SyphonGames

Scorch Circuit guide: weapons, the championship, upgrades and staying alive

Updated 1 November 2026

Scorch Circuit is a top-down combat racer. You drive the Razorhound against five rivals, three or four laps at a time, and the tarmac is littered with crates of weapons. Win a place in the top three on each of the five circuits and you take the championship to the end. This guide covers what every weapon and pickup really does, how wrecks, boost and hazards work, and how to spend your prize money.

Play Scorch Circuit

The championship screen: the tracks in the cup and the driver standings, with Garage and Start Dustbowl Run.
Scorch Circuit on SyphonGames.

Controls

  • W or ↑ to accelerate, S or ↓ to brake and then reverse.
  • A D or ← → to steer. Hold a turn at speed and the back steps out into a drift.
  • Space fires whatever weapon you have armed. Shift burns boost.
  • P or Esc pauses, and F goes fullscreen.
  • On a touchscreen, steer with the pad on the left. The throttle is automatic, with buttons for fire, boost and brake.

Settings has a Rival difficulty choice: Rookie, Pro or Savage. Rookie makes the rivals 10% slower and less aggressive than Pro, and Savage makes them 10% faster and more aggressive.

A race

Six cars line up two by two, and you start third. Dustbowl Run, Scrapheap Spiral and Magma Vein are three laps; Neon Overpass and Xelora Basin are four. Your race ends the moment you cross the line for the last time, and the place you are in then is your result. If every rival has finished and you have not, a 45-second warning starts, and the race is called when it runs out.

Hull and wrecks

Your hull starts at 124. Weapons, explosions, hard hits on the walls, magma and heavy collisions all wear it down; clipping a drum or bollard at the roadside costs 5 and some speed. In a collision, the car doing the ramming deals more damage than it takes.

When your hull runs out you are wrecked, not out of the race. You sit out for about two and a half seconds, then the car is rebuilt on the track where it died, with 60% hull, at least 45% boost and two seconds of invulnerability. That costs time and usually places, so watch the hull bar, but it never ends the race.

If you deal the blow that wrecks a rival, you earn 80 credits. A wrecked car also explodes, damaging anyone close by, and wrecks caused that way count as yours too.

Boost, pads and ramps

  • Boost raises your top speed by 42% and your acceleration by 75%. A full bar lasts about two and a half seconds, and it refills slowly, taking about ten seconds from empty, so spend it on straights. It only works on the ground.
  • Boost pads are the green strips, three on every circuit. Driving over one tops up your boost and kicks you up to 116% of your top speed.
  • Ramps launch you if you hit them at speed. In the air you can barely steer or accelerate, but shots, mines and other cars pass underneath you, so a ramp is a way out of a fight.

Off the road and hazards

  • Off-road your top speed drops to 60% and you lose grip. Go far enough and you hit the wall, which pushes you back and hurts on a hard impact.
  • Slicks on Dustbowl Run, Scrapheap Spiral and Neon Overpass cut your grip to under a third for a moment, so do not steer hard across one.
  • Magma pools on Magma Vein burn about 16 hull a second while you are in them, and a little after you leave. There are six on that circuit, so take the line around them.
  • Sludge on Xelora Basin slows you and makes the car slide.

Crates and what is in them

Crates are the spinning amber diamonds, in rows of three at seven points around the lap. Each one comes back seven and a half seconds after someone takes it. You cannot see what is inside; the chances are:

  • Shard Scatter 20%, Hornet Missile 17%, Void Mine 15%, Arc Lance 11%.
  • Halo Shield 13%, Repair Pod 13%, Nitro Cell 11%.

A new weapon replaces the one you were carrying, along with any ammunition it had left. Shields, repairs and nitro take effect the moment you drive through them.

Weapons

  • Pulse Blaster: built in and never runs out. 6 damage a shot, five shots a second. It is what you fire whenever nothing else is armed.
  • Shard Scatter (7 shots): five pellets of 8 in a wide cone, so 40 if they all land. The pellets die out quickly, so it is a weapon for the car right in front of you.
  • Hornet Missile (4 shots): 27 damage plus an explosion, so around 50 on a direct hit. It locks on to the nearest car ahead of it, within about 60 degrees either side. The blast hurts everything near it, including you if you fire at a car you are touching.
  • Void Mine (4): dropped behind you. It arms after half a second, goes off when a car comes close, and does up to 36 in a wide blast. Mines last 14 seconds, and after the first two your own car can set them off too, so do not lay them on a line you will drive again soon.
  • Arc Lance (3 shots): a very fast bolt that does 19 damage, often twice as it passes through a car, and carries on through every car in its path. Fire it down a straight at a queue of rivals.
  • Halo Shield: for seven and a half seconds, you take less than a fifth of normal damage.
  • Repair Pod: 46 hull back, up to your maximum.
  • Nitro Cell: fills your boost bar.

Those are the numbers before upgrades. The Targeting rig upgrade raises them, and the rivals have the same 124 hull you start with.

The rivals

All five drive the same circuits and pick up the same crates, and more than half the time a weapon crate becomes one of their favourites:

  • Bolt Kessa (Sparkjaw): the most skilled driver and a clean racer. Pulse Blaster and Arc Lance.
  • Grud Vantek (Ironmule): a rammer, who steers into anyone close by. Void Mines and Shard Scatter.
  • Nyx Halloran (Ghostveil): fights at range with Hornet Missiles and the Arc Lance.
  • Rook Tanner (Slagbull): a brawler with Shard Scatter and missiles.
  • Miri Solvane (Sunspike): burns boost far more freely than the others. Pulse Blaster and missiles.

Rivals drop mines when someone is right behind them, use the scatter up close and fire missiles from further off. Each round of the championship makes them about 3% faster and more aggressive, so by the fifth circuit on Pro the best of them is a little quicker than a car with no upgrades. They also react to where you are: a rival who has fallen well behind you speeds up by as much as 10%, and one far ahead eases off by as much as 12%.

The championship

  • You start with 900 credits, and the five circuits come in order: Dustbowl Run, Scrapheap Spiral, Magma Vein, Neon Overpass and Xelora Basin.
  • Finish in the top three to move on. Anything lower and you race the same circuit again.
  • Points per race go 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1, to everyone, every time a race is run, including a race you have to repeat. The champion is whoever has the most points after the fifth circuit, and if you tie with a rival, the title is yours.
  • Prize money per race is 1,000 for a win, then 720, 540, 400, 300 and 220, plus a 300 bonus for winning and 80 for every wreck you cause.
  • The championship is not saved between visits, so play a season in one sitting.

Quick race puts you on a random circuit, with rivals as quick as they would be in that circuit's round of the championship. It uses the upgrades from your current championship, if you have one going.

The garage

Between championship races you can spend credits on five upgrades. Each has five levels, and every upgrade costs the same at each level: 340, 560, 820, 1,180 and 1,650 credits. Upgrades last for the rest of the championship.

  • Drive core: 5.5% more top speed per level.
  • Torque plate: 8.5% more acceleration per level.
  • Grip vanes: 5.5% sharper steering per level, and less slide.
  • Hull plating: 20 more hull and 7.5% less damage taken per level.
  • Targeting rig: 15% more weapon damage and 8.5% quicker reloads per level.

Because the rivals gain pace every round, the Drive core is the upgrade that keeps you in touch, and its first level is cheap enough to buy with your starting credits. Hull plating comes next, since every wreck you avoid is a few seconds saved. The Torque plate helps most on circuits with tight corners and after wrecks, when you are building speed from almost nothing.

Tips

  • Save boost for the straights, and aim for the green pads to refill it.
  • Match the weapon to the gap. Scatter is for the car right in front of you; missiles and the lance are for cars further up the road.
  • Lay mines where the road narrows, or when someone is sitting on your tail.
  • Take a shield into a crowd, and a repair when you are low. Neither can be saved for later.
  • Stay off the magma. On Magma Vein, a wide line around the pools is faster than the burn.
  • Use the ramps to escape. Shots, mines and other cars pass underneath you while you are high in the air, though a nearby explosion can still reach you.

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