eat hours. Play FreeCell.

5. Spider Solitaire

Different rules from Klondike. Harder, with 1-suit, 2-suit and 4-suit modes, so you can step up the difficulty as the night goes on. More replay value during a long outage. Play Spider Solitaire.

6. Minesweeper

Quick games. Beginner, Intermediate and Expert boards. The first click is always safe, so you never lose on a blind opening move. Play Minesweeper.

7. Mahjong Solitaire

Long-form pattern matching on the classic turtle layout, with Hint and Undo when you get stuck. Play Mahjong Solitaire.

8. Chess

Single-player against the computer, with Easy, Medium and Hard settings. The deepest game on this list for killing time over a multi-day outage. Play Chess.

9. Tetris

Endless score-chasing, and light enough for an old laptop. Arrow keys move and rotate, Down soft-drops and Space hard-drops. Play Tetris.

10. 2048

Pure puzzle logic. Saves your game in the browser’s local storage, so it is still there after you close and reopen the browser. Play 2048.

11. Sokoban

Push boxes onto targets across 15 built-in levels. It is slow, thoughtful and turn-based, so it never punishes you for stopping to check the weather radio. Undo and Restart keep a bad push from ruining a level. Play Sokoban.

12. Picross

Nonogram logic puzzles in 5×5, 10×10 and 15×15 sizes. New Puzzle builds a fresh random grid in the page, so like Sudoku it doesn’t run out while you are offline. Play Picross.

13. Golf Solitaire

A fast solitaire where you play cards one rank up or down onto the waste pile. A deal takes a few minutes, which makes it a good fit when you want to save battery with short sessions. Play Golf Solitaire.

Offline browser games compared

Game	Session length	New content offline	Keeps a game after the tab closes
Sudoku	Medium to long	Generated puzzles, six levels	No
Wordle	Short	Random word each round	No (stats only)
Klondike, FreeCell, Spider	Medium	New deal every game	No
Minesweeper	Short to medium	New board every game	No
Chess	Long	Computer opponent	No
2048	Medium	Random tiles	Yes
Sokoban	Medium	15 fixed levels	No (best moves only)
Picross	Short to long	Random puzzles, three sizes	No (best times only)

How to pre-load games before the outage

Open each game in its own tab before losing internet and let it load fully. Then leave those tabs open: the games keep running in the page, but reloading a tab without a connection will usually fail, because these pages don’t install an offline mode. Test it by turning on airplane mode and playing each open tab.

Bookmark the game pages too, so you can reopen them quickly as soon as the connection is back. For a game that is truly built into the browser, Chrome’s own dino game appears on the no-internet page; see our guide to playing Chrome Dino offline. You can also load our Chrome Dino game in a tab ahead of time. For more on what does and doesn’t survive a lost connection, read can you play browser games without WiFi.

Battery management during an outage

Screen brightness is usually the biggest battery drain you control, so turn it down. Turn WiFi off while playing too — with the router down it only wastes power searching for networks, and the open games don’t need it.

On a phone, airplane mode does the same job. How long you get depends entirely on your device and battery health, so check your battery level before settling in for a long session. Turn-based games like Sudoku, Sokoban and Solitaire also let you put the device down between moves; see our list of browser games for airplane mode for more picks that behave well offline.

Conservation strategy

In a multi-day outage, keep your phone charged for calls and emergency updates first. Use the laptop or a tablet for games, since it is the device you can most afford to run down, and save any battery pack for the phone.

How to choose what to load

A short outage (an hour or two): Wordle, Minesweeper and Golf Solitaire give you quick rounds.
An evening without power: Klondike, FreeCell, Mahjong Solitaire and 2048 fill a few hours.
A multi-day outage: Chess, Sudoku and Picross have the most replay value, because the opponent or the puzzle is new every time.
Sharing one device with family: turn-based games are easiest to pass around; Chess vs the computer and Sokoban work well with someone watching.

What doesn’t work offline

Streaming (Netflix, Spotify). Multiplayer anything. Cloud-only games. Games with login screens. App-store games that require store authentication periodically. The games above avoid these problems because each runs entirely inside a single page that doesn’t need to reach a server once it has loaded. For how true offline web games work, see our explainer on service workers and offline games.

Frequently asked questions

Can you play browser games during a power outage?

Yes, if the game is already loaded. Your router needs power, so you will likely lose WiFi, but a single-player game that has fully loaded in a tab keeps running without a connection. Load the games before the outage and don’t reload the tabs.

What happens if I refresh a game tab with no internet?

It will usually fail and show your browser’s offline page. These game pages don’t install an offline mode, so the browser needs a connection to load them again. In Chrome, that offline page is where the built-in dino game appears.

Which games last longest without internet?

Games that generate new content in the page: Sudoku, Picross and the solitaire games deal or build a new puzzle every time, and Chess gives you a computer opponent. Sokoban has 15 fixed levels, so it eventually runs out.

Do these games use mobile data?

Loading a game page uses data, so open them on WiFi before the outage if you can. After that, the games themselves don’t need the network to play, and with airplane mode on nothing is sent at all.

Will my progress be saved if the battery dies?

Mostly no. Of the games here, only 2048 saves the game in progress to your browser’s storage. Wordle, Sokoban and Picross remember stats or best results, but a half-finished Sudoku or Solitaire deal is lost when the tab closes.

Get ready before the lights go out

Open three or four of these in tabs now, test them in airplane mode, and you have a night of puzzles ready. If you only load one thing, make it the endless Sudoku, and keep the T-Rex Runner on our homepage for a quick break.

13 Best Browser Games for Power Outages (Works Offline, No WiFi)