SEPARATION

01Start here

SEPARATION is online 1v1 football in the browser. One player is the wide receiver, the other the cornerback, and an AI quarterback throws the ball. Physics run on the server at 60 ticks a second and nothing is a dice roll: catches, tackles and swats are timing and position.

Pick your name and mode on the main menu, then TAKE THE FIELD. From the Promenade, walk through the tunnel on the west side (or use the ARENA tab on the room bar) to reach the arena; challenge a player standing next to you for a private duel.

02Controls on the field

Everything can be rebound under Settings (main menu, or Esc during a game). Defaults:

03A drive

• Every drive starts at the offense's own 20 with four downs; a first down needs 10 yards; a touchdown is 7.
• Possession swaps after a touchdown, an interception or a turnover on downs (the new offense takes over where the ball was, mirrored).
• A pick is not a turnover until the corner has secured it for about a third of a second: a hit stick before then knocks it loose, pass broken up. Secured, he returns it the other way against the receiver and the quarterback; across the goal line it is a pick-six.
• A catch or pick made in the air is pending until the feet come down: in bounds it stands, out of bounds it is incomplete.
• The play clock has two halves: the throw must come inside 14 s, and a live carry (a catch, a pick, a return) ends only on a tackle, out of bounds, a score, standing still for 2 s, or a 35 s cap. A long return at a jog goes the distance.
• The route tree. Each play the receiver is dealt one of 15 routes, painted on the turf with numbered cut points, and only the receiver sees it: Flat, Slant, Comeback, Curl, Out, Dig, Corner, Post, Go, Hitch, Fade, Slant & Go, Out & Up, Whip, Deep Cross. R and Tab step through the tree before the snap.
• The quarterback reads the same route and throws when you are open, when the route breaks with separation, when you call for it, or at 3.8 s regardless. He judges where you really are, so rounding a cut wide does not fool him, and if you leave the route he throws to where you are going.
• Big stops get the BURIED coffin: a fourth-down tackle short of the sticks, a safety, or a fumble popped loose by a hit stick.

04Playing receiver

Off the line

You start in a split stance and drive low for the first five yards. The CPU corner jams in press coverage: B within two yards throws a club and rip that swipes his hands off so you burst free ("SWIPED!"). If you both throw hands at once it is a stalemate and you are shoved apart.

Cuts and footwork

• Route cut G at a numbered point: tap for a stutter lean that keeps your speed, hold to kill momentum and drive out the next leg.
• Jukes Z/C: a tap is a one-yard side-step fake with control back in a blink; a press commits to the full cut about 4.5 yards out; a hold is a jump cut. Hit the other juke key during a fake to cut back instantly (fake and go). Cutting against a corner closing hard the other way breaks his ankles for a moment.
• Plants Q/E: hold to load onto that foot (the longer, the harder the exit), release to fire off it in the direction you hold. Hopscotch them (Q, E, Q, E) or chop both for a stutter breakdown.
• Decel: S while running hard plants and breaks you down instead of backpedalling. A quick S tap out of a full sprint is the hitch: a dead stop and a 180° snap back to the quarterback into a ready crouch.
• Sidestep: tap A or D while running for a crossover that keeps your speed. Jet-glide: double-tap A or D for a 320 ms thruster slide that sheds a wrap tackle; it costs a third of your stamina.
• Fighting-game tech: the rocker step (the other side in the first frames of a cut counter-cuts with extra pop), the wavedash (Space while sprinting diagonally), the dash-dance (release and re-press W within 100 ms to stutter without losing speed), and the gaze bait (whip the mouse toward the fake as you cut: your shoulders sell it while your legs run the real cut).
• Spin X: a tackle landing mid-spin is a coin flip to break. Dive F: lay out in any direction, with a tuck and roll to get up; diving catches count.
• Stamina: sprinting empties the bar in about five seconds and it refills slower. Under 5% you can only fake, not commit a cut. Your bones crack visually when you tire; it is cosmetic.

With the ball

• The ball goes high and tight into the catching arm and stays there through every move.
• Reach: hold left mouse to stretch the ball out almost a yard (dive while holding for a yard and a half). The ball crossing the plane scores and tackles are spotted where the ball is, but you run 20% slower and a tackle while reaching is always a fumble.
• Stiff arm right mouse: shoves a wrap or contact tackler from the front or side into a stumble for 20% stamina. Dive tackles beat it.
• Tackles are physics: a hard square hit wraps you up on contact; a slower or off-angle one is an arm wrap you can shed inside 180 ms with a plant or a jet-glide; far more momentum than the tackler drags him a couple of yards. Falling across the goal line from the one counts.

05Catching

• Hold left mouse to bring your hands up; nothing is caught with them down. Press it no earlier than about a fifth of a second before the ball reaches your hands: too early and it is "DROPPED, HANDS UP TOO EARLY", too late and it goes by. Within 50 ms of arrival is a perfect catch.
• See it in: keep the crosshair on the ball while it flies. The ring around it tightens and turns gold at full lock; a locked-in catch has a bigger secure radius and tight coverage cannot knock it loose ("SAW IT IN!"). Look away and the lock drains; low lock on arrival means a bobble or a drop.
• Catch bloom: with the option on in the crosshair customizer (K), the reticle swells while a catch is possible.
• Hands: you catch with the nearer hand; both go up only on a high ball or a jump. A ball right into the palm is safe, a fingertip grab is a gamble, contested and over-the-shoulder catches are harder. Just past your reach, a desperation grab sticks one time in ten ("CIRCUS CATCH!").
• Tips and the tip drill: a ball that only reaches the edge of your hand pops up and stays live; whoever gets hands under it before it drops takes it, a completion for you ("TIP DRILL!") or a pick for the corner.
• Pro catching (Settings): a click within 50 ms of the ball entering your hands is clean even on the fingertips ("PERFECT TIMING!"). The hands-up window is shorter in return.
• The one-hand snag: a ball behind and above your head, your gaze locked, a click as it crosses one-hand reach: you arch back and snatch it one-handed, then slide.
• In the air with the corner: a high ball, a hard crossing collision and a near-perfect press is the "SPECTACULAR SNAG!"; a mistimed press is jarred loose; running the same lane gets a hip ride and a tip; a slow jump ball is an upright contested catch.
• First person (V): your gloves rise into a receiving diamond and close on the ball; airborne, your reach grows and the view eases toward the ball.

06Playing cornerback

• Backpedal on S; A/D while pedalling opens the hips toward the break; Q/E plant a T-step; Shift+S is the speed turn, flipping you to run flat out with your head over your shoulder.
• Press: B within two yards is a two-hand jam that knocks the receiver off his line ("JAMMED!").
• Swat right mouse with the ball within reach: timed, it spikes the pass into the turf ("SWATTED!"); a hand on it without the timing tips it live ("TIPPED!"), and the tip drill is on.
• Intercept with left mouse, the same window as a catch. A pick is yours once you have held it for a third of a second; then return it.
• Tackle and hit stick right mouse: a square hit at speed wraps the carrier on contact; a trailing or side swipe is an arm wrap he can shed; the hit stick lifts and drives him back and can jar a fresh catch loose. A miss leaves you stumbling. Dive tackles at the legs beat stiff arms.
• The CPU corner at Rookie, Pro, All-Pro and Legend reacts faster and moves better at each step; it never reads the route.
• Spectators and the lobby: a third player in the room watches from the stands; when a seat frees, the longest-waiting spectator steps in.

07Quarterback (Triad and the QB Lab)

• Left mouse by press length: a flick with the receiver inside 14 m is a shovel, a tap a bullet, a longer hold a touch pass whose charge shapes the arc. Right mouse draws a lob; a tap pump-fakes.
• The ball is cradled high and protected while you read; hold it past 6.5 s and you are sacked.
• The landing marker (L) and the ghost arc show where the ball comes down; the flight is exact, so trust them.
• In every other mode the AI quarterback calls a cadence only the receiver hears ("Blue 80! Set, hut!") and throws on the reads described above.

08The Promenade

Open the game in hub mode and you are on the COSMO Promenade, a sealed space-station deck under seven girder ribs, with nebula windows, market tickers and a jumbotron. WASD walk, Shift runs, Space jumps, click for mouse look, E interacts with whatever the prompt names, 1–6 emote. The room bar at the top switches between PROMENADE, ARENA and SPACEWALK.

09Friends, duels, voice

• Friend codes: J on the deck (F7 on the field) opens the friends drawer with your 12-digit code. Add a friend's code to see when they are online, where they are, and to JOIN their room or VISIT their apartment. A code names you; nobody can play as you with it.
• Duels: stand next to someone on the deck and press E to challenge; they answer Y or N. Both of you land in a private arena room, the challenger on offense, with your outfits intact.
• Profiles: I next to a player opens their career card (record, catches, tackles, your head-to-head). T on the field is the tale of the tape against your opponent.
• Leaderboard: L on the deck or F8 on the field: wins, win % (three or more drives), touchdowns, interceptions and tackles; your row is lit; click a row for that player's card. The jumbotron shows the top five by wins.
• Voice: the mic button top right (or T on the deck) toggles your microphone; INCOMING ON / OFF silences everyone else. Voice is proximity-based: full within a couple of yards, half at 15 m, silent past 36 m. A speaker icon pulses over whoever is talking.

10Your look

Four layers travel together, saved on your device and under your account, and everyone sees them: on the deck, in the arena, in a duel.

• Customize (main menu or Esc): helmet and visor, grills, chains with a pendant, gloves, cleats that leave neon trails, neon colours and your number, the jersey, PS1-style fits (tees, hoodies, dusters, cargos and more), three bodies (Neon Skeleton, Shard Runner with a faceless or skull head, Shard Skeleton), the football's skin and air effect, meme gear (the giant bell chain, the shemagh hood, big red boots, backblings) and sound packs.
• Fit Customizer / Deck 07: the Orbital Deck outfit slot by slot, headgear to footwear, neck and hands, colourways and finish, with presets. J and I cycle presets and colourways mid-game.
• Shop and VOIDMARKET: ARMAGEDDON OF GAMES is the station locker-room shop; VOIDMARKET is a faux resale site with asks, bids, price charts and try-on. Buying is free for now.
• COSMO LOCKER (K on the deck): drip pieces that cover fit slots, including whole skins.
• BODY / IDENTITY: skin tone, hairstyle and colour, nails, tattoos, rings and earrings, painted onto the body.

11Settings and the radio

• Game: your name, the mode, CPU difficulty, what you start as, the practice drill, the QB voice cadence, pro catching, the landing marker, the physics readout.
• Feel: mouse sensitivity, invert Y, field of view, heading lock as hold or toggle, head bob in first person.
• Look: the visual mode (Orbital Deck is the game's look; Astro Olympus, Old School RS and PS1 Streetwear are alternates), retro pixels, neon glow, film grain (\), and the crosshair customizer (K): dot, cross, circle-dot, chevron or brackets, colour, size, gap, centre dot, catch bloom.
• Radio: N cycles stations and shows the name in the corner; O skips a song, U mutes the music, M mutes effects. Settings has the station, the music volume, bass boost (a sub-bass shelf with trunk rattle), a custom music folder of your own files, and a YouTube link (a video, playlist or live stream) as a station.
• Screenshots: F2 hides the HUD and frees the camera, F4 freezes the frame, Enter saves a PNG.

12Practice Lab

Every rep starts from the same spot with no downs, no clock and no out-of-bounds endings. Hotkeys are listed top right:

The telemetry panel shows your animation state, hit-stop and recovery frames, gaze lock and a colour-coded catch window (out of range, outer circle, fingertip zone, clean grab, perfect pro frame). The arena has a chalk grid with 5, 10 and 15 yard rings and a ghost arc of the ball's flight.

13Callouts

SAW IT IN! gaze-locked clean catch · PERFECT TIMING! pro-mode perfect press · FINGERTIP CATCH! held on at the edge · CIRCUS CATCH! the one-in-ten outer-circle grab · CONTESTED CATCH! won a jump ball · SPECTACULAR SNAG! the mid-air tangle · TIP DRILL! caught a live tip · REBOUND SNAG! the corner picked a live tip · JARRED LOOSE! contact knocked it out · DROPPED hands up too early or late · NEVER SAW IT you were not looking · SWATTED! timed swat · TIPPED! untimed hand on it · SWIPED! / JAMMED! the hand fight · SACKED! the human QB held it too long · BURIED the coffin.

14The test build (test.separation.gg)

test.separation.gg runs the kinetic combat overhaul, a separate build that changes often and is not in the live game. Your account, records and outfits are separate there. This section describes the build of 25 October 2026 (commit 71d1b18).

Keys that moved

• No more G, Z or C for cuts and jukes. K opens the combo list (the moves with their inputs, frame data and the corner's counters; also the COMBO LIST button top left). C opens the reticle customizer. T held opens the emote wheel, so the tale of the tape moved to G; on the Promenade T is the wheel too, so the mic toggle moved to U. M on the Promenade opens the travel menu. Saved bindings migrate on first load.

Footwork

• Slide: tap A or D while sprinting to step a lane sideways while keeping 93% of your speed; the spine banks and the lead arm swims across the hip. At a jog the same tap is the old crossover.
• The Glitch: A, D, A (or the mirror) inside 400 ms at a sprint. On the third step you shift 1.2 yards outward at full speed with extra pop out, and the corner's tracking of you freezes for a beat. Mash a fourth tap or break the rhythm and you stutter at 60% speed, off balance.
• Jet-glide: double-tap A or D for the thruster slide. An arm wrap that lands in its first 160 ms is shed ("GLIDE SHED!").
• Breakpoint cut: inside a numbered route ring, Q or E, or pushing the stick onto the new leg, cuts onto it (tap to lean, hold 70 ms to commit); the outside foot is the clean plant. Away from a ring, Q/E are the anchor plants as before. The other side inside four frames is the rocker counter-cut.
• Hitch: a quick S tap at a full sprint, or a breakpoint back toward the quarterback, stops you dead in five ticks and flips you 180° into a ready crouch; a catch out of it launches with 15% extra acceleration.
• T-step (corner): a quick S tap while trailing, or a quick W in the backpedal, kills your momentum in two ticks and drives you 180° downhill with a closing burst.
• Dive F: four phases over 1.4 s: the coil and launch, the layout in the air (your arms reach for the ball with real IK, or open into the wrap as the corner), the turf slide, the tuck and roll. A squared-up diving tackle at speed is the ankle trip; a slow one the wrap latch.

Catching

• Press cooldown 0.32 s (0.22 in pro mode). Pressing more than 220 ms early is no longer an automatic drop: with your gaze locked on the ball you juggle it for 12 ticks and then secure it ("BOBBLE SECURED!"; a hit in that window knocks it loose); with poor gaze it deflects into the live tip drill.
• A perfect press (within 50 ms of arrival) tucks the ball at once, a perfect catch in the end zone is six on the spot, and you are immune to the hit stick jarring it loose for 0.3 s.
• Your arms stay relaxed through the stem and snap up into the diamond or the basket only when you hold left mouse or the ball is half a second out.
• Illegal touching: step out of bounds and you cannot be the first to touch the pass.
• Two audibles a play; the route box counts them (AUDIBLES ●● down to ○○) and a third press pops NO AUDIBLES LEFT.

Rules and the quarterback

• The pocket clock: clean to 2.4 s, POCKET UNDER SIEGE from 2.5 s, and at 3.5 s with the ball still in the quarterback is sacked for a 7-yard loss (a turnover on fourth down). The AI QB no longer throws at 3.8 s regardless; blanketed, he eats the sack. Not in the Practice Lab.
• Match format: first to 21, or the higher score after three possessions each. Tied after six drives: college overtime from the opponent's 25, then single-play two-point tries from the 3.
• Collisions: receiver and corner are rigid 0.84-yard capsules that push each other apart; no phasing through.
• The AI QB solves the throw as real ballistics to where you will be, picks a bullet for breaking routes and a touch pass for deep boundary throws, places the ball on your outside shoulder when the corner has inside leverage and throws back-shoulder when he undercuts the break, holds his release while you are mid-cut, and releases within 100 ms when you call for it (RMB), to wherever you are going ("CALLING FOR IT!").
• You at quarterback (Triad, QB Lab): the pass is aimed by an intercept, never a raycast: the ball is thrown to where the receiver will be plus your lead, which is how far your aim sits from him on the screen (up to 1.5 yards along and across). A tap is the bullet, a hold past 200 ms the touch pass that floats the longer you hold, a flick up close the shovel. The HUD shows a tracking diamond on the receiver, the lead line, a landing ring on the deck and the arc while you charge; the lead is clamped so you cannot overthrow a receiver at full sprint.

The Promenade on the test build

• The arcology: the deck is a vertical city now. The concourse is half again as wide, ringed by storefronts with two mezzanine tiers, skybridges and crowds on lit walkways, dense signage, five stations and zones, under a geodesic titanium dome with luminous edge strips, crystal glazing and node beacons. The glass deck mirrors the dome's triangles.
• Weather: a thin haze, a condensation deck the towers vanish into, rain streaking past you with a wet film on the deck (dry under a roof, silent in zero g), four searchlight rigs sweeping the city, and a cratered moon and a ringed gas giant in the northern sky.
• The observation rail: an industrial telescope. E peers through the deep-space optics and eases the view into the eyepiece; Esc steps back.
• Travel: M (or the TRAVEL button under LEADERBOARD) lists every module, station and district; a click puts you at its threshold, facing it.
• The field's floodlights now throw real beams with pools on the glass, and the whole game renders with a stability pass: crisper edges, no flickering lines, nothing cut off near the camera.

Routes and the playbook

• 26 routes in five trees (quick, intermediate, vertical, double moves, screens) replace the fixed 15. Slant & Go and Deep Cross are gone; Deep Over is the crosser; Fade is an alias of Go. The Option route breaks on the corner's leverage.
• The Route Playbook terminal on the Promenade's west facade (one keypress away through the travel menu): a tab per tree, a row per route with its chalk, depth, cut, speed, ball-out window and tags. Equip up to 12 routes and blacklist the ones you never want; the quarterback deals only from your tree, pre-snap audibles step through it, and the field's route box shows your tree.

HUD, emotes, sound

• The reticle is always on: neutral in its brackets, gold and tightened at full gaze lock, swollen in the catch window, and a pointer when the mouse is unlocked.
• Emote wheel: hold T for eight wedges (ZERO, TOO SMALL, CHAMPIONSHIP BELT, INCOMPLETE, CLICK IN, PEEKABOO, MONEY SPREAD, SIP); the mouse steers the cursor, release to emote, a quick tap replays the last. MONEY SPREAD is a hold: hover it for 0.4 s with T down and you fan the cred until you let go or move. It works on the Promenade, in apartments, in the lab and in dead-ball windows including pre-snap.
• Arena sound engine: off by default, so the test build sounds like the live game. Settings → "Arena sound engine (glass deck)" turns on the new synthesized deck: stud bites on every stride, brake chirps on cuts, a shear on slides, catch snaps, armour smacks on contact, the ball's pang on the glass and the station's hum underneath.
• Every hard change of direction now grunts with the effort, on the field and for the other player too (a slide or a Glitch step a little quieter). Rain on the Promenade has its own sound: a sheet, a hiss and near drips, muffled under a roof. The MONEY SPREAD flexes the fan at the lens and flaps it.

Report anything odd on the test build (a move that does not fire, a rule that surprises you) with what you pressed and what you saw.