Shooters can be confidently called one of the most popular genres. However, when it comes to multiplayer team projects, only a few achieve real success. Activision annually releases Call of Duty, which sells millions of copies, Valve is doing great with Counter-Strike 2, and now it’s not at all clear what to expect from the Battlefield series. Only a few games in new franchises, like Battlebit Remastered and Squad, manage to find their own relatively small niche.
So why such an introduction? The fact is that The Finals, released in December 2023, has become that rare game that players really love and is doing quite well. At least for now. After all, we know of many cases where incredible success at the start was followed by a gradual decline in online activity. Therefore, developers need to continue to support the project so as not to lose the audience… However, I’m already getting ahead of myself, so let’s go in order.
At the time of writing this review, I’ve already spent about 28 hours on The Finals in beta and 43 hours after release. Although I played alone most of the time, it is highly recommended to find friends to cooperate with – preferably with a microphone. Firstly, the game is very much tied to team interaction, and secondly, it’s just a lot more fun!
There are currently only two modes available in The Finals, Quick Cash and Bank It, if you don’t count their tournament variations with slightly different rules (more on that later). I mostly only played the first one because I don’t really like the second one. In it you need to grab a box with money, bring it to the point and hold it until the end of the timer. The catch is that the process can be interrupted at any time by enemy teams, and progress will not be reset. It doesn’t sound very honest, but this is what generates a lot of emotions. Make a cashout a millisecond before the end of the timer; sacrificing all your team, throwing yourself in front of bullets to prevent the point from being intercepted – all this causes sincere joy, especially when you play with your friends.
The second mode, compared to the first, is, in my opinion, quite boring. In it, you just need to open the boxes, loot coins from them and carry them to the point. However, I know that there are people who only play it, considering it more dynamic. Therefore, I advise you to evaluate it yourself.
It is curious that in The Finals there are not two teams playing at the same time, as is usually the case in multiplayer shooters, but three or four, depending on the mode. In my memory, this is the first shooter in a long time where they correctly implemented the balance between several teams. There have been attempts, but only a few have succeeded. Perhaps Planetside 2 comes to mind, which is no longer particularly popular.
In addition to the above-mentioned modes, as already mentioned, there is a tournament variation of Quick Cash. Here, several matches take place in parallel with different teams, which advance through the tournament bracket until a winner is determined. However, the difference is not only in this, but also in the rules of the game themselves. Instead of three teams, four teams play in a match, and two boxes with money appear at the same time. You can only be revived twice on your own – if you exhaust all attempts, you will only have to wait for an ally to pick you up or for the whole team to die. In the latter case, you will lose 30% of all money earned. Respawn time has also been increased. In general, the mode is clearly not for those who come into The Finals to play for fun (read: not for me).
Speaking about The Finals, one cannot fail to mention destructibility, because Battlefield developers participated in its creation. Indeed, almost everything in the game can be destroyed, and this is certainly not a “feature for the sake of a feature,” but a significant part of the gameplay, without which the game most likely would not have become so popular. You can make your way through a wall or ceiling, hide behind the rubble of a building and revive an ally, create a hole under a bank so that it falls right towards you, negating all the enemy team’s defenses. There are a lot of applications. The maps themselves are also well-designed and created in such a way that you interact with the environment in every possible way. Today’s shooters lack all of this.
In total, there are three classes to choose from with the banal names “light”, “medium” and “heavy”. Each of them has their own set of weapons and gadgets (there are also common gadgets). They also have unique skills, but you can only take one at a time. The light class is very fast and deals a lot of damage, but also has a low amount of health. The Heavy is the most durable and is able to protect the team – he mainly fights at close range, although he also has a machine gun. The average one can be both a good medic and an excellent attack aircraft with good damage. Of course, I described the classes very superficially, since we don’t have a guide here. In fact, there are many possibilities for creating builds (another thing is that not all of them will be particularly effective).
Discussions about class balance have been going on since the beta test and, it seems, will never stop. Moreover, literally everyone is criticized. Some complain about the “heavies”, others consider them weak. Some people call the “lights” imba, while others don’t like the fact that they “fly off” too quickly. There are even those who ask to nerf the “mediums”. Moreover, everyone is 100% convinced of the correctness of their opinion. In any case, the developers will probably continue to release patches that change the characteristics of weapons and perks, as they have done before. The fact is that there are certain builds that are better than others, and this will always be the case, no matter what changes are made. However, there are definitely no ones that completely break the balance, as some say.
There were also complaints about the supposedly high TTK (time to kill), but I completely disagree with them. Characters are killed very quickly if hit, and only the heavy class can, perhaps, absorb a couple of extra bullets. TTK is ideal for this type of gameplay, and if it is greatly reduced, then everything can only get worse.
The Finals is a free shooter, which means it’s definitely worth talking about the monetization system. Luckily, she’s okay. You can only purchase cosmetic items and a battle pass with real money—you can’t even speed up your progression. Weapons, abilities and gadgets are unlocked exclusively through play. The Battle Pass is self-paying, so if you purchase it once, you can get all the currency back with a small bonus to get a new one in the next season. The only downside is that the quality of the skins at the moment leaves much to be desired and is not at all attractive for purchase. Perhaps the situation will change in the future.
I would also include the task system as a disadvantage. They are quite complex in the sense that some of them will take a long time to complete. For example, a seemingly simple task, “Kill 3 players while they are intercepting the cache,” may remain unfinished simply because the opportunity simply never came your way. In many quests, you are forced to play in a certain way – fight in close combat, deal damage with a certain type of weapon, do healing… Oddly enough, all this interferes with enjoying the game if your goal is to level up the battle pass.
We’ll have to see how the game performs over time, but right now The Final leaves a lot of positive emotions. This is truly a breath of fresh air that we have been missing. If you’re suddenly looking for a new shooter for yourself, then it’s definitely worth a try.
