diff --git a/frontend/src/game/sounds.ts b/frontend/src/game/sounds.ts
index 263ab40..6ac3ddc 100644
--- a/frontend/src/game/sounds.ts
+++ b/frontend/src/game/sounds.ts
@@ -5,6 +5,9 @@ let sfxGain: GainNode | null = null
 let musicPlaying = false
 let musicTimeout: number | null = null
 
+// Lazily create AudioContext + gain nodes on first use.
+// Chrome may warn about autoplay policy but the context will resume once ensureAudioContext()
+// is called from a user gesture. All SFX calls before that are queued/silent.
 function getCtx(): AudioContext {
   if (!ctx) {
     ctx = new AudioContext()
diff --git a/frontend/vite.config.ts b/frontend/vite.config.ts
index 6767bdc..2fca96b 100644
--- a/frontend/vite.config.ts
+++ b/frontend/vite.config.ts
@@ -28,7 +28,11 @@ export default defineConfig({
       },
       workbox: {
         globPatterns: ['**/*.{js,css,html,svg,png,woff,woff2}'],
+        cleanupOutdatedCaches: true,
+        skipWaiting: true,
+        clientsClaim: true,
         navigateFallback: '/index.html',
+        navigateFallbackDenylist: [/^\/api\//],
         runtimeCaching: [
           {
             urlPattern: /^https:\/\/fonts\.googleapis\.com\/.*/i,
diff --git a/server/src/app.ts b/server/src/app.ts
index b2ef69b..50efaae 100644
--- a/server/src/app.ts
+++ b/server/src/app.ts
@@ -75,9 +75,21 @@ if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' && existsSync(publicDir)) {
   app.get('/robots.txt', (c) => serveFile(c, '/robots.txt', 'public, max-age=86400'))
   app.get('/manifest.webmanifest', (c) => serveFile(c, '/manifest.webmanifest', 'public, max-age=86400'))
 
-  // SPA fallback: all non-API routes serve index.html
+  // PWA service worker + related root files
+  app.get('/sw.js', (c) => serveFile(c, '/sw.js', 'no-cache'))
+  app.get('/workbox-*.js', (c) => serveFile(c, c.req.path, 'public, max-age=31536000, immutable'))
+  app.get('/icon-*.png', (c) => serveFile(c, c.req.path, 'public, max-age=86400'))
+  app.get('/icon.svg', (c) => serveFile(c, '/icon.svg', 'public, max-age=86400'))
+  app.get('/apple-touch-icon.png', (c) => serveFile(c, '/apple-touch-icon.png', 'public, max-age=86400'))
+
+  // SPA fallback: only for navigation requests (not JS/CSS/asset files)
   app.get('*', (c) => {
     if (c.req.path.startsWith('/api/')) return c.notFound()
+    // Don't serve index.html for asset requests — return 404 so the browser gets a proper error
+    const ext = c.req.path.split('.').pop()
+    if (ext && ext !== c.req.path && ['js', 'css', 'map', 'json', 'png', 'jpg', 'svg', 'woff', 'woff2', 'webp', 'ico'].includes(ext)) {
+      return c.notFound()
+    }
     const indexPath = join(publicDir, 'index.html')
     c.header('Content-Type', 'text/html')
     c.header('Cache-Control', 'no-cache')