Far Far West Early Access Version 644 Patch Notes: Refreshed Prestige System, Joker Drops, and More

Far Far West is one of the biggest indie games this year, despite still being in Early Access. And with more than 500k+ copies sold, the developers are doing anything but slowing down with the updates. Released on May 14, 2026, the game’s Version 1 Update 644 patch notes bring players some of the most requested changes, which include, but are not limited to, a better prestige and XP system, changes to how Joker drops work, the ability to carry live animals in the Saloon area (best part of the update), and general balancing changes, amongst other things.

Far Far West Version 1 Update 644 Full Patch Notes

To kick things off, one of the biggest changes has been made to the prestige system in the game, along with how players progress overall.

Player Progress Update

Our biggest change so far. While doing the Prestige system, we overshot by quite a bit the amount of grind needed to complete it. We feel it’s quite unfair to have to grind so much only to get a little more of your hero/weapons, so we’re dividing the grind by two. We’re in our first days of Early Access, but we believe it’s not an excuse to have an extremely grindy system that takes out all the fun of leveling up. We’re confident we’ll have more and more content and features for you in the coming months to play and discover, so let’s enjoy what’s already here to the fullest!

• Main weapons XP is increased by x1.5, all secondary weapons XP is increased by x2
• Bow XP has been increased by x1.3, as it was already greatly increased in the last patch
• Hero XP is increased by x2
• Joker Slots now unlock from level 1-100 instead of levels 1-50. We offered you free levels so you don’t lose Joker Slots.
• Since XP gains have been increased, this does not change the rate at which you unlock them.
• Upgrade slots now unlock every 2 levels instead of 1 (Since XP gains have been increased, this does not change the rate at which you unlock them)
• Prestige: You can now unlock up to 6 bonus upgrade slots on weapons and heroes instead of 5
• Prestige: Now caps at level 15 instead of 10

Joker Instancing

Many of you had issues in multiplayer lobbies with joker hoarding – players rushing to grab them the second they spawned – making the game unbalanced and just not fun. We were a bit reluctant to change the current system because doing so makes it harder to cooperate and share jokers. However, we found a solution to both instances of jokers, and let you share them if you want to. We didn’t go with the “ping-to-share” approach because some jokers could spawn inside objects, making them uncollectible. Plus, since players are usually scattered around the map, we figured running all the way back to grab a single Joker just isn’t fun.

To balance this out, we’ve lowered the Joker drop rate from enemies, the more players there are in your group. We’ll see how this plays out and tweak things if needed! As always, we’re open to your feedback and will be keeping a close eye on how this update affects your games.

Jokers are now instanced:

• Players individually see their own jokers, and no other player can loot them
• When a Joker drops, its rarity will be the same for everyone
• The joker droprate from enemies now scales based on the number of players: from x1 when playing solo, down to x0.5 in a group of 4.
  Other means of obtaining jokers haven’t changed

Jokers can now be shared:

• Open your minimap and click on a joker on the top right to drop them and make them available for everyone in the game
• A dropped Joker cannot heal you or trigger the Hoarder Joker, in order to prevent infinite exploits

Stability

• Your save will now save properly after selecting a backup save
• Fixed a bug that would let you join full servers when joining through Steam invites
• Fixed a bug that would disconnect you from the host if you were not on the same network as the host
• Hopefully, fixed the backups that would not save properly
• Fixed Intel AI fatal error crashes
• Fixed a shader crash that could happen on Far Far North
• Fixed freezes after you’ve killed an enemy or thrown a spell

Features

• You can now carry pigs, goats & chickens in the lobby (AND DO MORE)
• The Wishing Well can now give a Joker
• You can now play the Piano emote!

Far Far West Version 1 Update 644 Balancing Changes

Weapons, spells, jokers. You name it, and everything has seen balancing changes this patch, one way or the other.

Weapons

• Bow
  • Base ammo: increased from 20 to 31
  • Bend Speed: max amount decreased from 16 to 8, effect increased from +5% to +10%
  • Ammo Bag: increased from +2.5% to +5%
• Dual Revolvers
  • Base damage: increased from 9 to 11
• Minigun
  • Fire Rate: max amount decreased from 16 to 8, effect increased from 2.5% to 5%
• Main weapons prices: lowered from 500 to 300 Gold

Jokers

• Shine Bright: max equippable increased from 4 to 8 (is this really a buff?)
• Helping Hand: max equippable increased from 1 to 2
• Swift Shot: now equippable on the Long Ranger and Leveredge
• Medicard: adjusted from Mythic (4) to Fine (2), now gives a bonus +35HP instead of +50HP
• Clutch: now equippable on the Dual Revolvers
• Lazy: from 5% max ammo every 15 sec. to 10% max ammo every 12 sec. (Description now displays the effects)
• Speedster: now available for Sheriff Stars

Overblast is an incredibly powerful Joker that initially slipped under the radar, providing a damage increase that was considerably higher than other Jokers of its tier, trivializing greater difficulties. This may seem like a harsh nerf on paper, but mathematically speaking, this still provides a 22% increase in a magazine’s damage without clip size investment, comparable to similar options (two Lucky Strikes, or Consumer), and it only gets higher from there (up to 38%)! We understand this is likely to be discussion-worthy, and we’ll be closely monitoring for feedback on this change.

• Overblast: ”Shoots an extra pellet for every missing shot in the magazine” > “Shoots an extra pellet for every 4 missing shots in the magazine.”
  • This balance might need some more balance; we’ll see, depending on your feedback.

Spells

• Finger Guns: increased lasting time from 10 sec. to 15 sec.
• Bubble: decreased cooldown from 50 sec. to 40 sec.
• Contagion: decreased cooldown from 80 sec. to 70 sec.
• Rescue: increased healing from 50 HP to 60 HP
• Doll: decreased cooldown from 135 sec. to 110 sec.
• Bandito: decreased cooldown from 120 sec. to 100 sec.

Enemies

The Cryptic Deadeye has divided the masses and led many bounty hunters to their demise. While a bunch of people seem to have gotten used to them, we still feel they’re a bit too oppressive, especially when playing solo. We’re also adjusting Deathrattles so that those slippery snakes aren’t quite as annoying, and increasing their visibility to allow for more counterplay.

• Cryptic Deadeye:
  • No more than 2 Deadeyes can aim at you at the same time
  • The stagger duration has been increased from 1 sec. to 1.5 sec.
• Cryptic Deathrattles:
  • Deathrattles now glow, making them easier to see
  • Deathrattles can no longer chain attack you; there is a 5sec cooldown between each attack.

BUGFIXES

• Fixed +50 bugs, including:
  • Image parts should no longer disappear during Trackman’s “The incomplete logbook” quest
  • Picking up an Energite shard at the same time another player does should no longer make the player’s hands disappear
  • Calling the horse when interacting with the climbing rope or zipline should not soft-lock interact anymore
  • Moving the snowmen parts around the Far Far North map should no longer soft-lock the secret
  • Shooting a Nuke Barrel with the bow should no longer make it fly all over the map
  • Players now drop the items they have in-hand when they disconnect to prevent objectives & quests from soft-locking
  • Interacting with Ol’ Rufus while smashing a pumpkin will no longer cause the dialogue to get stuck on the screen
  • Spawning a new portal after imploding another one (throw a portal into another) no longer deletes the first existing portal
  • Melee attacks and drain damage now properly stagger the Cryptic Deadeye
  • Boomerang Lifesteal upgrade now works with the Cryptic Saloon
  • Sheriff Stars can now deal critical damage at the shooting range
  • Elec Portal, allowing spells to be quadrupled instead of doubled, has been fixed
  • Pistolero can now target Cryptic Saloon planks
  • Challenge “Collect a minimum of 30 Jokers in a single mission” should now properly work
  • Upgrade Draw Speed: now properly works with Sheriff Stars
  • Joker Lazy: now works in the shooting range and statistics can stack
  • Joker Second Wind: now properly revives when dying from a nuke
  • Joker Scavenger Star: now properly increases movement speed by +30%
  • Joker Jump Star: Shooting at your feet with this Joker equipped should no longer reset the jump counter
  • Joker Battlemage: now properly stacks when multiple instances are active
  • Joker Speedster: now properly grants the same bonus damage for ADS and hipfire

QUALITY OF LIFE

• The Gamba Machine is even more addictive than before
• “Show Damage Numbers” option now applies correctly
• Cryptic Snakes now glow
• You can now ban players from entering your session (Use in “Current session” in the esc menu)
• The mission selection map now shows locked maps and unlock conditions more clearly, and the map has been dezoomed

MISC

• Gambling Machine odds are now properly localized
• Updated the Guitar Emote music
• Updated Canyon map music
• Updated Far West atmosphere
• Updated Botanist, Dynamo, Pyromaniac, Shaman, and Blackout Drinker Titles with new names
• Username text now scales automatically in the Hero menu to prevent clipping off-screen.
• Improved French localization for the Overseer
• Reported grammar & localization issues have been fixed
• DLSS x4 is now available, upgraded DLSS to 4.5
• Upgraded AMD FSR to 4.0
• Added Vulkan support

KNOWN ISSUES

• Possible memory leak issues when playing for several hours
• Voice Chati is not working properly
• ROG Ally UI is not working properly
• Many more little bugs that will be fixed as soon as possible! Keep reporting issues if it’s not fixed in the new update!

Jump back into the frontier and experience the refreshed Prestige System, improved Joker Drops, and everything new in Far Far West’s latest Early Access update, and make sure to let us know in the comments below what you think about the latest changes!