The Finals

Managing to stand out in today's FPS climate is certainly no easy task. Sure, it's possible to fill your game with gimmicky buzzwords or general oddities, but considering how incredibly tough the competition really is, there are few gamers today who wouldn't see through such a thing. When Battlefield veteran Patrick Söderlund and a group of old colleagues founded the Stockholm-based studio Embark, the idea was to prioritise a story-driven PVE game drenched in epic monster battles and 70s-scented funky design. Arc Raiders has since gone from an exciting concept to one of Gamereactor's most anticipated big games, but before we get a chance to familiarise ourselves with that world, Embark has now taken the opportunity to release The Finals, which in many ways combines the things that made Battlefield one of the world's most popular game series.

The set-up is simple, at least on paper. Three teams of three players each participate in a kind of virtual super-final where the aim is to find, steal and manage money. The matches are based on the Capture the Flag idea where you locate, snatch and carry a specific item to a certain position and then have to defend and attack each other. In The Finals, it's all about virtual money in the form of glittering gold coins and for all teams, it's all about grabbing as much loot as possible and putting it into a Cashout machine. The team with the most money at the end of the game wins.

One of the big talking points during the beta testing of this title, as well as the launch of the final game, is the massive real-time destruction allowed. Embark has returned to the idea of being able to destroy everything you see on the map, which was a key aspect of many of the Battlefield games. If an opposing team is sitting in a building, it's perfectly possible to either blast through the walls or blow up the entire building, depending on time, materials and priorities. Because the matches are quick, the pace is good and you have to keep up with everything that happens. The Finals is high-flying and explosive like nothing else in this genre and it took me several evenings to even get a grip on the game mechanics. Being able to use horizontal (and vertical) ziplines, utilising the protective foam that is an important part of almost every match, the smooth healing whip, the explosives and everything in between is not something that came naturally to me, but had to be really worn in. However, I do not want to try to make it sound like something negative, here. On the contrary. I of course appreciate that Embark has done their utmost to offer something unique here and even if it is possible to see similarities with Battlefield, Overwatch, Fortnite and Apex Legends among others, The Finals is highly original.

There are three different character classes here which are labelled "Light", "Medium" and "Heavy" and depending on how you want to shape your play style you will of course choose a character that best suits you. I've mainly played as "Heavy" because I'm not really a movement player and lack the reflexes of the more youthful, lively part of Embarks' ever-growing audience. During the beta phase, more than 7.5 million gamers tried The Finals and from what I could see at the time, the vast majority were both satisfied and impressed, which now after the launch of the finished product has meant that it is never difficult or time consuming to find a match to jump into. On the contrary, it is lightning fast and I have experienced very few server problems during my evenings with The Finals.

I played the beta version (both the closed and open) a lot and even though I prefer the "Heavy" class, it is noticeable now that The Finals has reached "gold status" that the developers have slowed down the pace a bit, which I think is a shame. The Finals felt a bit faster and more responsive in the beta while it now seems a bit slower. Fortnite has lately gone the same way in terms of "movement" while Call of Duty: Warzone has moved in the opposite direction. I think the idea of slower movements and tempo in general is to better suit new players and not create "skill gaps" in the way that happened in Warzone (1), but I would probably say the opposite in the case of The Finals. This is why I sincerely hope that Embark speeds up the pace a bit, again, to make it feel more like it did in the beta phase. I also hope they add a pure battle royale mode with room for say 50 or more players. Object-based multiplayer like "Cashout" or more traditional "Capture the flag" can definitely be fun, but I prefer more single-track death matches in the end, where it's mostly just about killing and not getting killed.

If there's anything that Embark should really be praised for, it's how the destruction works and contributes with a lovely dynamic in the battles that neither Warzone, PUBG, Fortnite or Apex Legends can compete with. Considering that, for example, Bad Company has now turned 15 years old and already in 2008 contained real-time destruction in the environments, it honestly feels rather weird that it is not an obvious part of games like Call of Duty: Warzone, PUBG or Battlefield 2042. Especially after getting acquainted with The Finals and realising how extremely satisfying it really is to blow up the entire west wing of the building where the enemy team is collecting a lot of money, thus exposing them completely and letting your teammates' sniper fire decimate them to virtual confetti. I've seen matches where entire skyscrapers have been destroyed, even when the game is one of the best looking games in the genre.

Working in Unreal Engine 5, Embark has drenched The Finals in aesthetics that feel like they've been largely lifted from Mirror's Edge. This of course has a lot to do with the art team at Embark, including Dice veterans Robert Sammelin and the multi-talented Andrew Svanberg Hamilton, who have done a brilliant job with the design. The Finals really looks like its own thing without looking too outlandish, and that Scandinavian style rests like a nice blanket over the whole production. The sound is good, too. Very good. Dice's former sound director Andreas Almström is now leading the sound team at Embark, which is noticeable here. The Finals has that detailed, extensive and bombastic sound that Battlefield used to have but today lacks. It also flows nicely whether I play it on my Omen 45L or my PlayStation 5 and in the end it's easy to like The Finals. For a completely free game, this is absolutely perfect.