Hit Cowboy Co Op Shooter's Servers Are Struggling, Developer Says Its Service Provider 'is Currently Drinking Mojitos Instead of Helping': What Players Need to Know Now

Far Far West Server Meltdown: What Players Need to Know Now

Far Far West's servers buckled under launch demand, but the problem isn't raw player volume—it's that the game's automated systems misread the surge as an attack. Developer Evil Raptor has since restored basic connectivity and pushed a beta patch that could remove the server provider from the critical path entirely. Promo codes remain broken, and the studio is actively recruiting players to test the workaround.

What Actually Happened (And Why the Mojito Joke Masks a Real Problem)

The "drinking mojitos" quip from Evil Raptor went viral because it punches at a familiar frustration: game studios outsourcing infrastructure to providers who vanish when traffic spikes. But strip away the humor and you find a more specific, more teachable failure pattern.

Far Far West dominated February's Steam Next Fest. That demo success should have been a clear signal. Instead, the live launch triggered what Evil Raptor described as confusion in the machine—not a capacity ceiling, but an algorithmic misfire where automated defenses treated legitimate player connections as malicious traffic. This is the hidden variable most players miss: modern server infrastructure doesn't just "fill up" like a parking garage. It makes judgment calls, and those judgments can be catastrophically wrong.

The developer's Discord updates, captured by PC Gamer, reveal a studio scrambling on two timelines simultaneously. Immediate triage got servers back online. Parallel to that, Evil Raptor began testing a structural bypass: a patch that would let players host online sessions without the network provider's systems sitting in between every connection. That beta branch is live now. The studio explicitly asked players to opt in and stress-test it, framing broader participation as a direct accelerant to full release.

Here's the asymmetry worth noting. A provider failure that forces you to rebuild around that provider is expensive in hours and morale. But it can also produce a more resilient final architecture—if the workaround holds. Evil Raptor's proposed fix, if validated, would mean future player surges hit the game's own systems rather than a middleman's interpretation layer. The trade-off: more operational burden on the studio, less protection from the provider's DDoS mitigation and global CDN. For a co-op shooter with session-based multiplayer rather than persistent MMO infrastructure, that trade-off likely favors independence.

What we don't know: whether the beta patch scales beyond early testers, whether promo code redemption depends on the same provider systems, and whether Evil Raptor will name the provider publicly or pursue contractual recourse. The mojitos line suggests burned bridges, but legal caution may keep specifics private.

What Players Should Do Right Now

Situation	Recommended Action	Risk Level
Can't connect at all	Check Evil Raptor's Discord for live status; servers are up but fragile	Medium
Connected but promo codes fail	Known issue; no player-side workaround exists	Low (cosmetic/early-bonus impact)
Willing to help test	Opt into Far Far West beta branch on Steam; report connection stability	Low
Waiting for stable experience	Stay on live branch; monitor for patch promotion from beta	Minimal

The beta branch is the critical path forward. Evil Raptor's messaging has been unusually direct about this: more testers means faster validation means faster release. For a small studio riding a surprise hit, this is both pragmatic and slightly precarious. They're effectively crowdsourcing quality assurance for infrastructure code under live fire.

The decision shortcut here is about time preference versus stability preference. If you want to play now and don't mind occasional hiccups, the beta branch offers potentially smoother sessions and directly aids the fix. If you want the most predictable experience, live branch is technically more "validated" but still exposed to the underlying provider relationship that already failed once.

One non-obvious consideration: your own network topology matters more than usual. The proposed workaround appears to shift connection logic toward more direct peer-to-peer or studio-hosted relay behavior. Players behind strict NAT configurations, corporate networks, or certain ISP-level CGNAT setups may see asymmetric results between beta and live. If you test beta and it fails where live succeeds, report that specifically—it's precisely the edge case that determines whether the patch graduates.

What to Watch Next

Evil Raptor has three unresolved fronts, and their resolution order will shape the game's trajectory more than any single content update.

First: promo code functionality. These codes likely tie into the provider's authentication or entitlement API, which would explain why they remain broken while base connectivity returned. If the studio decouples from the provider entirely, they may need to rebuild that pipeline from scratch or negotiate isolated access. Watch whether codes get fixed before or after the beta patch graduates—that timing reveals technical dependencies.

Second: the beta patch's promotion to live. Evil Raptor's "we HOPE that the servers are gonna hold" language is transparently hedged. Hope is not confidence. A clean weekend of beta testing would accelerate this. Another provider-side failure would likely force the studio's hand regardless of test coverage.

Third: whether this provider relationship survives. The mojito comment is public and pointed. Other studios will note how Evil Raptor handles this—whether they name names, whether they absorb costs to switch, whether they build internal competency. For players, the practical signal is whether future launches (content updates, seasonal events) show the same vulnerability or demonstrably different architecture.

The one thing to do differently after reading: opt into the beta if you play, and treat your session stability as actionable data. Small studios with hit games rarely get second chances to convert launch attention into retained community. Evil Raptor's transparency is a resource; feed it back precisely.