- DarkSwarm is coming to The Big Break Showcase! - 16 September 2026
We’re excited to announce that DarkSwarm will be part of The Big Break Showcase, presented by Coffee Stain Publishing!On September 29 at 19:00 CEST / 10:00 AM PDT, The Big Break will bring together a whole bunch of games, announcements and trailers - including something new from DarkSwarm!Check out the showcase reveal trailer below:We’ve been looking forward to sharing what we’ve been working on, and we can’t wait for you to see it.See you at The Big Break on September 29!
- DarkSwarm: Extinction Trailer Out Now! - 27 June 2026
The new DarkSwarm Extinction Trailer is live!Get a new look at the co-op action, squad tactics, and intense swarm-fighting moments coming to DarkSwarm.Fight together, cover each other, and make every shot count.Watch the trailer now!
- New Trailer: FIGHT TOGETHER - 26 April 2026
Our new trailer is out now!Take a fresh look at the co-op gameplay experience, where teamwork, quick decisions, and squad coordination are key to surviving the swarm.Fight Together puts the focus on the moments where your team makes all the difference. Cover each other, push forward, hold the line, and make every shot count when things get intense.Get ready to fight together!
- DarkSwarm Closed Alpha 3 - 17 February 2026
Closed Alpha 3 – Now Live on SteamStarting 16 February 2026 – Ending Sunday 22 February 2026Closed Alpha 3 is now live, and we’re excited to welcome you back into the swarm.IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE, MAKE SURE TO SIGN UP DIRECTLY ON THE STEAM STORE PAGE. ACCESS WILL BE GRANTED TO SELECTED PARTICIPANTS FROM THERE. SIGN UP FOR THE PLAYTEST Over the past months, we have been working extensively on improvements based on community feedback, while also preparing new systems that are not yet ready to be revealed. You will begin to experience more of these in Closed Alpha 4 and beyond. WHAT’S NEW IN CLOSED ALPHA 3ONLINE, COMMUNICATION & SYSTEMSVoice chat (enable in Team Settings)Spectate modePing Wheel (Hold and release MMB / Left Bumper)Late-join screen allowing class selection before entering a matchRedesigned Settings Menu with key bindings, toggleable audio sliders, and additional co…
- DarkSwarm Closed Alpha Part II - 3 November 2025
Dear SwarmTroopers, The hive is stirring once more, and it’s finally time to jump back in! We’re beyond excited to officially announce that Closed Alpha II is going live tomorrow, Tuesday the 4th! You can still sign up for the playtest on the DarkSwarm Steam page: SIGN UP FOR THE PLAYTEST We’ve been digging through all your feedback since the first playtest, and we’ve been hard at work making major improvements across the board. From overhauled visuals to new features and fresh content, there’s a lot to dive into — and we can’t wait to hear what you think.Let’s take a look at what’s new: ChryosChryos, our ice planet, has received a lot of graphics overhaul as well as a complete redesign of the procedural algorithms. It feels more intuitive, and we’ll keep on improving it over time. More objectives and minigamesWe have added some more objectives and minigames to the game, so there’s more…
- DarkSwarm Closed Alpha Ends Tomorrow - 7 September 2025
The DarkSwarm Closed Alpha will close on Monday September 8, 2025 at 09:00 CEST (UTC+2).- US (PDT): 12 AM - US (EDT): 3 AM - UK (BST): 8 AM - São Paulo (BRT): 4 AM - Singapore / China (SGT / CST): 3 PM - South Korea (KST)/Japan (JST): 4 PM - Sydney (AEST): 5 PM A huge thank you to everyone who played, shared feedback, and streamed the game – you’ve helped make DarkSwarm better already!We also know many of you signed up but didn’t get access this time. Don’t worry – the swarm isn’t done yet! The next test isn’t too far away, and you’ll have another chance to join in.That test will include fixes for many of the issues you’ve reported, and we’ll announce the details right here on Discord.So if you know someone who’d love DarkSwarm, they can still sign up for the next playtest on the DarkSwarm Steam page See you in the swarm! The Bitfire Team
- Darkswarm is a terrifying new Helldivers rival, and alpha signups are live now - 14 August 2025
Part of the reason Helldivers 2 was my favorite game of last year was that it managed to maintain the frantic, pulse-pounding action of Arrowhead's original top-down entry. I've always loved the dynamic that the overhead perspective brings to co-op games such as Valve's fantastic, oft-overlooked Alien Swarm. As a result, I'm extremely interested in Darkswarm , built by Bitfire Games and published by Deep Rock Galactic studio Ghost Ship. Working with your friends to save humanity from certain doom, it's about to enter closed alpha, and you can sign up from today to join the playtest. Read the rest of the story...
- DarkSwarm Is A Creepy Helldivers-like, and Closed Alpha Sign-Ups Have Been Unleashed - 14 August 2025
A new debut title is coming from Bitfire Games, and it’s reminiscent of Helldivers without Democracy. DarkSwarm is approaching, and closed alpha sign-ups are now open. It’s not news that Helldivers 2 is immensely popular . With high-octane spectacles reminiscent of being an action hero, Arrowhead unleashed a well-received live service extraction shooting experience last year, and with its port to Xbox arriving this month , it will reach a larger audience than ever before. However, what Bitfire Games is creating with DarkSwarm is similar to the original Helldivers in design, featuring a top-down aesthetic tied to gory visuals and the all-too-familiar brothers-in-arms feeling. DarkSwarm brings everything fans enjoyed about the original Helldivers , except it brings a tense atmosphere, horrifying visuals, and operators who are only out for cash and not democracy. The latest recruitment tra…
- Sign Up for the DarkSwarm Closed Alpha! - 14 July 2025
Dear SwarmTroopers, the time has come! We're excited to announce that you can now sign up for the Closed Alpha of DarkSwarm, taking place in September 2025! This will be the first broader public test of the game – and we can't wait to see how you handle the swarm. Sign up here: Over the past few months, a small group of dedicated Discord members have already helped us test early builds of the game. Their feedback has been invaluable – and now we’re ready to expand and open the doors for more players. What to expectTense co-op missionsDangerous, swarming enemiesFun, teamwork-driven gameplayProcedurally generated levelsFour distinct biomesCustomized experience through weapon and character skins...and much more The Closed Alpha is your chance to experience the core of DarkSwarm and help shape its development.We’ll reveal the exact dates, a Closed Alpha FAQ, and a brand-new trailer in Augus…
- DarkSwarm Devlog: July 2025 - 10 July 2025
Hello SwarmTroopers!It’s been a while — but we’ve been deep in the hive, laying the foundation for the next major step in DarkSwarm’s development: the Closed Alpha.Over the past six months, we’ve made massive progress both under the hood and on the surface. From core systems to new content and improved visuals, the game has taken a big leap forward. Here are some of the highlights: Total Codebase RefactorWe’ve rewritten most of our core codebase to ensure long-term stability, scalability, and performance. It’s one of those invisible-but-essential upgrades — and we’re incredibly proud of how much cleaner, faster, and more flexible things are now. Future features will be quicker to implement and more robust because of this work. New Procedural Map Generation & BiomesSince December, you’ve been testing our handcrafted desert map — but that was just the beginning. We’ve now implemented a br…
- DarkSwarm Devlog November ‘24 - 20 November 2024
Hi Swarmtroopers! Since our last devlog, we have been working steadily on a bunch of cool new features, and we really hope this will excite you. Objectives System UI We hinted at a new Objectives System in our last dev log. Finally it is ready! It brings a greater sense of purpose to the game, and the underlying system is a big milestone for us towards our vision for the game. New Animation System We are in the works of creating a new animation setup for the player characters, and we are really excited about the possibilities it will add to the game. It includes a long-desired overhaul to upper/lower body split, updated locomotion and performance improvements. It probably won’t make it into the game in 2024, and you will definitely hear more about it when it’s ready. Special Weapons Last devlog was all about the melee weapons, but this time we have something super cool up our sleeve. Ho…
- DarkSwarm devlog October ‘24 - 2 October 2024
Hello SwarmTroopers! We've been hard at work on the game and wanted to share some of our awesome new features with you. New Objectives System: We are actively working on a new Mission Objectives System, which enables our designers to create interesting missions with a lot of variance and randomness. It’s something we plan to expand upon moving forward. Screenshots will follow in the very near future! Many stability improvements and crash fixes: Towards increasing stability of the game, and preparing ourselves for the transition out of pre-alpha stage during 2025, we have been fixing a lot of crash/stability issues in the background. Hopefully, you will all experience a more stable playing experience, no matter if you prefer mouse and keyboard, controller, or maybe are on SteamDeck. Player Occlusion Masking Tired of not being able to see your character or an enemy nearby, because a wall…
- Living Roadmap FALL 2023 - 14 July 2023
Attention on deck! So before we head into summer vacation we would like to reveal our internal project roadmap we try to scope the project for until we hit Early Access. Be mindful the development of DarkSwarm is a highly complex project with many interdependencies so do not be surprised if we have to push deadlines and change features. But we remain extremely committed to bringing you the best game we can! DARKSWARM: LIVING ROADMAP FALL 2023 NETCODE Lot’s of netcode for online multiplayer. Additionally, local co-op enables friends to join your game from the same console or PC, enhancing the cooperative gameplay experience. To ensure smooth team play, DarkSwarm includes a ping wheel that provides real-time feedback. MISSION TYPE: BIO EXTRACTION In this new mission type, players are tasked with hunting down a special enemy to retrieve valuable biomass. Engage in intense battles and overc…
- DarkSwarm - MILESTONE 1 - COMPLETED (POST UPDATE on classes etc.) - 3 July 2023
BOOM! We have officially completed Milestone 1!!! WOOHOO!! I'm super proud of what the team has accomplished in a mere 10 weeks of effective team time. From hiring a completely new team to getting everybody on the same page and delivering something that actually feels, looks, and sounds really good. We essentially rebuilt the original prototype you saw in the trailer into something much better for development. Post update: Adding some of the things we have been working on in various stages of development: Classes - Assault - Engineer - Medic - Hacker Character class abilities - Medic: Healing ray - Medic: Area revive - Assault: WaveCracker (Shockwave blast) - Engineer: Droppable gun turret - Hacker: Stasis field - Hacker: Invisibility field Weapons - Engineer: Shotgun - Assault: Assault rifle - Medic: Burst rifle - Hacker - Rapid fire SMG - Handgun for all classes Bullet types - Bouncin…
- MILESTONE 1 - Dev n' dirty! - 28 May 2023
Long time no update! Simply put, we have been busy getting down and dirty with the development of all the nitty-gritty details. The stream of new things has almost been too overwhelming to write about on a regular basis, and not all of them have been super exciting to show off to the world. Since the last update, there have been 358 commits to the project repository, so stuff has certainly been happening. A lot of time has been spent on 'the hauler,' which is a rather tricky feature to get working really well due to its complex physics and player interaction. (Early work in progress) There has been a BIG push towards reworking a lot of the core functionality prototype systems and preparing them for when we will start focusing on online multiplayer functionality in Milestone 2. It has basically involved rewriting most parts of the old prototype to make it performant and 'future-proof' in…
- MILESTONE 1 - in progress! (Minigun is Minifun) - 30 April 2023
MILESTONE 1 - Work in progress! (Minigun is Minifun) DarkSwarm Devlog time! Things are going great here! Milestone 1 is well under way! We are 3 weeks now into MS1 until the deadline in June. First of all SOOO much has been happening it has been hard to keep up with the more frequent devlog posts. While Jonas and Ox has also been VERY busy going to and talking to a lot of potential new candidate interns from The Games Assembly in Malmö. These guys will bring so much coolness to the project. It will be absolutely amazing! The goal of Milestone 1 is to create a good definition of the core gameplay in local co-op. Stuff like a first pass on weapons, classes, abilities, camera, controls, character controller, a smaller selection of enemies and a single mission type (extraction) playable in a procedurally generated level. So we can play and feel how all the intended mechanics interact in a f…
- Dev log - Milestone 0 completed - 6 April 2023
Hi again! We are still very much alive and kicking alien ass even harder since last time. Milestone 0 We would like to announce that we consider Milestone 0 for DONE! The milestone consisted of building the company and the core team that will build the game. It is probably the most important thing we could do, we are very happy with the team! They are truly on Bitfire! ;) And without further ado! Milestone 1 is coming along great. The ultimate chair swarm system is in the works. It will be great! ;) Also we moved into new offices from our very tiny broom locker space. Into slightly bigger premises that can hold the core team on location in Copenhagen. It cannot be underestimated how important that will be for the production of a co-op game like DarkSwarm. It was a strong wish for us to have people on location as much as possible during development. We are very happy it was possible. Our…
- First Post - The DarkSwarm is here... - 2 March 2023
Hello, world! :D Welcome to our first ever blog post about our newly announced game DARKSWARM! Finally making this announcement is an enormous point of pride for us - we’re practically beyond ecstatic at the office right now. This is the start of something great, and an absolute life-long dream come true. Being able to devote ourselves full-time towards making our dream game, and getting to do so in partnership with incredibly talented friends - how flipping awesome is that? :D These friends are none other than our old buddies at Ghost Ship Games / Ghost Ship Publishing: The developers of Deep Rock Galactic! It's been a long journey to get to this point, but working alongside Ghost Ship Games has been a goal for us almost since we started. We simply couldn't ask for better partners on the long road ahead. Next on the list is to grow our team with passionate, super-incredible people, and…
