The Finals is a free to play game and it comes with a lot of what you would expect from that. It is a work in progress that doesn’t have enough content. It has a battle pass and overpriced, mostly cringey cosmetic items that often clash with the rest of the games look. It’s slow to progress and expects too much of your time. Despite all that I like this and think it has the potential to do really well.
Normally I’m not a big fan of these games and often don’t even try them. So I almost passed on The Finals but I’m glad I didn’t. The Finals nails the core basic stuff. Moving and shooting just feels good. The movement is quick and fluid with slides and conveniently placed jump pads, ladders and zip lines. It’s so important to the gameplay especially because of how vertical this game is, which I really enjoy. But it’s not completely perfect and you will have the occasional bit of awkwardness. Gunplay works really well with quality animations and sounds. They found a really good spot with shooting. It’s fast and arcade-y but you still need to have decent aim and deal with recoil. There’s also a decent variety of guns and gadgets and some melee weapons too. Changing your loadout and class really impacts how you play. The time to kill feels spot on and allows time for quick thinking and strategy instead of just reflexes and/or who spotted who first. The developers clearly know fun and first person shooters.
Then there’s the destruction. Not only is it just cool but it is an essential part of the gameplay. Being able to just blow holes in floors, roofs, walls or just bring down the whole structure, in an objective based game, just changes everything with how it opens up options for attacking and defending. I will never get tired of blowing a hole in the ceiling and having the objective drop down in front of me, suddenly rendering most of the defences set up by the other team almost useless. Added to all of this is the ability to make goo walls and set things like mines, sentry guns and barriers. There are also different things in the environment you can throw, like goo canisters, explosives and flower pots that are handily located. It’s important to play as a team too. Working together when attacking or defending is vital and so is reviving and healing if possible. All the different elements of The Finals just feel well thought out and work really well together. It makes for such dynamic, emergent gameplay.
I don’t like the presentation as much as the gameplay unfortunately. The maps, weapons and gadgets are mostly fine and of course the destruction is excellent but I’m not a fan of everything else. I don’t like the TV show, virtual combat style they have gone with. The announcers are horribly annoying. But if you turn them off the game feels weirdly quiet, so I settled on just turning them down a bit. The music doesn’t help here either. There is a lot of cringey, over the top cosmetic stuff that has become common now. But for the most part the game looks kind of bland.
The Finals works really well despite the chaos and destruction taking place but I’ve still encountered some issues. It’s crashed on me and gotten stuck on the joining game screen multiple times. Sometimes destruction will look awkward and I’ve spotted floating debris every now and then. There have been times when I haven’t been able to revive a team mate without moving them first. The spawns can be awful, like spawning right near opponents and getting shot straight away and spawning on the other side of the map to where the action and objective is. There needs to be more maps and modes ASAP. More weapons and gadgets will need to come too. Being able to unlock new weapons, gadgets and cosmetic options is way too slow. Everything just needs more time and work and they will need to do some balancing as well. At least monetization is okay I guess, for now. The cosmetics are way overpriced but at least they are only bought with real money while the weapons and gadgets are earned through playing. It also doesn’t take up an enormous amount of space like some other games.
The Finals has a great recipe for a game and a solid foundation. If only it wasn’t a free to play, work in progress. But I guess this is where we are now. The market is over saturated and already has well established games so the only way you can get people to try your game is if you give it to them for free. It is a shame because by the time this game reaches its peak potential I will already be gone. The game hasn’t been around long and I’m already losing interest. That’s if it even manages to survive and doesn’t get ruined along the way as well. Maybe I’ll give this one a break and then come back. The Finals would have been so much better as a full priced, highly polished, content rich, finished game though. I’m stuck between ‘I can’t complain too much as I am getting some pretty fun, good quality online first person shooter gameplay for nothing except my time and data’ and ‘this free to play, always online, digital only, microtransaction riddled, second job level of investment, games as a service bullshit is ruining videogames.’ I’m definitely leaning more towards the second one but I can’t deny the quality here or the fun I’ve been having. If you like multiplayer first person shooters then this is an easy recommendation, give it a try but expect what comes with a game like this.
6.8/10 (for now)
Normally I’m not a big fan of these games and often don’t even try them. So I almost passed on The Finals but I’m glad I didn’t. The Finals nails the core basic stuff. Moving and shooting just feels good. The movement is quick and fluid with slides and conveniently placed jump pads, ladders and zip lines. It’s so important to the gameplay especially because of how vertical this game is, which I really enjoy. But it’s not completely perfect and you will have the occasional bit of awkwardness. Gunplay works really well with quality animations and sounds. They found a really good spot with shooting. It’s fast and arcade-y but you still need to have decent aim and deal with recoil. There’s also a decent variety of guns and gadgets and some melee weapons too. Changing your loadout and class really impacts how you play. The time to kill feels spot on and allows time for quick thinking and strategy instead of just reflexes and/or who spotted who first. The developers clearly know fun and first person shooters.
Then there’s the destruction. Not only is it just cool but it is an essential part of the gameplay. Being able to just blow holes in floors, roofs, walls or just bring down the whole structure, in an objective based game, just changes everything with how it opens up options for attacking and defending. I will never get tired of blowing a hole in the ceiling and having the objective drop down in front of me, suddenly rendering most of the defences set up by the other team almost useless. Added to all of this is the ability to make goo walls and set things like mines, sentry guns and barriers. There are also different things in the environment you can throw, like goo canisters, explosives and flower pots that are handily located. It’s important to play as a team too. Working together when attacking or defending is vital and so is reviving and healing if possible. All the different elements of The Finals just feel well thought out and work really well together. It makes for such dynamic, emergent gameplay.
I don’t like the presentation as much as the gameplay unfortunately. The maps, weapons and gadgets are mostly fine and of course the destruction is excellent but I’m not a fan of everything else. I don’t like the TV show, virtual combat style they have gone with. The announcers are horribly annoying. But if you turn them off the game feels weirdly quiet, so I settled on just turning them down a bit. The music doesn’t help here either. There is a lot of cringey, over the top cosmetic stuff that has become common now. But for the most part the game looks kind of bland.
The Finals works really well despite the chaos and destruction taking place but I’ve still encountered some issues. It’s crashed on me and gotten stuck on the joining game screen multiple times. Sometimes destruction will look awkward and I’ve spotted floating debris every now and then. There have been times when I haven’t been able to revive a team mate without moving them first. The spawns can be awful, like spawning right near opponents and getting shot straight away and spawning on the other side of the map to where the action and objective is. There needs to be more maps and modes ASAP. More weapons and gadgets will need to come too. Being able to unlock new weapons, gadgets and cosmetic options is way too slow. Everything just needs more time and work and they will need to do some balancing as well. At least monetization is okay I guess, for now. The cosmetics are way overpriced but at least they are only bought with real money while the weapons and gadgets are earned through playing. It also doesn’t take up an enormous amount of space like some other games.
The Finals has a great recipe for a game and a solid foundation. If only it wasn’t a free to play, work in progress. But I guess this is where we are now. The market is over saturated and already has well established games so the only way you can get people to try your game is if you give it to them for free. It is a shame because by the time this game reaches its peak potential I will already be gone. The game hasn’t been around long and I’m already losing interest. That’s if it even manages to survive and doesn’t get ruined along the way as well. Maybe I’ll give this one a break and then come back. The Finals would have been so much better as a full priced, highly polished, content rich, finished game though. I’m stuck between ‘I can’t complain too much as I am getting some pretty fun, good quality online first person shooter gameplay for nothing except my time and data’ and ‘this free to play, always online, digital only, microtransaction riddled, second job level of investment, games as a service bullshit is ruining videogames.’ I’m definitely leaning more towards the second one but I can’t deny the quality here or the fun I’ve been having. If you like multiplayer first person shooters then this is an easy recommendation, give it a try but expect what comes with a game like this.
6.8/10 (for now)