This is just some first impressions and thoughts from the playtests, the game isn't even out yet.

Overall, I really love what this game is going for. It's got very fluid and tight gunplay, some of the best destructible environments we've ever seen, a unique enough aesthetic, and pretty good customization.

Some issues though, the game is HORRIBLY optimized. I have a 4080 graphics card and even I stutter about on epic or even high settings, big issue there. Also there seems to be some balancing issues, with weapons such as the flamethrower and some abilities such as the shield wall being way too powerful.

Regardless of these issues, they will likely be tuned out and we've got a great FPS game on our hands. The experience and prestige from former battlefield devs can really be felt in this game, they've really honed in their craft on gun play and destructible environments. I'm very excited for what's in store for this game.

No star rating yet since game isn't out.

Played the Closed Beta in March then played a bit of the closed beta in June. Gunplay, movement and destruction are fun. The game mode is needlessly messy. It boils down to run to box, fight at box until timer is up, pick up box, take that box to another box, fight at that box until timer is up.

If that's the main game mode I don't see many people playing for very long. It just doesn't seem to have that magic sauce that keeps the game fun and simple.

Good gunplay and impressive destruction won't carry the game. The primary game type needs to be something people will want to play every day for months on end, and I just don't think what they have now is it.

The Finals is the redeeming last five minutes of a boring-as-fuck Fortnite round stretched out to cover the entirety of enthralling, nail-biting rounds that make you feel triumphant for every small victory you make. This is the kind of game that will make a follower a leader on a whim, and it feels great. The core gameplay loop here is kinda perfection, in that it's simple enough to describe to somebody who has no idea what this game looks like, but can get exceedingly complex in action. And this blunt intricacy spans more than one mode, too. The Final's take on Kill Confirmed is just as chaotic and cathartic as the main mode and feels like a welcome addition rather than a lazy afterthought. I'm genuinely pumped to see what else they add to this because they're clearly bringing their A-Game to it.

Get two of your friends (or family) on voice comms, and this is great fun. But the magic of a good teamwork-centric multiplayer title like this is that it works just as fine if you're playing with complete strangers several continents ahead of you who don't even speak your language. I can't say with certainty that it's as fun here, but going off of the few rounds I've played on my lonesome, it's been more than possible and, in some cases, just as fun.

Playing The Finals, I feel as enthusiastic as my siblings did when they got into TF2 over a decade ago. I never thought I'd have my moment, but I have.

EDIT: Had to knock off a star because of the AI shit that's apparently in the game. I'm grateful that this game is free so I don't have to have any conscience issues with supporting it, but it's still kinda scummy.

Judging from the open beta, this game has the potential to be one of the greatest PVP multiplayer FPS still (a)live, but some little and big things might prevent it from truly making it to the big leagues, or, at least, from staying there too long.

The biggest reason for that is that the content on offer is a bit one-note, with a gameplay that requires a lot of teamwork to be successful. The only two distinct modes are a capture-defense type, and that mode where you get coins from killing people that you then bank at a special terminal. Plus a tournament version of one of those.

And they are great, don't get me wrong. The much-praised gunplay is fun and the equipment allows for a wide range of strategies, the destruction is fantastic, and the presentation holding it all together is solid. That's all true.

But the thing is, the carry potential is a bit too small, meaning that if you're up against even a somewhat well-coordinated team, and your two guys are mongrels who don't push objectives or just aren't that good at shooting or throwing barrels yet, you are almost guaranteed to lose. The winner-takes-all nature of Quick Cash, plus a lack of an overtime (the timer runs over a bit if the objective is contested) or sudden death (everyone respawns in the last throws of a match) mechanics, means that defending your cash-out requires some careful planning and consideration, as losing the objective in the last 20-30 seconds of a match might mean that you'd just have to watch helplessly as your wiped-out team is defeated and the winner does, indeed, take it all with little resistance. And again, it'd be exceedingly hard to avoid being on the losing side of this particular interaction if your team isn't going for objectives, wasting time taking long roundabouts, doesn't consist of two full members, or doesn't exist at all. Because yes, I've had plenty of times where I've been connected to a match with a full team but one or two members left before seeing the game through to the end, and even been connected to a match in-progress where my team was entirely empty before my arrival. This is actually the biggest weirdo freak thing The Finals does: often you will start or end your match with an incomplete squad, but rarely do the empty slots get filled in.

That issue is further exacerbated with the lack-luster communication features on offer. There is no chat at all, no way to quickly ask for healing or denote traps or strategic destruction points, and the "request revive" button only makes your downed character icon emanate a faint glow, which I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of players don't know the meaning of. The objectives in this game aren't difficult, but aren't always immediately intuitive, and the nuances of destruction mechanics, plus the nature of "Specializations" and different types of grenades, really make some matches frustrating when your team isn't pushing the limited ping system to the max or aren't playing as a team.

The other big mode, Bank It, is a bit more forgiving: your goal is to kill your opponents, collect the coins that splurge out of them, and bank them at designated and time-limited points on the map. Bank It is great for casual solo-play because the issue of players being too enamored with the gunplay to push objectives is not as persistent -- you are supposed to focus on killing. The problem of "poorly coordinating teams of lemmings vs sweaty CoD vets" is also somewhat alleviated here, since coins drop from everyone on death, meaning that it's possible to lose your teammates in a skirmish, collect their death doubloons and skedaddle without the deaths or the skedaddling being an outright setback. The destruction shines in the main capture-defense mode, but the main combat loop gets it's full spotlight right here.

The only issue with Bank It is purely one of balancing. Simply put, light builds with a sword or a silent pistol are guaranteed to do better than heavies and mediums, due to lacking mobility of the former and support-based gameplay of the ladder. It's clear that the classes and their general kit were based around the more defense-focused modes, but the light is built as a disruptor, with their abundant mobility options and small hitboxes, which makes them a powerhouse in a mode where speed and evasion is everything.

Overall, these issues aren't game-breaking or essential; I can easily envision a one-day patch that fixes the balancing issues, ads more relevant ping options and gives them shortcuts, as well as making them more contextually adaptable, and does away with small annoyances like not being able to customise your weapons from the equipment tab. And it's also entirely possible that as early as this year or the first months of 2024 we will see more maps, a traditional deathmatch mode and a singles option for match-making.

But I do worry that some of these changes won't come soon enough, and that The Finals might struggle to maintain or even gain any meaningful momentum. This game is fantastic, it's fresh, and it's visual style and iconography have a potential to become absolutely...well, iconic. All I hope for is that it actually happens.

3.5 stars for the state the game is in as of this last Beta; might go way up if the devs play their cards right

P.S.
Apparently the game uses AI text-to-speech for barks and announcer lines, which explains why the announcers sound so stilted and weird. Fuck that! Hope that's adressed with the damn day-one patch!

UPD:
I just read some more interviews and lurked a bit on Reddit and y'know what, make this game 3 stars. Embark is both run and funded as if it were a AAA studio yet the fans argue that AI-voiceover was something the devs needed to do in order for this game to exist and have a brisk development pace, which is the view Embark tacitly supports. And that's obviously bullshit.

BETA IMPRESSIONS, NOT THE FINISHED GAME

TL;DR: After about twelve hours of the second closed beta, I think this game has a lot of potential to be fun with a group, but it's got some rough edges. You should definitely give it a shot when it launches, but I'm unsure if it will maintain a player count long-term.

A match of The Finals feels like an absolute mess, and I mean that as a compliment. The game is loud: explosions, gunfire, screaming, and the cheers of the crowd. You think you might have a solid hold on an objective, but then someone blows up the floor underneath you. Killing an opponent by throwing an explosive barrel at them and shooting is is so satisfying. It's crazy, chaotic, and there's no other FPS like it right now.

Movement is one of the biggest detractors to the feel of The Finals. Sprint toggling feels kind of delayed/unresponsive, and with it on, you cannot smoothly go from sprinting forward to sprinting backward, so this is the first game in ages where I've used hold-to-sprint. Mantling is really limited and it's constantly surprising what sort of things you can't climb over. This can make climbing into windows and maneuvering around debris frustrating. Sliding is kind of unreliable and doesn't give you much momentum. I never have much confidence when I'm attaching to a zip line, jump pads provide very little horizontal movement, and the grapple hook can be finicky when tethering it to rooftops. I was getting the hang of things by the end of the beta, but it sort of felt like I was working around the game's jankiness rather than developing skill. My two biggest wishes for the final game are improved movement mechanics and more responsive controls.

Loadout customization is very extensive. There are three classes (light/medium/heavy) which determine the weapons, abilities, and gadgets you can equip, as well as your HP, movement speed, and body size. You can equip one weapon and three gadgets, and you also get to keep a set of items in reserve that you can use to customize your loadout mid-match. There's a lot of room to tailor your build to your playstyle, and team synergy is crucial.

There's a lot more I could say, but it's almost 2 AM, so here are some bullet points instead:
- Cashout works well as 3v3v3, but feels a lot worse if the third team is missing. If it's just 3v3, the defending team has too much time to recover after team fights; getting a full reset is much harder when there's a risk of back-to-back fights. Similarly, it's impossible to win a game if one of your teammates bails.
- Right now, once a team gets close enough to completing the cashout, going for a steal becomes pointless and you're better off preparing for the next vault spawn. There should be an overtime mechanic.
- Cooperation is important because the three classes are each designed with deficits that the other two make up for. Heavies don't have any movement options at their disposal, but mediums can set up zip lines for them. Mediums cannot equip destruction gadgets like C4, but the other classes can.
- Quick play can be a total drag if you don't have a sensible team comp.
- Light characters are a bit too squishy IMO, I had way more luck playing with a medium.
- TTK feels okay to me. It's high, but there aren't too many escape options, so chasing to get your kill is usually viable. (Compared to Hyper Scape, where if you did not one-clip someone, they would pop an ability and get away.)
- Respawns are slow (and finite outside of quick play) to incentivize reviving your teammates. I think this is great if you have a coordinated team, but if you get unlucky with your randos, the game becomes a slog. Play with a party.

Dumb fun. Apart from the gunplay being absolute ass but exclude that and you've got a pretty fun fortnite/overwatch-esque gameshow game thing. It's pure chaos and I'm a big fan of the style and mechanics that give it a sort of nostalgic feel if that makes any sense.

Needless to say I will be checking this game out upon full release. The heavy is super fun to use and just smash through the entire map and the light is great for the grapple hook. For mindless action fun this game is perfect to just switch your brain off and go shooty shooty.

when I first played the beta I was like "this feels clunky as hell, where is the appeal, I do not get it"

then I unlocked the flamethrower

(also people know how to play now and the server issues have been ironed out so games don't feel slow or lopsided as much)

OPEN BETA IMPRESSIONS, NOT THE FINISHED GAME

I put twenty hours into the open beta. Comparing the experience to my twelve hours in the second closed beta, which I previously reviewed, has me very excited for this game. The devs have made some clear improvements and the core gameplay is in a really good place. All that's left to do now is fix bugs with the matchmaking and menus.

My biggest complaint with the closed beta was that movement felt janky. In particular, mantling was extremely limited, making it difficult to traverse environments once there had been some destruction. In the open beta, the height that you can mantle has been significantly increased, almost to the point of being over-exaggerated. Getting onto rooftops or climbing through holes in ceilings is much easier and more reliable. I've gone from being surprised by what I can't climb over to being surprised by what I can. The controls feel snappier and more responsive as well; I'm not worried about missing zip lines anymore.

All of that said, it's not like the movement system has been completely overhauled. The grapple hook feels better to use now, but that's because of the improved mantling, not because of any changes to the grapple hook itself. Jump pads are still finicky. This game doesn't feel anywhere near as good as Apex, but I don't think it has to. I saw another reviewer on here call this game a movement shooter, and I disagree: it's a team-based objective shooter that has some movement mechanics.

The game mode I played most was Tournament Cashout, and it definitely feels like the de facto way to play the game. Compared to Quick Cash, the matches feel busier and less repetitive thanks to the addition of a fourth team and a second vault. Finite respawns and score penalties for team wipes demand more deliberate play. You need to coordinate with your team to be successful here, and I find playing with friends very rewarding. This beta also introduced Bank It, the game's equivalent of Kill Confirmed. I wasn't a big fan of it because it's essentially a deathmatch and lacks the emphasis on team/objective play that I think is key to this game.

Combat and balance is pretty tight. Some folks think TTK is too high because winning 1v2s and 1v3s is really difficult. I don't think they realize that's by design: the game requires and rewards teamwork. Respawns are slow in order to incentivize revives and support playstyles, such as healing or setting up defenses. TTK is high enough that you can react to getting shot, but not so high that your opponents can constantly escape. Regarding weapon balance, nothing felt busted or overpowered to me, but there is a huge gap between the best and worst weapons in the game. Some weapons are just not worth unlocking. There is a lot of counter-play between various abilities and gadgets. Are a heavy's shields obnoxious, or a medium keeps reviving every time you get a pick? Use glitch grenades to take those abilities away. Is the enemy throwing pyro grenades to force you out of cover? Put out the fire using smoke grenades. It adds a layer of dynamic strategy to each match and it encourages you to run a diverse team comp since some items are only usable by certain classes.

Bugs are to be expected since this is a beta, and I ran into my share. There were several times teammates got kicked from matches and couldn't reconnect, and at some point, I had to rebind my ADS controls at the start of every match. But I didn't really encounter gameplay bugs. I also want to call out that performance is excellent. The game is way more optimized since the last beta, and I was surprised to see DLSS support.

In order for this game to succeed at launch, the devs need to make matchmaking stable, fix bugs in the menus/settings, and not botch the progression and monetization. In other words, they need to tune up some things around the gameplay, but the gameplay itself is in a really good place. If they address these issues in time for release, I can see The Finals becoming my next FPS obsession.