The Finals Review: Next Big Competitive Shooter?

If you’ve glanced at any gaming site in the last month, chances are you spotted some buzz around The Finals. This newly released online multiplayer shooter made waves with its intense action and ever-shifting battlegrounds. As a competitor in this fictional televised combat tournament, you’ll need quick wits and reflexes to overcome the opposition. Equipped with unique abilities and the power to manipulate environments, the playing field constantly evolves based on the tools at your disposal.

In this review, we’ll survey the components defining The Finals to determine if it stands tall among heavyweights like Call of Duty and Overwatch. Does it deliver on the promises of its exhilarating trailers? I’ll break down the nitty-gritty details across gameplay, modes, visuals, and post-launch support plans. You’ll get the full rundown on strengths like the emergent strategies and destructive arenas. We’ll also examine shortcomings around map variety and progression systems holding it back from greatness.

By the end, you should understand exactly why The Finals is on so many radars right now. Whether you’re an FPS aficionado or a casual player looking to dive into a shooter, I’ll evaluate if this one deserves a spot on your hard drive. So load up your weapon of choice and follow me through this review as we storm the chaotic battlegrounds of The Finals.

Battling Through Chaotic Gameplay

The Finals immediately drops you into frenetic firefights centered around objectives like securing cash vaults. You’ll join a squad of three competitors, either with friends or randomized teammates. Across a couple thrilling modes, your team battles others over stealing valuable vaults and depositing the contents at cash out stations. It becomes a fierce tug-of-war to repeatedly steal back vaults as a match escalates.

While familiar at its core, several unique aspects make The Finals gameplay an innovative shakeup. Maps feature fully destructible environments, allowing you to create new paths by blowing open walls or collapsing staircases. An arsenal of wild gadgets like grenades filled with solidifying goo lets you manipulate the battlefield to your advantage. Special character abilities open up possibilities for ambushes, like cloaking your whole squad before rushing an objective. The potential for creative strategies with all these tools keeps gameplay feeling fresh.

Quick Cash delivers the headline competitive mode where you locate and deposit randomly spawning vaults. It’s an intense back-and-forth centered around cash out stations, making for white-knuckle battles to defend your earnings. Even a single enemy can sneak in and flip a station, stealing your progress in an instant. It’s exciting mayhem, especially when chasing down vaults dropped from hovering UFOs during wacky late-game events.

Bank It takes a different approach, combining free-for-all cash collection with team deathmatch. Vaults constantly spawn around the map with hefty payouts for depositing their contents. However, you can also build your score rapidly by taking out more loaded opponents and snatching their earnings. This mode offers a fun change of pace with less focus on coordinated objective play.

For the hypercompetitive crowd, Tournaments bring the highest stakes. You battle through qualifying and knockout rounds within the Quick Cash ruleset vying for a spot in the finals. With limited respawn credits and disabled ability to swap loadouts, it rewards those able to adapt under pressure. Few feelings match the rush of a last second vault steal to clinch victory and advance further.

Before matches, you’ll customize a character loadout tailored to your preferred playstyle. Select from Light, Medium, and Heavy builds each with unique strengths and weapon access. Light specialized in quick hit-and-run attacks with SMGs and sniper rifles while Heavies wield devastating firepower like machine guns and rocket launchers. Mediums offer flexible picks between assault rifles or supportive gadgets like healing beams. Despite potential balance issues around Heavy builds, skilled use of any class can lead teams to victory.

Matches often dissolve into chaos as all these elements collide, especially with higher player counts. It’s not uncommon to experience massive shifts as a coordinated ambush gets derailed by sudden environment destruction. This leads to divided opinions around gadget spam creating messy stalemates. However, these moments also facilitate unbelievable longshot plays that turn losing efforts into triumphant comebacks. Regardless where you fall, the frenetic nature guarantees intense rounds from start to finish.

Duking It Out Across Destructible Arenas

The Finals currently includes only four base maps, however each one facilitates the chaotic gameplay through smart layouts. They take place across vibrant city locations like neon-bathed downtown strips or skyscraper rooftops. Each multi-layered map enables vertical movement via ziplines, grappling hooks, hover platforms, and more. This complements the smooth first-person parkour allowing you to swiftly traverse floors and scale buildings.

It’s the fully destructible nature of these arenas that really steals the show. As abilities and explosives tear through environments, they create radically new layouts on the fly. Suddenly your escape route gets cut off when an RPG blows open a hole in the floor below you. Or your team loses a key sniping spot when an enemy ability bursts through a wall you were covering behind. It forces you to constantly reevaluate positioning and opens opportunities for unconventional strategies.

The demolition even extends to key objectives like cash out stations. If an opponent bunkers down around your team’s station, get creative by blowing out the floor to send it plunging down an elevator shaft. Just be prepared to pull off some wild leaps and dashes if you want to chase it down to lower floors!

Of course with so much emphasis on the destruction mechanics, more map variety at launch would have offered helpful breathing room. The included variants do freshen things up by showcasing the current roster during sandstorms or nighttime among other potential conditions. Rotation will still likely feel repetitive sooner without reinforcements though.

Even if map quantity lacks, intricate detail across the existing entries enhances matches. Neon glitters off slot machines in the vibrant Vegas-inspired Pleasure Gardens. Flames engulf apartment complexes as abilities detonate gas lines in Suburbia. The visual storytelling makes every arena feel alive and distinct while allowing gameplay wreckage to shine.

As discussed when dissecting modes earlier, The Finals covers its bases well for now. Quick Cash and Bank It provide enticing core options that feel very replayable even weeks later during my testing. The brutal knockout format in Tournaments satisfies truly competitive players ready to master nuanced mechanics. However, some players will likely yearn for alternate ways to battle soon. Traditional team deathmatch on these maps could allow solely focusing on firefights and movement mastery. Future limited-time events with wackier rules seem plausible to keep things fresh as well.

For a starting playlist, the current offering nails tense gameplay by tailoring map design to key objectives. Ziplines conveniently allow vault transports between distant rooftops while hovering jump pads give quick access to suspended cash out stations. It will be exciting to see how Embark toys with additional concepts down the line across new environments built for shocking destruction.

Spectacular Sights and Sounds

Even when buildings crash down around you, The Finals impresses visually given its online nature. On PC, it scales well to accommodate low and high-end hardware. Console owners also get options to prioritize resolution or frame rate. I consistently saw smooth 60 FPS gameplay on Xbox Series X with crystal clear 4K visuals. Only the most chaotic late round moments sometimes dipped performance.

You can immediately appreciate the sheen across characters and weapons just in starting areas. Vibrant neon glints off your armor while menu screens portray a slick in-world UI as if operated from your competitor wristband. It extends across deadly abilities like lightning beams that crackle and arc in real time. The Finals delivers AAA polish, especially apparent on maps like the luxurious Pleasure Gardens casino.

Destructive set pieces also sell the scale of damage you wield. Concrete splits and crumbles in response to rendered physics as you pepper the environment with bullets. Debris clouds fill city streets as enemies decimate entire high-rise buildings in a single attack. Dazzling special effects like the cold fog from cryo grenades or scorching flames from incendiary explosions keep gameplay eye-catching.

Matching the flashy visuals, weapon assortments all deliver meaty sound design. Rattling machine guns feel thunderous while enemy shotguns landing clutch one-hit kills have an extra visceral crack. Even subtler elements like activating hover boots to reach objectives in mid-air have appropriate futuristic humming. Eerie tones signal dangerous radiation leaks on maps as well for helpful audio cues when navigating.

As matches escalate, an over-the-top announcer calls out critical events like first blood kills or a vault extraction. They effectively heighten stakes alongside the television broadcast framing where matches represent episodes of an in-fiction combat show. Commentary mostly aligns with the action, only periodically throwing out delayed reactions. These energizing vocals complement visuals to fully sell The Finals’ premise.

Down to elements like UI and sound effects, The Finals delivers a slick package rivaling franchises with much larger budgets. Rare performance dips can disrupt the experience momentarily but excellent optimization otherwise enables enjoying the almost non-stop spectacle.

Offering Cosmetics and Contracts

As a free-to-play title, The Finals incorporates familiar progression systems and microtransactions to drive engagement long-term. New cosmetic drops like character skins or colorful weapon variants live behind a Battle Pass. It allows grinding experience from matches to unlock tiers with themed rewards. I earned new threads for my character after just a few hours of playtime thanks to generous XP gains.

For those wanting content faster, you can purchase premium currency to instantly unlock tiers. However most items remain cosmetic weapon charms, clothing pieces, or new finishers for eliminating opponents. The Finals smartly avoids letting players gain gameplay advantages from purchases. A rotating daily store also lets directly buying select cosmetics if you covet something specific.

While the pass lacks imagination, weekly contracts add worthwhile goals to target. Completing mode-specific challenges awards you with premium currency, essentially enabling snagging the pass for free. I appreciated little quests like extracting 8 vaults in Quick Cash matches or eliminating 15 enemies in Bank It. They push trying new tactics while earning you bonuses.

One downside lies in the eventual slowdown once you clear available challenges and pass tiers. Dailies help a bit by still granting small prizes for routine playtime. But the current offering risks losing portions of its audience between content drops. Assigning account and weapon levels could have helped retention by constantly giving small upgrades.

However for a majority of players, the predictable progression setup won’t make or break enjoyment. The Finals focuses its success first on gripped gameplay, with unlocks only sprinkling additional spice. Those wanting to stand out can enjoy chasing wacky animal mascot helmets or weapon skins resembling tasty treats. For anyone satisfied replaying chaotic matches, you’ll still level up effortlessly over time without paying extra.

While unlikely to win praise for innovation, The Finals avoids common free-to-play pitfalls like pay-to-win advantages. Its familiar structure stays inoffensive for most while letting dedicated players show off earned cosmetics.

Counting on Lasting Post-Launch Support

While The Finals nails a thrilling core experience, it currently lacks proper on-boarding tools or guarantees of long-term content. The basic tutorial only demonstrates vault extraction and deposits without touching other mechanics. Weapon handling, environmental destruction, abilities, or gadgets never get covered.

You instead rely on a practice range with movable enemy dummies to safely test gear. Unfortunately no equivalent exists to try full systems against bots before facing unpredictable human opponents. Those matches may overwhelm new players unfamiliar with many integral techniques.

Considering competitive online titles live and die by ongoing support, uncertainty also looms around The Finals’ future roadmap. Early content updates promise fresh cosmetics and quality of life fixes but are light on new maps or modes. The existing offering will likely wear thin over upcoming months if variety stagnates.

However, the game already delivers such strong foundations that added content may simply elevate it further. If Embark sustains community excitement by rapidly expanding components like arenas and gameplay formats, The Finals can evolve into a heavyweight. The thrilling feel of its multiplayer combat, wealth of strategic options, and rewarding progression can retain an engaged following.

For players jumping in now, be aware progress stalling from repetitive content lies ahead. But with a bit of patience and trust in the developers, this unconventional shooter hopefully continues upping the ante.

Dropping Into All-Out Warfare

The Finals delivers exactly the kind of innovative chaos its trailers promised. Frenetic firefights unfold as teams wield devastating abilities and gadgets across fully mutable arenas. Despite a limited map selection, the constantly shifting environments create endless adaptability during objective-based modes. Surprising strategic options give matches wild momentum swings, especially when coordinated squads ambush unprepared foes.

Underneath the flashy spectacle lies strong FPS fundamentals as well. Smooth gunplay and intuitive parkour movement make simply navigating levels an enjoyable experience. A compelling progression path with free cosmetic drops will keep players chasing new gear between heart-pounding showdowns.

However, questions linger on whether The Finals can sustain momentum post-launch. With a lack of alternate game modes or defined content roadmap, replayability risks plummeting over time. But the exhilarating core formula could carry the game far until the developers reveal their next tricks.

For now, The Finals delivers exactly the unconventional, high-octane multiplayer many modern shooters lack. If nothing else, it represents an entertaining early access pass into a visionary concept with huge future potential. I’ll certainly be dropping into this bombastic battle royale alternative regularly as Embark hopefully builds on a promising foundation. Anyone longing for innovative and disruptive FPS gameplay should enlist for a trial by fire today before the crowds roll in.

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