The War Mech: Unleashed
Summer Co-Op Tournament 2026
Rules & Guidance
The time has come this year, time to grab a partner and join together for an adventure into the great unknown! It's time for Summer Co-Op, our annual two-player team tournament for the winner-takes-all title of Co-Op Champion!
About the Tournament
Co-Op is a team event. Players will join up in teams of two, connected via lua script in Bizhawk, playing the same seed. The goal will be shard hunt, with teams working together to find 16 shards to reunite the black orb and clear the path into the Temple of Fiends Revisited. The team is done when both players have killed Chaos (and only the time of the second finish counts for the “team time”).
Key items will be shared by the lua script (stored “in the cloud”, which we like to call the team's “bag of holding”). If a player dies (or resets) after a key item is in the bag of holding, that key item is saved and does not have to be retrieved again. Note that “save on game over” is enabled in the flagset so gear, and levels, gained during exploration will be maintained in the event of an untimely death.
You're out to collect treasures with your teammate and get to the end of the game first. Dig out the goods and be the big winners!
Make sure to read the General Rules and Guidance for Tournaments and Leagues before registering for this event
Tournament Details:
The Co-Op tournament is a short, streamlined event. Teams will face off in single-elimination bracket, playing best of three (Bo3) matches to determine who will move on. As it's single-elimination, once a team is done, they're done.
Co-op Requirements
- BizHawk: This emulator is needed to run the lua script that makes co-op possible. For best results it is recommended to have both runners using the same version. v2.4 to v2.8 appear to be the most stable versions. BizHawk v2.8. Note the Co-Op scripts frequently fails to communicate if used in Bizhawk 2.10.x or above, so we do NOT recommend later versions of the emulator for this tournament.
- Co-op lua script: Co-op Script [ZIP], Setup Video - (Put the LibFFRNetwork.dll in the dll folder of your bizhawk folder, and the ffr_team_v2025-2.lua in your lua/NES folder of your bizhawk folder.) Please make sure you have the most current script!
- Make sure your .net framework is updated.
- A partner: If you're in need of a partner you can be added to and/or find one in the discussion channel on discord.
Important Dates:
- Signups: May 17, 2026 - June 14, 2026 @ 9:00 PM EDT
- Async Qualifier #1: June 9, 2026 @ 9:00 AM EDT - June 11, 2026 @ 9:00 PM EDT
- Async Qualifier #1: June 12, 2026 @ 9:00 AM EDT - June 14, 2026 @ 9:00 PM EDT
- Reveal Stream: June 14, 2026 @ 9:30 PM EDT
- Brackets Begin: June 15, 2026
Tournament Schedule:
Teams will face off against one opponent team per week, fitting in their three games (assuming all three are needed) during that week span. Once they have finished their races they are welcome to schedule their next matches (as soon as their opponent is determined), but they cannot take longer than the week scheduled for each best of three (Bo3) match-up.
Note: During the first couple of weeks of the tournament, not all games are guaranteed for restream. Every attempt will be made, but especially in the case of the first games of a series, those games may be held back either for a Bikke Vodcast later, or simply not restreamed at all. Players are required to keep recordings of their runs for the length of the tournament, though, and unless they mark their races as “No Restream", attempts will be made to preserve as many races as possible.
Tournament Seeding:
The tournament will be seeded via the async qualifiers. Teams will race in one (or both, or neither) of the qualifiers to get their score for that match. Fastest time in the race will get a score of zero (0), and all other times in the race will be scored against the winning time (see the General Rules and Guidance for Tournaments and Leagues for an explanation of FFR's standard time-to-score method). Scores are capped at 15 points, and DNFs/DNRS will also get 15 points.
Ties in the qualifiers will be resolved via wheel spin during the Reveal Stream.
Note that teams do not have to run either qualifier, but if they do not they will get the max (worst) score for each race, 15 points. Each team's best (lowest) score of the 2 qualifiers will be used for the seeding.
Tournament Flags:
Resources
- Unleashed Resource Pack [ZIP] (for use during the whole of the Co-Op Tournament)
Flagset
Special Rules and Allowances:
- There will not be any flag options for this tournament.
- Reset buttons (hard and soft reset) may be mapped to controllers.
- Autotracking for both key items and the map is not allowed.
Tournament Staff:
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them at the @Co-Op Tournament Staff.
¶ Previous Co-Op Events
- 2025 Summer Co-Op Bingo Tournament
- 2024 Summer Co-Op Tournament
- 2023 Summer Co-Op Tournament
- 2022 Summer Co-Op Tournament: Explorers of Yahnikurm Desert
- 2021 Summer Co-Op Tournament
- 2020 Summer Co-Op Tournament
- 2019 Summer Co-Op Tournament
Note: No current rules documents remain for the 2019 Summer Co-Op Tournament. This page will be updated if anything is dug up for this event.