---
title: "Explosions"
package: "@phaser-ae/vfx-explosion"
tier: Pro
version: 3.0.0-4
released: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-19
description: "Twelve ready-made 2D explosions and impacts, from a grenade pop to a towering blast, with muzzle flashes, hit sparks, plasma, ice and smoke bombs."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/vfx-explosion
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# Explosions

Twelve explosions and impacts, ready to fire by name. Each is several layers on one timeline, tuned to read like a real
blast, and each cleans up after itself.

## What it does

Each effect is a short timeline of emitters for `particles-2d`. The classic `explosion` shows the idea: a white flash
gone in a fifth of a second, a fireball cooling from cream to ember, a ring that expands and thins, sparks that stretch
as they fly and fall, and smoke that arrives late and outlives the rest. The other eleven reshape those layers, so they
share a look.

You spawn one with `game.particles.effect(name, opts)` at a point or on an object. It plays, removes itself and replays
identically from the game's seed. `scale` sizes every distance, speed and size, `angle` aims the directional ones, and
every effect is plain data you can copy and register under a new name.

## Features

- **The classic and its family** — `explosion`, a quick `grenade`, a huge `bigBoom` whose smoke column climbs for
  seconds, and `clusterBomb`'s six blasts in a row.
- **Fireless impacts** — `shockwave` for a stomp, `dustImpact` for a heavy ground hit, `smokeBomb` for cover.
- **Styled blasts** — a cyan `plasmaBlast`, an `iceShatter` of spinning shards, and an `implosion` that sucks in before
  it bursts.
- **Directional hits** — `hitSpark` and `muzzleFlash`, aimed with `angle`.
- **Light on particles** — at scale 1 the busiest, `bigBoom`, peaks under 200 live particles and the rest under 110.
- **Variants as data** — a green plasma blast or a slower big boom is a copied definition.

## Good for

- **Shooters** — enemies, bullets and bosses, with muzzle flashes and hit sparks.
- **Platformers** — crates, bombs, stomps and landings.
- **Tower defence and strategy** — shells and cluster strikes across an area.
- **Fighting and action games** — hit sparks and shockwaves on impact.
- **Sci-fi and fantasy** — plasma, ice and implosions where fire does not fit.

## Make it yours

Pick the effect for the moment and size it with `scale`. A side-on shooter puts `muzzleFlash` on the player's gun and
`explosion` on every kill; a puzzle-action game breaks frozen blocks with `iceShatter` and marks each combo with a
recoloured copy of `plasmaBlast`.

## A quick look

A crate destroyed, a boss blown up at its feet, and a muzzle flash that follows the player's gun:

```ts
game.particles.effect('explosion', { x: crate.x, y: crate.y, layer: 'fx' });
game.particles.effect('bigBoom', { x: boss.x, y: boss.y + boss.height / 2, scale: 1.5 });
game.particles.effect('muzzleFlash', { follow: player, offset: { x: 18 * player.data.facing, y: -6 },
    angle: player.data.facing > 0 ? 0 : 180 });
```

## Works with

- `particles-2d` and `particle-textures` — the runtime and the frames, both required; `core-2d` includes them.
- `feel` — hit-stop and shake sell an impact more than particles do.
- `post-bloom` — makes the additive layers glow.
- `vfx-fire` and `vfx-smoke` — fire that keeps burning, and smoke that keeps rising.
- `vfx3d-explosion` — the same effect names in 3D.

## Good to know

- One-shots only: nothing here loops or lays a trail; a rocket's trail is a ribbon from `particles-2d`.
- Built for a side view: debris falls down the screen and smoke rises, which still reads as a burst top-down.
- Tuned for a world near 640 by 360 units; use `scale` for anything else.

---

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