What Is Dino Swords by MSCHF and How Do You Play It?

Updated

Dino Swords is a browser game made by MSCHF in collaboration with 100 Thieves, built around the tagline "Little Arms; Big Guns." It is playable only in portrait mode, so you need to rotate your phone or narrow your desktop window before the game will run. The goal is to find and use up to 26 different weapons, chase a high score, and compete on a global leaderboard — with a prize going to the highest score after one week.

Who Made It and What Makes It Distinctive

The game is credited on its site as "DINO SWORDS BY MSCHF X 100 THIEVES." MSCHF is the studio behind a string of internet-native stunts and browser toys, and 100 Thieves is the gaming and lifestyle brand co-founded by Nadeshot. That pairing explains the game's tone: a small, deliberately odd arcade concept with a competitive hook bolted on.

What sets it apart from a typical endless runner is the weapon system. Rather than one fixed attack, the game asks you to discover and cycle through as many as 26 different weapons. The "little arms, big guns" framing is the joke and the mechanic at once — a small character wielding an absurd arsenal.

The Portrait-Mode Requirement

The first thing you will see is a prompt to rotate your device. The site states plainly: "Dino Swords is only playable in portrait mode." This is a hard gate, not a suggestion.

  • On a phone or tablet: hold the device vertically. If you are in landscape, rotate it until the game loads.
  • On a desktop or laptop: a full-width browser window is landscape by default, so the game may refuse to start. Narrow the window into a tall, phone-like shape until the portrait prompt clears.

If the game appears stuck on the rotation screen, the usual cause is simply that the viewport is still wider than it is tall. Resizing is the fix; there is no separate setting to override it.

How to Play: The Core Loop

The site's own instructions are brief: "Find and use up to 26 different weapons" and "Compete for the highscore on the global leaderboard." From that, the loop breaks down into three habits:

  1. Find weapons. Part of the challenge is discovery — the arsenal is not handed to you up front. Expect to experiment as you play rather than reading a move list first.
  2. Use them. Each weapon presumably behaves differently, so the skill is knowing when to deploy which one rather than mashing a single button.
  3. Survive and score. Your run feeds a single high score, which is what the leaderboard tracks.

Because the site does not publish a full control scheme or weapon list, the practical advice is to start a run and treat the first few attempts as exploration. Note which weapons appear and how they change your options.

Scoring, the Leaderboard, and the One-Week Prize

The competitive structure is stated directly on the page:

  • Scores post to a global leaderboard.
  • The highest score after one week wins a prize. The site marks the prize itself with a "🤫" emoji, so the reward is intentionally undisclosed.
  • The leaderboard shows all-time standings alongside daily results, and the page notes that "daily scores are locked."

That last point matters for how you plan. If daily scores are locked, a given day's board is settled rather than live — so a strong run needs to land inside the window that still counts. Check the leaderboard state before assuming a score is still in play, and treat the one-week prize window as a deadline rather than an open-ended contest.

What to Expect Before You Start

  • It is a browser game. No install is described on the site; you load it and play.
  • Portrait is mandatory. Sort out your screen orientation first, or you will not get past the prompt.
  • The arsenal is the content. With 26 weapons to find, replay value comes from discovery, not from a long level structure.
  • The competition is time-boxed. The prize attaches to the top score within one week, and daily boards lock, so timing your best runs is part of the game.

If you want a quick, strange arcade distraction with a real leaderboard stake, rotate your screen and start hunting weapons. If you need a landscape-friendly or installable game, this one's portrait-only design will get in your way from the first second.