Free to playSurfsUp Race ghosts, chase records
Speed through colorful courses on foot, board or wings, then race your own ghost and rivals to the top of the leaderboards.
Is SurfsUp worth it?
SurfsUp is worth it if…
- you want to learn surf without downloading a whole shooter to reach one game mode
- you played surf years ago and want the old Counter-Strike: Source feel back
- you like chasing personal bests in short, fast runs you can restart instantly
- you want something to play in a lobby with friends while the conversation does the heavy lifting
Screenshots
Three modes, endless ways to fall
Surf is the headline, but Bhop and Climb (KZ) are here too, each with its own maps and leaderboards. Bhop is about chained jumps and never touching the brakes. Climb is precision platforming at speed, the kind where one mistimed hop sends you back to the start.
Then there are styles: Half Sideways, Backwards, W-Only. Each one gets its own leaderboard, so a Backwards run on a map counts separately from a normal one. Freestyle mode drops the resets and lets you bhop anywhere, with one rule: keep your speed or lose everything. It's a lot of ways to be bad at a map before you get good at it, and each one tracks your times separately.
Racing ghosts and beating yourself
Every leaderboard run can be downloaded and raced as a ghost, so the world record holder is literally flying down the ramp next to you. Prefer to study instead? The replay player lets you scrub a run frame by frame to see exactly how someone took a turn.
On the map itself, checkpoints and splits show where you're gaining or losing time against the world record, a friend, or your own personal best. That last one is the trap: you finish a run, see you were two seconds off, and suddenly it's one more go. Short runs, instant restarts, and a number to beat make this a game that's hard to put down.
Lobbies made for hanging out
Surf solo or bring friends. Public lobbies are always running, or you can host your own and pick the maps yourself. Voice and text chat are built in, so the usual rhythm applies: someone attempts a run, everyone else talks nonsense in chat, and when a record falls the lobby notices.
It's a low-pressure way to spend an evening together. Nobody has to be good; one person can be grinding a Climb map while another is still learning to stay on a ramp, and both are having a session. The supporter DLC adds lobby settings like friends-only or code-only rooms if you want to keep it to your crew.
What do I need to know before starting?
Can you play it on a controller?
Yes, the game is playable start to finish on a gamepad, with controller glyphs, rebindable inputs, and leaderboards just for controller players, so you're never competing against mouse times on a separate board.
Can you make the game look the way you want?
Quite a lot, yes. Every HUD widget can be dragged, scaled and recolored, and you can build your own crosshair.
Do you need friends to enjoy it?
No. Solo play is the core: pick a map, chase splits, race ghosts. Multiplayer is there when you want it, and public lobbies tend to fill up with people surfing around you even if you came alone.
Is it hard to learn?
Surfing is genuinely tricky at first; staying on a ramp takes a few sessions. Easy mode reduces gravity to soften the learning curve, checkpoints let you practice sections without losing record eligibility, and the rest is repetition.
