When Helldivers 2 launched in February 2024, it felt like a wake-up call for the PvE co-op shooter genre. Two and a half years later, we’re finally starting to see other developers take a swing at the formula, and Far Far West is one of the first to actually stick the landing. Developed by Evil Raptor and published by Fireshine Games, the game launched into Early Access on April 28, 2026, at $19.99 on PC. It’s a chaotic one- to four-player co-op shooter set in a haunted, cursed, monster-infested Wild West, and after about 10 hours with a regular group, we’re enjoying it quite a bit.
Going in, I expected something closer to Roboquest, given the first-person shooter angle and the early gameplay clips floating around. What we got is much more Helldivers 2 than I was expecting, with mounts thrown in for good measure. You and up to three friends load into a map, complete a primary objective, deal with secondary tasks and side quests, and extract with whatever gold and souls you’ve earned. The mount is one of those features that sounds gimmicky on paper but completely changes the pacing once you’re in a run, especially compared to the slog of crossing certain Helldivers 2 maps on foot.
Spell Slinger
There’s a good amount of build depth here for a $19.99 Early Access game. You’ve got primary and secondary weapon slots, a utility slot, and three spell slots, which is where things get interesting. Spells range from cactus pets that fight alongside you to what is essentially a fire tornado, and being able to slot three of them at once means you can lean into all sorts of playstyles. Want to be the support player who creates portals that teleport players and duplicate spell projectiles? You can do that. Want to be the guy summoning a personal botanical army of cacti? You can do that too.
The meta progression is split between weapons and characters, both upgraded by spending gold earned in runs. Weapons get bumps to damage, fire rate, clip size, reload speed, and draw speed, while character upgrades cover ammo capacity, health, spell cooldown reduction, speed, and jump height. It’s a basic system that gives you a clear sense of getting stronger between runs without being overwhelming.
Wild Card
The real wrinkle is the Joker system. Jokers are cards that grant passive abilities, ranging from straightforward effects like an extra jump or healing 50 HP instead of dying to a fatal hit, to weapon-specific perks like bullet refunds or a chance to deal double damage. They’re separated by rarity, and the cooler ones are gated behind higher level requirements. Jokers can also drop during runs as temporary versions only available for that session, and since your loot pool is shared with the rest of the group, every run has at least one moment of deciding who actually needs the new card more.
My one piece of feedback for Evil Raptor here is that the Jokers get more interesting as you level up, and a lot of the cooler, more powerful cards are locked behind higher level requirements. Either move some of the cooler ones down in rarity, or unlock the higher rarities sooner. The flip side is that the customization is genuinely well budgeted; you can stack Jokers with limitations, so you can cater to your playstyle without falling into a single overpowered build that breaks the game. It’s a nice balance, but the early hours could use more interesting toys to play with.
Trail of Tears
For all the variety in builds and spells, the biggest criticism we have is enemy variety and objectives. It’s the same issue we had with Helldivers 2: things get repetitive quickly. A lot of the fun comes from playing with friends and doing entertaining things as a group. If you don’t have a regular crew to play with, or if you don’t love the moment-to-moment gameplay loop on its own merits, this is going to be a hard sell as a solo experience. I also imagine that some of these objectives just aren’t fun to do solo, but since I only played with others, I can’t really comment on that. I will say that some of the objectives and quests are pretty fun the first time, like a memory game, but you just start seeing the same ones over and over sooner than you’d expect.
Difficulty actually feels well balanced, though. Very Hard genuinely feels very hard, and you can’t just blast through everything unless you’re leveled up with your meta progression. Some of the maps are also a pain to navigate, which adds variety but creates moments of pure frustration when you’re trying to chase down an objective and the terrain isn’t cooperating. The mount helps a lot, but it’s not a fix-all.
Old Town Road
If you liked Helldivers 2, you’ll almost certainly like Far Far West. It doesn’t have stratagems, but there’s a lot more build variety and customization, especially with the three spell slots opening up the kind of class fantasy stuff that Helldivers 2 never really committed to. The mount keeps each round feeling quicker and more fun, and the difficulty curve respects your time without being punishing for the sake of it.
Far Far West is probably the first big Helldivers 2-like to actually be successful, and it won’t be the last. It proves that the formula works and that other developers can put their spin on it to make the genre more accessible, approachable, and even more fun. At $19.99 with a regular group of friends, this is one of the easier Early Access recommendations to make right now. Just know that the experience feels like it lives or dies based on who you bring along for the ride.
Far Far West entered Early Access on April 28, 2026, for PC. These first impressions are based on a purchased retail copy of the game on PC (Intel i9-14900K, 96GB DDR5-6800 RAM, MSI RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC). While FullCleared does have affiliate partnerships, they do not influence our editorial content. We may, however, earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.
Far Far West First Impressions Gallery
