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The Finals' closed beta is out right now. It's been a long time since the world of first-person shooters has experienced something completely fresh. Each year, there is a new FPS title that generates hype around itself and the genre but eventually fails to meet expectations when it comes out. When I first saw the trailer for The Finals, I was immediately intrigued, but I didn't want to get too excited since that has a tendency to backfire.
After playing the closed beta, I can say with absolute certainty that The Finals is a big win for the FPS gaming community. While the game is yet to be released, and there is still a long way ahead before that happens, it is surely a breath of fresh air in the cluttered and stereotypical gaming environment.
The title offers a massive interactive environment with you having the ability to destroy, alter, and exploit your surroundings in PvP matches. You can customize your own characters and loadouts to increase your chances of becoming the champion in this virtual world. The future that the developers have envisioned seemed quite promising to me, and there is a massive amount of room to make this title a blast before its release.
Grab the cash and win in style in The Finals
The basic idea for The Finals' gameplay is to pit four teams against each other in a massive arena where they will compete for the maximum amount of money to be the champions.
You can either earn your cash by taking the money volts to cashout stations or you can choose to loot the other team's money and become the richest group in the match. With each side consisting of three players, this title is ideal for players who are looking for a team-based multiplayer experience.
The game is extremely fast-paced, and there are several ways to play it, depending on your style. Everything feels extremely fascinating, be it map design or the after-kill effects. One example of how stylish the title is is that you bleed gold coins after you die. Another one would be the fact that you can bring an entire building down to the ground using explosives. Additionally, the title subjects players to no fall damage. What more could one ask for?
Never-seen-before environmental destruction
The main attraction of the game is probably the amount of environmental destruction that you can carry out on its maps. Developed by Embark Studios (a studio based in California with a room full of ex-Dice devs), The Finals is probably the closest you'll get to playing a modern Battlefield game.
While Battlefield 2042 suffered from not having enough core features, you can surely reminisce about those good days in The Finals' gameplay and the action-packed arena.
In this title, you can create massive holes to get through a building or easily create a crater by detonating a C4 for your advancement. From random trees to a building's wall, almost everything is destructible in this game. Moreover, the title won't let anyone hide behind walls or around corners; you can literally blast through floors or bring down a whole building to take enemies out in The Finals. This is not a feature seen in most FPS titles.
You can pick up almost anything from the ground and throw it to distract enemies or damage them to some extent. I have never seen a game doing environmental destruction more justice than The Finals did in its closed beta.
Two great maps with dynamic weather and stunning visuals
Destruction is not the only key factor in this game since the title also offers two maps that are available to play right now via the beta. Both are based on real-life locations and have dynamic weather conditions and day/night cycles.
Every time you start a new game, you find yourself at a different time, in a different environment. Be it a foggy morning in Monaco or a clean night in Seoul, the dynamic range of this title never made me feel bored, even for a second. Both maps offer a large area with a variety of points of interest.
With its large glass towers and modern buildings, the Seoul map comes across as a lot like what it is in reality: the urban capital of South Korea. At the same time, the Monaco map offers a more grounded experience. With a small forest, historical buildings, and colorful villas, it's a vibrant place for players to combat in.
The Finals' visuals are absolutely stunning, and it is one of the best-looking FPS games that you can find right now. Be it the overall texture or foliage, everything in this title is crafted with great attention to detail, and the colors look vibrant as well. There is no issue with visibility unless you are playing during foggy weather conditions, but that is understandable.
The Finals' gameplay offers a fresh and unique experience
Coming to gameplay, there are only two ways to play The Finals right now via the beta. You can either enter a standard quickplay match or compete in the tournament with your team.
Both modes offer multiple respawns, but after a countdown, you'll be required to insert coins to get back into the game. However, these respawns are not unlimited and once your limit is over, your teammates will have to revive you in a match.
As I've said earlier, you can move almost anything in The Finals. Your teammates can take your trophy with them, or change their position, to revive you in a more secure place.
While the casual mode offers a four-team match, the tournament mode is a bit different and it's a bit lengthy compared to the casual mode. There are a total of four groups where each group will contain four teams at the start.
They will fight each other and after each round, the two teams will be eliminated until the final round comes. In the world of battle royale or normal multiplayer modes, this tournament system is surely a new approach to engage in lengthier fights with more purpose and intensity.
It's also worth noting that you can throw gas canisters at enemies. Another intriguing feature of this game is its absolutely hilarious Goo containers. You can use these around you to create a wall of foam to use it as cover while fighting enemies or guarding your cash station.
You can customize your characters, but there is a problem
Just like class systems in various FPS games, you can choose your role depending on your playstyle. There are a total of three build types that you can select in this regard: Light, Medium, and Heavy. After playing with all three builds, it felt like the weapon and health-balancing aspects in this title needed some major improvements.
The Heavy build type possesses the maximum amount of health, but your character will be slower and carry an LMG or a launcher. It is difficult to take them down as they have almost double the amount of health as the Light build, and this is annoying for those who like to rush corners and jump around the map.
The game offers a variety of options for you to choose from and create unique ways to attack or defend your position during a match. You can use the grappling hook to get to the terrace, and you can also render yourself almost invisible and sneak behind an enemy to take them down. The title also lets you use a shield to defend yourself. There is no shortage of new styles to play the game.
Weapon balancing needs major changes
If you are familiar with Apex Legends, you'd know that the time to kill in that AAA battle royale is pretty high, and that is understandable for a fast-paced shooter. While The Finals offers a similar type of gameplay, for a multiplayer team-based format with respawn enabled, its TTK is much higher than I expected. If you are a casual gamer, you might have a hard time fighting players who spend hours in the game to improve themselves. This is why this title's weapon balancing needs some major rework.
After playing a couple of games, I'd at least died more than 80% of the time while facing the six-round Grenade Launcher. This weapon is insanely overpowered, and there is no fighting it back if you get caught in its line of sight.
However, the sniping in the game felt absolutely amazing and very satisfying. This is more fun on the Monaco map as it allows players to take enemies out from different faraway rooftops; this way, you get more angles on your target as well.
The Finals' performance, audio, and UI
As for The FInals' performance on PC, I've used an RTX 3060 Ti to run the game. While my setup was better than this title's recommended requirements, it failed to offer more than 70 FPS. Sometimes, the frames dropped to the 30-35 range, and that is quite concerning since this is a very enjoyable game.
I did not face any audio problems in this title; all footsteps were heard loud and clear. The overall audio experience was not something to write home about, but it was pretty decent.
The game offers a basic UI that reminded me of PUBG, and it is easy to navigate. Hence, I did not face any problems in this sector either.
However, The Finals does have some major bugs and glitches on both maps. You can get stuck while climbing a rock or within a wall, and the bullets might not go through the staircase either.
In conclusion
The Finals gives us a completely fresh and unique experience, while most other FPS games have become stereotypes of the genre. There is surely some major room for improvement in the title, and it is currently in closed beta. Hence, we can hope that the developers will enhance the title in the future.
I think this game has the potential to overthrow multiple AAA giants. With promises that some of our favorite franchises have failed to keep, this new experience is something that I had been waiting for a very long time. If everything works out well, the title might blow up just like several battle royale games have done in the last decade.
The game needs a lot of polishing and balancing before it officially comes out, and I sincerely hope it becomes very popular. One last thing worth mentioning is that the title is free-to-play. Once it is officially released, it will be available on both PlayStation and Xbox consoles. However, right now, it is available via a closed beta on the PC. I want to thank Embark Studios for providing me with the Steam key, and I absolutely look forward to playing this game again later this year.
Reviewed On: Windows PC
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, TBD
Developer(s): Embark Studios
Publisher(s): Embark Studios
Release Date: TBD
