Far Far West Co-op Guide: Squad Setup and Session Codes

The most common Far Far West co-op question is not about tactics. It is about the menu. The session system works, but it hides the one piece of information you need — the session code — behind a panel new players do not think to open.

Mechanical steps first, then the part that decides whether your squad clears contracts.

How to host a session

From the title screen:

1. Select Create Session.
2. Choose Solo or With Steam Friends for a private lobby, or the public option to let strangers fill slots.
3. Once loaded into the session, press Escape.
4. Open Current Session.
5. Either copy the session code at the top, or press Invite Steam Friend and pick a name.

The invite path is faster when friends are online, since accepting skips code entry. The code path is more reliable when someone launches slowly or plays from another region.

A private lobby can be flipped to public from the same panel, which matters when you are three players and would rather have a random fourth than run short-handed. One detail to internalize: restarting the session generates a new code. If a friend cannot connect, check that you are reading from the panel and not from an old screenshot in chat.

How to join a session

1. On the title screen, select Browse Sessions.
2. Choose Join with Code.
3. Enter the code and confirm.
4. Accept the join prompt.

You can also browse open lobbies instead of joining by code. Players report the browser filters by difficulty, distance, and whether cheats or mods are allowed, which makes it possible to find a group near your own progression instead of dropping into an endgame contract with a starter revolver (/weapons/all-weapons-list covers what that starter actually is).

No host migration, so plan around it

This is the most important co-op fact in the current build, confirmed by multiple independent write-ups: if the host leaves, everyone is dropped and mission progress is lost. There is no automatic host transfer.

So decide who hosts based on who has the most stable evening, not the best PC. If the host must leave, finish or abandon together rather than letting the disconnect decide. And do not start a contract you cannot finish in the time the host actually has — a forty-minute run started with twenty minutes left is a guaranteed loss.

This is an Early Access networking limitation, not a design statement, and it belongs in official feedback rather than a mod.

What changes with two, three, and four players

Squad size is not a linear difficulty slider here. It changes what is possible.

Four is not automatically better. A disorganized four-stack wipes on content a coordinated duo clears, because the duo never wonders where the other player is.

Dividing jobs in a four-player squad

Assign roles out loud before you deploy. The specific split matters less than that it exists.

Anchor stays on the objective and keeps the interaction timer moving; everyone orbits this position. Add control watches flanks and spawn directions, using area denial to stop waves collapsing on the anchor. Burst saves cooldowns for elites and the boss. Flex fixes whatever is failing — revives, side objectives, covering a reload — and is usually the most experienced player, because the role requires reading the whole fight.

Swap roles between runs if someone is clearly better at one. There is no cost to renegotiating.

Coordinating spells across players

Steam confirms that combining spells with teammates is intended, and reactions are where squad damage stops being additive. School details are in /spells/all-spells-guide; the co-op rules are simpler.

Stagger elements, do not stack them. Four players on fire cannot trigger cross-element reactions with each other. Two on a setup element and two on a trigger element out-damage four doing the same thing.

Call your setups. A reaction needs the second element to land on a target that already carries the first. If nobody says "acid is down," the fireball hits a clean enemy and half the value evaporates.

Do not all cast at once. Spells are a burst window, not sustained damage. Staggering casts keeps continuous pressure instead of four-second spikes with dead air between them.

Cover reloads with casts. The gun-spell swap has no meaningful cost, so damage should never flatline. In co-op that is the difference between holding a line and being pushed back.

Staying alive as a group

Revives require proximity, so distance is a health bar. One squad rule handles most of it: nobody is more than a short sprint from another player. That converts a down into a revive instead of a lost player.

When someone goes down, the nearest player revives while the others push toward the downed player rather than away. Retreating from a down is how one death becomes three. Boss-specific job assignments are in /bounties/boss-fights, and the extraction decision that ends most runs is covered in /guide/bounty-hunting-guide.

Before you queue

Agree on a tier, agree on who hosts, agree on who plays flex. Ninety seconds of conversation prevents the two failure modes that end most public squads: a four-way split at the first objective, and a host who leaves mid-run.