6/10

In the short, but ever-expanding list of FPS games that got fairly popular, then died in about two weeks after, The Finals was the one I actually played a few times. The few hours that I spent playing this with my buddy, I had a ton of fun with, but after about 5 hours playing, I don't really feel the same anymore. The mechanics are fine, and the idea is really engaging, but the gunplay and movement and the maps all range from being clunky to too large, and ultimately the final product is just one big game full of meh. Not sure exactly what they could do to back it better, but I was totally fine with my experience from it and that sums it up quite well.

The Finals is a fun three person (now up to five person) team shooter game with interesting objective-based combat and fun weapons. It's free-to-play nature is not game-busting, although your avatar will look like absolute dogshit if you don't spend real money on outfits. However, they are purely cosmetic and add nothing to gameplay, so thankfully there's that.

Combat is fast, fun, and very easy to pick up and play. When you have a team of three people you know and can communicate with, it's spectacular to run in, kill your opponents, grab the cash, and defend the point until the money is yours. If, however, you're playing with a random person who isn't talking and focusing on KD ratio, you're gonna have a bad time.

The game modes will likely need massive change ups to maintain players, and they just added a five player mode, so we'll see how much it shakes things around. The main mode, revolving around finding money, putting it into a bank, and defending it, is great fun, but the timer aspect almost undoes it. When you place money in a bank, a countdown begins and other teams can come kill you and steal the money for themselves. However, the countdown is universal and never stops, ever, so it often comes down to the very last second, made worse by the fact that if you're in the middle of trying to steal, the timer won't freeze and can just cut you off, which is somewhat bad game design. After a certain amount of time has passed, it's no longer possible to steal and absolutely not worth risking anything other. Because of this, matches can often feel repetitive, which is unfortunate.

Overall, the game is a fun time, especially for being free, but it's not amazing. Will it be around in 2025? Who knows (I doubt it). These types of games come and go every month now, so we'll see how long this one survives. It is, however, an excellent way to kill time when you don't have a lot and feel like slamming someone with sledgehammer.

The Finals is likely the best example of a good live service, free to play game.

This is a game that genuinely offers something new at a time when it feels like all competitive FPS games are trying to converge into the same thing. The weapon/ability variety is fun and interesting, the game modes offer tension that feels missing from other payload/TDM game modes found elsewhere and the destruction in-game is genuinely amazing.

Despite being F2P, The Finals has a distinct level of polish that makes it feel extremely premium, and it's helped by the fact there are (so far) no pay to win microtransactions or predatory sales tactics found in similar F2P games. It has a generous battle pass each season and a cosmetic store, which offers some of the most unique cosmetics I've seen in any game.

The gameplay is smooth, responsive and rewards teamwork. However, luck is a big element too, timing an attack on a cash-out just right can allow you to steal a win from a team who may be objectively better than you. Reshaping the entire map also completely changes how games flow. A sniper is giving you a hard time from the top of a crane? Fire an RPG at the base and remove his advantage from the world.

As of season 3, the only issues that stand out to me are the balancing and the matchmaking.

Balancing is a tough one and I think this is one of those games where it will always be changing as they adjust other things around the weapons. Some weapons are utterly useless (FAMAS, M60, MP5) due to other weapons that fulfil the same role but are better, the same goes for some abilities. The weapon that stands out as the most egregious is the sniper rifle and I believe Embark know this as their newest map seems to be designed with broken sightlines in mind. Snipers completely ruin the flow of the match and have no direct counter apart from another light also using a sniper.

Matchmaking also needs improvement. It was at its worst mid-season 2 but has gotten better. In ranked modes it's not unusual to match with an AFK player, have a teammate who leaves, have teammates who appear to have never played an FPS before while your enemies are a pre-made all running meta weapons and one shotting you with sniper no scopes.

If you're willing to slog out those unfun matches with bad teammates then the good games do make up for it. This game is something very special and if the devs continue to look after it and engage with the community as they have so far then I think it will last a long time and be fondly remembered.

Innovative game modes, didn't encounter any bugs or problems, visually pleasing, destruction mechanics were awesome, etc. Had a lot of fun playing this solo and with a friend. However we got bored fairly quickly after going through enough matches, specializing with a class and getting the hang of it.

Not a big fan of seasonal content games that drip-feed you new stuff over long periods of time desperately trying to keep you coming back so that you hopefully buy something with real money from their store either, so yeah.

All in all a cool new free online fps I can recommend to anyone.