A marketing campaign for the ride dubbed LC12 - The End is Coming began eleven months before The Swarm opened to the public.

[16] The Swarm is located on a reclaimed island adjacent to the Stealth roller coaster,[17] with parts of the ride being built over water.

[18] A bridge links the core of Thorpe Park to an island which hosts the roller coaster station, merchandise outlet, a games zone and toilet buildings.

[21][22]The roller coaster begins in the station, which is built to look like a partially destroyed church with an upturned police trailer housing the ride operators,[23] and climbs up a 38.7-metre (127 ft) chain lift hill.

[5][3] Upon reaching the top of the lift hill, the track twists 180 degrees anticlockwise, so that riders are upside down, before plunging down the world's first dive drop element.

The train then proceeds to dive under the wing of a wrecked plane and into a zero-g roll 30.6 metres (100 ft) above the ground before passing narrowly through a themed billboard, immediately following which the on-ride photo is taken.

[18] The ride previously featured an on-ride video camera, filming riders and allowing the purchase of a DVD afterwards; this was removed sometime in 2016.

[25] As the date of the ride's announcement approached, Thorpe Park released a video via Facebook stating that "WAR is coming".

[28] In March 2012, Thorpe Park announced it had contracted the band You Me at Six to create the world's first roller coaster single for the launch of The Swarm.

Blogger Nick Sim of Theme Park Tourist praised the attraction, saying that it packs "a number of incredible elements into its compact circuit".

[31] Joanna Churchill of the Daily Mirror gave a review of the backwards ride, stating that it is "a whole new adrenaline-pumped experience that is simply not for the faint-hearted".

Churchill stated that her "blood pressure and heart rate went through the roof", but "there was barely time to process what was happening before we were back on terra firma".