I tried
The Finals out on a whim after hearing positive reviews of its gameplay from friends, knowing very little beyond that it was an FPS. It didn’t get off to the best start because the first thing I saw after installing and launching the game was a “create an account” screen. (If I did reviews out of 10, games with mandatory account requirements would automatically lose at least half a point!).
Once reluctantly logged in, however, I was impressed by the surprisingly effective tutorial. The tutorial included a shooting range with distance markers, vertical structures to practice traversal, and droppable items to practice changing the environment. There were also both hostile and friendly training dummies so that players could try out using healing items and creating cover for allies as well as fighting, reinforcing the team-based aim.
During the tutorial I experienced an interesting visual glitch where my gun became detached from the rest of my character, making it impossible for me to change weapons or interact with objects. However, this turned out to be the only bug I encountered:
The Finals provided remarkably (by 2024 standards) stable and bug-free gameplay. Unfortunately, that’s one of the few compliments I can provide, because despite its mechanical and functional quality, the game did not click at all for me.
The Finals currently has two core gameplay modes; both objective-focused, but varying in tempo. “Bank It” is a 3v3v3v3 mode where teams collectively deposit money in vaults which they must then protect. Whichever team has the vault when its timer runs out keeps that money, so controlling the area surrounding the current vault over time is the key factor. Cashout is a 3v3v3 mode where money deposited into a vault is immediately banked, so its emphasis is on attacking decisively, depositing, then moving on. There are also time-limited extra modes such as a free-for-all version of Bank It and a Tournament mode that shows off how this game is intended to be the next big thing in eSports.
Successfully attacking and defending vaults can be harder than it sounds, due to the game’s USP: its destructible and re-construcible environments. You don’t just need to watch entrances and exits, but also be alert for other teams smashing through a wall to catch you by surprise or even tearing the floor away so that the vault falls into a space more advantageous for that team. Reconstruction is handled through tubs of “Goo” (yes, that is the formal name) that expand into walls when they collide with a surface. Throw them at a wall or floor to create a temporary barrier that can provide cover, block access to a vault, hold up a destroyed floor, or even knock a wall-running opponent off-course towards their death. This aspect of the game is where The Finals can reach its highest potential, as it gives players room for creative and unexpected plays, while also reducing the effectiveness of strategies that get annoying in other games such as camping in specific corners or blockading known routes.
There are also a decent variety of offensive, defensive, and supportive options when it comes to loadouts. To reflect the fact that players are regular humans, class differences are decided by physical size; you can choose between being a Light, Medium, or Heavy human with unique kits and abilities. Light players have the highest mobility and can fit through small holes and tunnels in the maps, while Heavy players have the highest health and can bludgeon holes into the maps. Medium players are the most versatile as they have the largest range of gadgets, ranging from grenades that produce Goo on impact, to portable jump pads, to the somewhat-overpowered healing beam.
Matches lasts around 15 minutes, which feels like about the right amount of time. I did find, however, that matches sometimes just … ended… without there having been a clear build-up and climatic moment. Given the high intensity that the action can reach in peak moments, I found that experience odd. Even the map modifiers often lacked the dramatic tension that their names promised. How can a game make a surprise orbital laser mode feel mundane?! While I can see what the modifiers might have been aiming for, their inclusion didn’t work for me. Instead, they cheapened the game, as their presence felt like a gimmick and like a distrust of the game itself. The best way I can explain it is that by needing to add a twist to every match, the developers were admitting that the audience would get bored of the core gameplay without added chaos.
Similarly, I can see the approach that the developers were aiming for with the game’s graphical style, but again found it lacking. The sparse, rectangle-based menus look like they’re from a knockoff version of
Apex Legends, while the character models are fine but bland. The approach of making the maps seem like VR simulations of real-world locations and times could have been unique but has instead landed on uniquely uninspired; lacking the vibrancy of a stylised world or the memorability of any real-world landmarks, the overall graphical style falls into a No-Man’s Land of dullness. The consistency of the yellow The Finals branding on buildings, objects, and billboards doesn’t help, as it makes each map far too visually similar.
This is also the case with the in-game gadgets and weapons, which stick to the corporate colour scheme so strongly that I can’t tell many item icons apart. Even the one part of the UI that does have some character – the arcade-machine-styled “Press Start to respawn” text – is frustrating because pressing start will open the menu rather than respawning you! (
Edit: A friend has since reminded me that the button we call “Start”has not had that name for a while, and now I feel old…).
The annoying part of this list of faults is that functionally and mechanically,
The Finals is actually pretty good. However, every part of game activated my sense of
“this was made by a focus group based on what can be turned into a commercial, marketable esport”. It’s one of the most soulless, least creative games I’ve played for a long time, and that has definitely soured my view.
This is nowhere more evident than in the announcer dialogue. I found the voice lines repetitive, but also disjointed – they always stayed feeling like two separate sets of dialogue rather than like flowing dialogue from a pair of conversing characters. Their overly-processed vocal tone was also so annoying for me that I wanted to turn the voices off almost immediately. I briefly wondered whether the robotic approach (and graphical style) was some kind of meta-commentary on the hybrid realism/simulation of the world… but nope, it’s not that kind of game! It’s just because developers Embark Studios voiced the game mostly (though not solely) via text-to-speech AI, a choice that I strongly dislike.
I’ll stop ranting now, and conclude by saying that I can understand why people would like the combination of objective-based gameplay, fast-paced shooting, and map destruction. Also, I have to give
The Finals credit for three parts that it gets right: the tutorial, the choice to make item levels rely on item usage rather than wallet usage, and the gameplay stability and smoothness. However,
The Finals is disappointing overall, as I didn’t enjoy it despite giving it multiple attempts over the course of a few weeks. For me, the game felt so soulless and corporate that I just could not get invested in any part of it.
If you liked this review, please check out my other reviews at www.rationaleidolon.com 2.5