Subterfuge

In-app purchases
9.2K reviews
Content rating
Everyone
100K+
Downloads
Content rating
Everyone
Tobacco Reference, Violent References
Users Interact, Digital Purchases
Learn more
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About this game

• Multiplayer Game of the Year 2015 by Pocket Tactics *
• Best Mobile Games of 2015 by CNET *

Subterfuge is a week-long multiplayer game of strategy, diplomacy, and betrayal that plays out in real time. Check in for ten minutes, a few times a day: read the sonar, schedule your orders, and reply to the ally who insists the fleet massing on your border is "purely defensive." Then close the game and get on with your day while your plans execute.

Buy Once, Play Anywhere

Buying the game on mobile gives you full access to the Steam version.

Drive the Time Machine

Drag the Time Machine forward and watch tomorrow unfold. See where every visible sub will be, how combat resolves, and what your factories will have produced by Thursday. Then, schedule your own orders to execute at any moment, hours or days ahead. Launch the invasion at 4:12 a.m. without setting an alarm but remember everyone else has a Time Machine too.

Depth that fits around your life

A game of Subterfuge lasts a week or more, but a session lasts minutes. It was designed by two new parents who wanted Diplomacy-grade scheming without giving up their evenings. The strategy happens in your head and on your schedule.

The real map is the other players

Every alliance, border pact, joint strike, and deception in Subterfuge happens in chat. None of it is enforced by the game. A treaty is worth exactly as much as the person who signed it, intel is worth exactly as much as its source, and the player feeding you sonar reports may be feeding your rival the same. Winning means reading people as sharply as you read the map.

No dice. No luck. Only people.

The Time Machine can show you tomorrow because there is no randomness. Every battle can be forecast down to the last driller before it happens. Recruit powerful specialists to tilt the math and bend the rules. The only truly unknowable variable in Subterfuge is human intention.

Community Crossplay Since 2015

Join a cross-platform player pool that has kept Subterfuge alive and updated for over a decade. Play the same game from your desk and your phone. Open the war room on a second monitor at work, then answer a treacherous counter-offer from the school pickup line.

A typical week

• Day 1: Nine polite introductions. Four proposed alliances. One of them is sincere.
• Day 2: You and your neighbor agree to keep borders demilitarized. You both start counting drillers.
• Day 4: Your ally proposes a joint strike on the olive. Olive has just proposed the same about your ally.
• Day 5: Drill a mine. Sonar picks up a "defensive" fleet drifting towards it, thirty hours out. Plenty of time. You schedule your counter, draft two very different messages, and head to lunch.
• Day 6: The trap you scheduled yesterday ago springs mid-meeting, exactly as planned. You watch it from your desk and say nothing.
• Day 7: Trap closed. Olive's mine captured.
• Day 8: Victory. Your former ally sends a simple message: "Well played. Rematch?"
A week-long multiplayer game of strategy, diplomacy, and betrayal
Updated on
Oct 9, 2026

Data safety

Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. Data privacy and security practices may vary based on your use, region, and age. The developer provided this information and may update it over time.
  • This app may share these data types with third parties
    Device or other IDs
  • This app may collect these data types
    Device or other IDs
  • Data is encrypted in transit
  • You can request that data be deleted

Ratings and reviews

8.3K reviews
Jared Iles
April 18, 2026
This is a master class strategy game. I have been fortunate enough to convince my friends to play this game, so I can't speak on having to play against randoms, but I have had a ton of fun every single game. the game has a ton of strategic depth. If you have 20 minutes, I thoroughly recommend picking the game up for free and trying the tactical puzzles to see what the game has to offer.
7 people found this review helpful
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A Google user
January 25, 2020
This is one of the best strategy games you can get for mobile. The graphics are simple, but the game's mechanics allow for infinite variations of strategy. The biggest part of this game is the diplomacy aspect, which is expertly executed. You have a chat button to talk to other players, and this is how you make alliances. However, there is no in-game mechanic keeping you from breaking whatever agreement you made. You must trust your allies, or betray them to win. Excellent game!
52 people found this review helpful
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Edmundo Vega
April 13, 2021
This game is one of the most intense games I've ever played. It is forced diplomacy which is extremely rare. It is life consuming though. So unless you have a lot of free time and sleep sporadically the game may be too much to handle. If you pay however the game is perfect. But without paying the multi boxers will make the experience unworthy. There are a lot of cheaters and trolls so the best thing is to pay and control the hosting then they can be avoided.
20 people found this review helpful
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Content rating
Everyone
Tobacco Reference, Violent References
Users Interact, Digital Purchases
Learn more

App support

About the developer
SECRET PLAN LLC
info@gameshovel.com
1437 Beechwood Blvd Pittsburgh, PA 15217-1326 United States
+1 412-345-3068

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