It’s official. THE FINALS is out now. The announcement was made during The Game Awards 2023 earlier tonight in what is arguably the best tactic for developers to capitalize on hype: the ole’ “and it’s available now!” approach. We had another opportunity to go hands-on with THE FINALS just last week, and here are some of our key takeaways from Embark Studio's first debut title.
I played THE FINALS for the first time at a preview event earlier this year alongside our own Joseph Bradford, but you can read more about his impressions some other time. Both then and now, the “buzz word” that kept flying around THE FINALS was ‘fun’. During this most recent preview event, Executive Producer for THE FINALS, Rob Runesson, reiterated this point:
“THE FINALS isn’t another battle royale, military sim, or tactical FPS – there are plenty of those out there. It’s an entirely new take on shooters. [It’s] the world’s biggest and most explosive combat-entertainment game show. You are a contestant in this gameshow and you’re here to fight for fame, money, and favor of this season’s sponsors. It’s a game where you have to master chaos and build stardom. Where the entire world in the game is your toolbox. THE FINALS is about having fun.”
What a strange basis for a video game, right? But coming after a wave of big competitive multiplayer arena shooters such as Splitgate, Quake Champions, and Halo Infinite just to name a few – which I have always found highly stressful – I think I could do with some of this so-called ‘fun’.
WHAT IS 'THE FINALS'?
Most of what I experienced in playing THE FINALS earlier this year had remained the same. The biggest addition this time was the reveal of a brand new map: Las Vegas. This brings the total map count up to three, alongside ‘Monaco’ and ‘Seoul’. Whereas both Monaco and Seoul are open, spacious environments the Las Vegas map seems more tightly packed, with lots of buildings for cover and multi-level buildings for tactical destruction. It has the glitz and glam that you would expect in a Vegas map, and it fits perfectly with the theme of being a ‘gameshow’ that THE FINALS takes place in.
It’s evident that the devs have really been putting on the ritz to THE FINALS this year. I could easily recognize how much polish and care the team at Embark Studios has spent in fine-tuning every aspect from the menu navigation to the gunplay itself. The UI felt less cluttered and more focused in directing my attention to elements that mattered. It also felt more intuitive navigating options in the “Backstage”, the launchpad for customizing a character or starting a matchmaking session.
Which was convenient, because I spent a lot of time during this preview customizing my contestants’ appearances, equipment, and loadouts. Despite THE FINALS being an arena shooter, I wouldn’t go as far as to consider it a ‘hero shooter’ in the vein of Apex Legends or Overwatch 2. There’s a lot you can personalize – primary and secondary weapons, specialization abilities, gadgets, and your “Reserve” – to affect a contestant’s playstyle to better match with yours. Even Rob had mentioned that, “[THE FINALS] is not a hero shooter – it’s a hero builder.” An idea that I found to be quite tantalizing, at least in theory.
Here’s how that breaks down.
There are only three contestant body types to choose from, which act sort of like “classes” in THE FINALS – Light, Medium, and Heavy – which bears more semblance to the Holy Trinity in MMORPGs than it does to other shooters. Light body types are your typical DPS builds, Mediums are for Healers, and the Heavy body type is more akin to a Tank role.
That said, your body type doesn’t necessarily shoehorn you into a specific role. Each body type has their own exclusive ‘specializations’, which can either act like an Ultimate ability or affects the entire playstyle of the contestant. For example, Medium body types are the only ones to have the Healing Beam as a specialization in their loadout, essentially turning them into a supporting role as a Healer. But it’s just as viable to slot in their Guardian Turret specialization instead. The turret spec, coupled with the Medium’s defibrillator in a gadget slot, makes them feel more like a Summoner out of Final Fantasy XIV and less like a White Mage – dishing out damage with their summon, but able to Swiftcast a Resurrection in a pinch. At least, that’s how I see them…
A MATCH MADE IN VEGAS
My first couple of matches in THE FINALS were admittedly rough. The first matchmaking took us into Seoul 2023 with a modifier ‘Under Construction’, which meant that the buildings were unfinished and there were a lot more open spaces. The game mode was called “Quick Cash” where the goal is to “Find a vault. Grab the cash box. Take it to a cashout station.” This might sound like your typical ‘Extraction’ mode – because it is! Find the objective, take it to a point, and hold out against enemy teams until the extraction is finished. However, THE FINALS’ twist on this mode is multi-faceted.
First, there isn’t just one enemy team, but three. Each mode features four teams of three players each, making a total of twelve players in each match. Second, THE FINALS has almost completely destructible environments. So while you may think that you’ve just set up a defensive position – with the Heavy’s ‘barricade’ gadget placed down and your teammates ready to intercept would-be thieving teams – another player could RPG the floor out from beneath your feet and drop you to the level below where their teammates lie in wait to ambush you.
At times, THE FINALS can feel like pure chaos. But that’s exactly what Rob said they’re going for: “The players that can adapt, play smart, and master this chaos using the environment to their advantage – they will reach THE FINALS, and they will win.”
While my team tried to play to the objective, our individual contestants lacked synergy and couldn’t outgun the competition. I tried to play my first couple of matches as a Heavy, because I prefer being a Tank and soaking up damage for my teammates. I thought this would allow my team to utilize me like a shield so they could zero-in and pick off the other players, but instead this tactic usually just resulted in me being the first to die.
The second match was in the new ‘Las Vegas’ map during sunset. There wasn’t a modifier on it during this match, so I was able to experience all the bright lights and glamorous details that went into it. I did experience two other versions of the ‘Las Vegas’ map later in the session, which did make it seem like they were completely different. The first was at night, with a ‘Tripwires and Turrets’ modifier, so all of the casinos were closed and the lights were off (pfft, as if that ever happens in the “City of Lights”), and different areas on the map – such as where the cashout stations are – were surrounded by lasers that would set off an alarm if they were activated.
The last Vegas map I played was actually towards the end of the session with a ‘Sandstorm’ modifier. Disappointingly, this did not mean that every casino had Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’ playing on full-blast (although that would have been awesome). Instead, an apocalyptic sandstorm had swept through the map and blanketed the city in sand – creating dunes, destroying buildings, and even setting palm trees on fire (that last one might’ve just been from a grenade I had tossed).
After a couple of losses, I decided to switch it up and choose a Medium body type for the next matchmaking session. I remembered that the team combination of a Heavy plus a Medium with the Healing Beam was the go-to tactic to play during the first preview session earlier this year. While this combo still synergizes well, it wasn’t nearly as overpowered as before. A single player won’t be able to solo another that has a healing beam on them, but two players focus-firing will be able to easily out-pace the rate of healing. With this tactic, we were able to eke out our first victory during the kickoff round for a Knockout Tournament mode. Sadly, we couldn’t pull off a win during the second round.
Additionally, the way THE FINALS handles revives is pretty unique as well. When a player dies, they turn into a small statue. Other teammates can either revive you on the spot, or choose to pick up the statue and carry it away to a safer location. During a match, there was an opportunity to steal another team’s vault being cashed out. I decided to go for the steal and “LEEROY JENKINS!” my way towards the vault. Regrettably, I was spotted and gunned down before I could even make it to the vault. One of my teammates was able to grab my statue and run away, ducking behind a stairwell and protecting them from gunfire. They revived me safely and we were able to quickly try again to steal their vault.
This type of utility can be especially paramount during tournament play, as there is a finite amount of revive tokens available for your team to respawn. If your team wipes, you all pay a token. If just one person wipes, but they wait out the timer and choose to respawn, it also uses up a token. However, if another teammate revives you then there is no cost. This same limitation isn’t in place for quick matches, just tournaments. This gives the tournament mode a completely different set of tactics for teamplay, and gives it the feeling that teamwork is even more paramount to success.
OPTIMIZATION AND BUGS
The few hours that I’ve gotten with THE FINALS so far have been mostly enjoyable and, dare I say, fun. The optimization for PC felt good too. Even playing on my laptop, which only has an i9-11900H CPU and an RTX 3070 GPU, I was able to run everything on High settings at 1080p with NVIDIA DLSS on Auto and maintained a smooth 120 fps framerate. I didn’t have any noticeable frame drops or stuttering issues either. In fact, the only issues that I did experience was when I experienced a bug with the matchmaking. After waiting for the matchmaking system to find us a game, I was kicked back to the main menu instead of actually joining into the session. Both of my other teammates proceeded into the match just fine – it was only me that got booted.
Unfortunately, there was no ‘reconnect’ or ‘rejoin match’ option at the Backstage menu either – just the ability to queue again by clicking ‘Play’. Ultimately, I had to reset the client in order to fix this issue. There isn’t the ability to join teammates or friends mid-match either, so when I got back into THE FINALS I could only queue up solo for matchmaking into a different session. It was a relatively small hiccup in what was otherwise a flawless preview session, but I was told that the dev team were confident it would be squashed before launch.
Personally, I only had one bug pop up during this preview session, but another bug cropped up for one of my teammates. In the middle of a match, their weapon graphic just simply disappeared. They could swap weapons, swap gadgets, and even aim-down-sights, but it’s as if the rendering just stopped working. At the time that they experienced this issue, I had died and was able to spectate from their point-of-view. From my screen, I could still see their weapon but they were saying that it wasn’t showing up for them. Other than this issue, they noted that their experience was similarly smooth.
TO CONCLUDE
While I am excited to start playing Season 1 tonight now that THE FINALS has officially launched, I am also concerned with what appears to be – at least initially – a lack of content. There are really only two different game modes and three different maps in THE FINALS. Most of the unlockable cosmetics appear locked behind the seasonal battle pass. And while I believe that the chaotic nature of each match will be enough to prevent it from feeling stale, I worry that the novelty of a “gameshow” arena shooter will wane too quickly in-between seasons. I think Embark Studios will really need to be transparent with players and disclose their roadmap for content updates.
That said, THE FINALS is free to pick-up and play and available on almost every system: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on Steam. It also has cross-platform play, so you can play with (or against) your friends regardless of the system you’re playing on. There’s no reason not to try it out for yourself and at least see if you can make it into THE FINALS.
