Swarm Surge is a free browser action roguelite on Weekly Arcade, inspired by Vampire Survivors and Brotato. Control a hero who auto-fires weapons while you focus on movement and upgrade decisions. Enemy swarms escalate from simple Crawlers to fast Rushers, armored Tanks, explosive Bombers, and invisible Phantoms. Named bosses with HP bars appear every 90 seconds. Each level-up presents three random upgrade choices from a pool of 12 weapons and 8 passives, with weapon evolution unlocks available when conditions are met. Score is calculated from kills, time survived, bosses defeated, and XP gems collected. Meta-progression unlocks additional starting weapons at score milestones. No ads, no downloads, no in-app purchases.
Move with WASD or Arrow Keys (desktop) or the virtual joystick (mobile). Your weapons fire automatically toward the nearest enemy - your only job is to move and pick upgrades. Defeated enemies drop XP gems. Walk near gems to collect them, filling your XP bar. Each level-up pauses the game and shows three upgrade choices: new weapons, passive boosts, or weapon evolutions. Survive as long as possible. Bosses arrive every 90 seconds. The run hard-caps at 15 minutes with a dramatic Reaper finale.
Yes. Swarm Surge is 100% free on Weekly Arcade with zero ads, no in-app purchases, and no download required. Play instantly in any modern browser.
Swarm Surge is a browser-first version of the bullet-heaven genre - instant play with no download. Sessions are capped at 15 minutes to fit browser gaming contexts. It features a global daily leaderboard, achievement system, and cross-device cloud saves via Weekly Arcade accounts.
Score = Kill Points (5 per basic enemy, 500 per boss) + Time Bonus (1,000 per minute survived) + XP Gem Bonus (10 per gem collected) + optional 5,000 bonus for surviving the full 15 minutes.
Yes. Swarm Surge is designed mobile-first with a virtual joystick for movement. Weapons fire automatically so no tap-to-shoot is required. Performance mode auto-activates on mobile hardware.
Starting weapons unlock by reaching score milestones in a single run: Scatter Ring at 5,000 points, Blade Orbit at 15,000 points, and Chain Arc at 30,000 points. Unlocks persist across sessions via localStorage and cloud save.
When a weapon reaches max level AND you own a specific passive upgrade, a weapon evolution card appears at the next level-up. Evolutions replace the base weapon with a dramatically stronger version. Up to 2 evolutions can be active in a single run.
If you enjoy Swarm Surge, you might also like: Vampire Survivors, Brotato, Survivor.io, Voidbreak. Swarm Surge is available free on Weekly Arcade - browse all games.
