Planned Release Date: 2026

About This Game

Every shot is yours. Every build is yours. Every second you survive is earned.

Swarmbreak is a twin-stick roguelike shooter where you aim every bullet, stack every perk, and push every run to its breaking point.

The horde doesn't wait. It doesn't plateau. It accelerates — and the only thing between you and oblivion is whatever ridiculous build you've cobbled together from 27 stackable perks, 14 weapons, and a character passive that bends the rules.

This isn't idle survival. This is you, a trigger, and a swarm that gets worse every second of play.

Features

• Twin-stick shooting — Every shot is manual. Every hit is earned. This isn't auto-fire.

• 8 playable characters with unique passives that change your entire strategy

• 27 stackable perks with multiplicative scaling — builds that break the game on purpose. More perks may be added during early access

• 14 weapons with distinct fire patterns, from shotgun spread to a chargeable railgun. More weapons may be added during early access

• Power-ups — Berserker mode, shield bubbles, time freeze, and more

• Accelerating difficulty — No plateau. No mercy.

• Boss waves with multiple variants — scaling HP, minion escorts, landmark survival moments

• 18 Steam achievements — seven of them hand you a new character on the way past

• Permanent progression — Every run unlocks new weapons, perks, and characters

• Shader-powered visuals with pixel art style — Enemies dissolve into particles, bullets trail glowing streaks, shockwaves ripple outward

• Color blind support — Deuteranopia, Protanopia, and Tritanopia modes

• Runs under 15-20 minutes — Short enough to squeeze in one more. Intense enough to make it count.

Every Perk Stacks. Every Build Breaks.

Pick Power Rounds once for +20% damage. Pick it five times and you're hitting at 2.5x. Pick it ten times and every bullet lands like a freight train. Now add Piercing Shot so it punches through the ranks behind. Now add Chain Lightning so every kill arcs to nearby targets. Now add Split Shot so fragments scatter on impact.

One bullet. A dozen kills. And the horde is still coming.

27 perks. Unlimited stacking. Multiplicative scaling. The game doesn't stop you from going too far — it dares you to.

• Bloodlust — Kill fast enough and your damage snowballs. Stop killing and it fades. Don't stop killing.

• Last Stand — Drop below 30% HP and your fire rate surges. The closer to death, the more dangerous you become.

• Overcharge — Every reload supercharges your next shots.

• Chain Lightning — Every kill arcs damage to nearby enemies in crackling bolts of electricity.

• ...and 23 more to discover, stack, and break.

Eight Characters. Eight Ways to Play.

Each character unlock changes how you play — not just the numbers, but the decisions you make every level-up.

• Recruit — The balanced baseline. All perks are 10% more effective. No tricks, no gimmicks — just you and your aim.

• Berserker — Slow, angry, and very hard to kill. Gets stronger as health drops. Kills at low HP heal you back. Embrace the rage.

• Scout — Glass cannon with legs. Blazing fast, paper thin. Stay clean long enough and a shield has your back — but only once.

• Gunslinger — Rewards the disciplined. Reload smart, shoot sharp, and watch the crits pile up.

• Collector — The battlefield is a buffet. Vacuum up everything. The more you hoard, the harder you hit.

• Demolitionist — Every single bullet you fire detonates. Slower, heavier, and the whole screen shakes.

• Revenant — Refuses to stay dead. Bleeds health back constantly, and gets up one more time after you thought the run was over.

• Perk Master — More choices than anyone else. Two perks before the run even starts, and five to pick from every level.

Each character pairs differently with each weapon. Find your favorite. Then try something new.

The Horde Never Stops Accelerating

Most survival games give you a difficulty curve. Swarmbreak gives you a difficulty cliff that keeps getting steeper.

At 1 minute, you're comfortable. At 5 minutes, enemies pour in. At 10 minutes, the screen is a warzone with enemies spawning relentlessly, hitting harder, and soaking up more damage. There is no safe minute. There is no plateau. Only the next wave.

And then it keeps going. The swarm doesn't just get bigger — it gets meaner. Health, speed and damage all climb, until the trash mobs you deleted without looking are the things chasing you down.

Every 100 Seconds, Something Huge Shows Up

A boss wave hits — a massive boss backed by a swarm of minions that ignores all spawn limits. Boss variants charge, tank, or crawl, and none of them fight the same way.

But the boss isn't the problem. The escort is. That minion pack ignores every spawn limit in the game — the ceiling that normally holds the horde back simply doesn't apply. Wave 1 sends 10. Wave 5 sends 42. Wave 10 drops 127 enemies on you at once, led by something with nearly 1,900 HP that only needs to touch you four times.

Wave 1 is a challenge. Wave 5 is a war. Wave 10 is simply not going to happen...

Collect Power-Ups For That Clutch Moment

Collect power-ups during your run, for a quick boost of power! Berserker triples your fire rate. Time Freeze stops the entire screen dead. Shield Bubble makes you untouchable. Piercing Rounds gives every bullet unlimited penetration. Magnet vacuums XP from across the arena. Mega Blast doubles every explosion you own.

They always drop when the screen is at its worst. Breaking formation to grab one is a decision — and sometimes the wrong one.

14 Weapons That Actually Feel Different

Not fourteen reskins. Fourteen completely different ways to tear through a horde: shotgun for that punch feeling, rifle for the high amount of bullets, rocket launcher with AoE, or the overpowered late game minigun?

Then it gets strange. The Railgun charges while you hold the trigger, and a full charge punches a line clean through every enemy on screen. The Plasma Bouncer throws a fat orb that pierces everything and ricochets off the walls, pinballing through the swarm. The Shuriken Launcher throws blades that come back and shred the same enemies twice. The Gauss Sniper doesn't just pierce — it drags a shockwave corridor behind the shot and physically shoves the horde out of the lane.

Weapons unlock permanently as you accumulate XP, but getting your favorite during a run is up to chance — balance your build to suit the weapon you have. Your tenth session doesn't look anything like your first.

18 Achievements. Every One Earned.

No participation trophies. Every achievement is a line in the sand you have to actually cross.

• Century and Exterminator — 100 kills in a run. Then 250.

• Five Alive and Double Digits — survive five minutes. Then ten.

• Ascended — hit level 20 in a single run.

• Boss Down, then Boss Farmer — your first boss, and your twenty-fifth.

• Spin It Up — unlock the minigun.

• Full Arsenal — unlock all 14 weapons.

• Full Roster — unlock every character in the game.

Chase them for the pop if you like. Chase them because seven of the eighteen hand you a brand new character on the way past — and your next run won't play anything like your last.

Die. Unlock. Come Back Deadlier.

Every run feeds your progression. Cumulative XP permanently unlocks new weapons, new perks, and new characters. Early runs give you a pistol and speed boosts. Later runs give you rocket launchers, chain lightning, and more special modifiers.

Your best build is always one more run away.

How long can you survive?

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

AI is used to generate art and sound during development - as a solo dev this is a way for me to test gameplay easy.