Considering the studio behind The Finals is chock-full of Battlefield veterans, creating a shooter for Embark Studios must feel like second nature. But, apparently the developers didn't actually intend to make a shooter at first.
Speaking with Game Informer, creative director Gustav Tilleby spoke about how The Finals came about: "To begin with, we [initially] weren't going to make a shooter. I don't think that was really something that was spoken out loud; it was something everybody assumed, like, 'no, we shouldn't do that,' Because we did it before."
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"We actually had game jams and stuff pretty regularly from work early on, where everybody pitched ideas and stuff. I pitched some ideas, including the 'boring idea one' and the 'boring idea two,' and those were both shooters," said Tilleby. "I call them that because I didn't think anyone would be interested in making them anyway. So, we just talked about that and said, 'Maybe we should give it a go.' A few of us sat down and said that if we're going to do it, it needs to be unique; it needs to be something that no one else is doing. So that was the starting point for the whole pitching process."
The Finals has definitely proven itself to be a unique shooter. Garnering millions of players in its open beta phase and continuing that interest following release, it feels like a breath of fresh air in the genre, but we'll have to wait and see whether it has a lasting impact.