One of the biggest surprises of Steam's most recent Next Fest was Far Far West, a robot wizard cowboy shooter that quickly climbed into the event's top five most-played demos. The co-op FPS captured players with its unique blend of gunslinging and spellcasting, earning an Overwhelmingly Positive rating from over 6,000 reviews by the end of the festival.

Unexpected Success for Evil Raptor

According to Nicolas Meyssonnier, the studio head of Evil Raptor, the massive response was far beyond what the eight-person, France-based indie studio anticipated. In an interview with PC Gamer, Meyssonier noted that their previous experience developing "very niche" 3D platformers left them unprepared for such a large-scale reception.

"We don't expect a lot of people and everything is way above what we could ever imagine," Meyssonnier said. He added that the team had to quickly organize new systems to manage the influx of feedback and bug reports.

The studio’s pivot to the co-op FPS genre mirrors Meyssonier's journey with his first game, Pumpkin Jack. Driven by a desire to create the types of 3D platformers he loved playing as a child, he famously began his career with a simple search: "I just typed on Google 'how to make games.' That took quite long, but yeah."

The Design of a Robot Wizard Cowboy Shooter

When assembling the team for their next project, Akimbot, the developers found themselves searching for a specific type of multiplayer experience. After realizing no perfect game existed for their tastes, they decided to build one. This led to the creation of a robot wizard cowboy shooter built on several key design pillars:

  • Market Differentiation: Avoiding saturated genres like Sci-Fi (e.g., Deep Rock Galactic) or Pirates (e.g., Sea of Thieves).
  • Technical Constraints: Using robots to simplify the animation process.
  • Visual Style: Utilizing a colorful, stylized Western setting.

The decision to use robots was primarily a technical necessity. Animating rigid, mechanical figures is much simpler than organic characters. To further streamline production, the team gave their robots Rayman-style floating hands, allowing for a single set of animations to work for both first- and third-person perspectives.

Why "Magic is Always Cool"

While the setting was chosen to fill a gap in the Western genre, the addition of magic was purely about enhancing gameplay. The developers realized that the gunplay needed an extra layer of depth to keep combat engaging.

"We felt it needed something more and that we could do more, and magic is always cool," said Evil Raptor "handyman" Arnaud Petit. Adding spells allowed players to manage more complex combat mechanics through status ailments and elemental combos. "It was basically perfect for the game," Petit noted.

As the early access launch approaches, Meyssonnier admitted to feeling a sense of "imposter syndrome," a feeling he also experienced during the release of Pumpkin Jack in 2020. However, the studio remains focused on their core mission: making the kind of games they love to play.

Far Far West is scheduled to hit early access on Steam on April 28.