It’s in open beta on Xbox too, I wonder if those numbers are included in that?
I checked briefly the game yesterday. They have improved the performance (now I can see people with mid-range computers playing it!) and they have introduced two new modes, which are slightly more casual friendly than the ‘The Finals’ tourney mode, one is almost the same but with infinite lives, and the others is more combat-oriented just taking money killing people and collecting the money into a point.
However it’s still all 3-player teams game modes, and that means if one of your mates if pretty bad (or you are the one who is pretty bad!) or someone disconnects, you are suddenly in a 3vs2 situation and are in a notable disadvantage.
Yeah, this is by far my biggest complaint and I hope it’s addressed in the future. I’ve played with a weak third and no third, and there’s not really much difference. One game I was screaming at the screen (not in voice chat) ‘revive us! we’re right next to you and the other teams are occupied!’ but instead our weakest and only remaining player opened fire on a trio. If you’re down to two, it’s really tough.
Playing with at least one other player that’s on their game however is exhilarating as you move together deploying jump pads, healing each other, laying down cover, picking up teammates’ player pieces to revive them somewhere safe, and even destroying walls and floors to access places. The whole thing is very snappy and kinetic. I particularly love the mid-game ‘mutators’ that mix things up like orbital lasers, meteor showers, deathmatch and, my favourite, ‘dead bodies go boom’.
I never played Monday Night Combat but I see the destruction of the Battlefield games, the tank/heal beaming of Team Fortress 2, the light/medium/heavy bodies of Brink (which I always loved), the longer TTK of something like Halo, and while the core gameplay loop of kill stealing money and camping depositories no doubt existed before Titanfall 2, I always enjoyed the Bounty Hunt mode in that. Oh and grapple hooks and blinking. And goo that is flammable and explodes. I’m really excited about The Finals, especially when things like this happen:
In that last clip I like how I can’t get down to the deposit box and my teammate destroys the floor so I can fall down. Then my RPG topples the box down a couple more floors!
I’m disappointed that Embark have gone the way of AI for the voice overs. For what it’s worth, I think the commentators are fine with the odd thing that just sounds a bit flat.
I feel like this game would heavily benefit from being able to customize the control scheme.
Both my son and I have had games where it stuck us with no teammates to start the game so it was 3v3v1. That seems like something they might want to look to fix.
Everything about this game looks great except the really boring guns.
This looks like a ton of fun! The heavy loadout…omg…may have to get into this one lol.
It is a ton of fun! So much so my plans for playing anything else this weekend disappeared. I even did some crossplay with my console buddies on PS5–a first for us I think–and it worked without a hitch, including the in-game voice chat. I’ve sunk 12 hours into this thing and I’ve not encountered a single bug or glitch. Oh, I did have one instance where the servers timed out but other than that it’s been rock solid which is remarkable for something this spectacular, chaotic and fast.
A bit more on team composition: if I join a lobby with two light character teammates then I have a bad feeling. There’s a weird thing in The Finals, and I suspect it broadly applies to other high profile online shooters, where certain gamers fancy themselves as John Wick dashing around the map solo, thinking they can handle themselves. The high TTK in The Finals coupled with how fragile light characters are means they often get melted, especially when their arrogance has them engaging trios on their own. I’ve started calling them Little John Pricks. Look at them:
I feel like you almost always need a medium because they come with the heal gun and defibs, as well as jump pads and mines. They’re just excellent all-rounders. I’ve not even touched the other gear and gadgets yet. If the little pricks go running off, you can’t support them.
That said, it’s such a rush when you get a good close game of similarly skilled and co-operating players. My final match of Quick Cash last night had me as a heavy with two mediums and all of us were on it, and it seemed the other two teams were as well. After half-time each team had $10,000 banked ($20,000 wins you the game). The last cash box was in an attic and we arrived first with the $10,000 to bung in. We blew some walls away to give us more space inside so we could catch any enemies dropping in to steal the deposit. We were basically in a tunnel gunning folk down as they fell through the roof hole. The attic floor eventually gave way from all the explosions so we landed on a floor with windows where another team situated on an adjacent rooftop was able to start shooting in at us (and jump through the windows). I noticed this nice and early so fired an RPG at their vantage point and it just disappeared into rubble. They’d even put a jump pad on the sloped roof to launch teammates our way. We managed to hold out thanks to the two mediums healing and reviving us, and squeaked a victory amid all the chaos. It was brilliant. Wish I could have friend requested them in-game but the ‘recent players’ tab doesn’t work yet.
There is a little ‘storm in a teacup’ with the game, because it uses AI voices for some of the announcers lines, with people complaining of their low quality (apart of the ‘AI stealing jobs’ angle).
The funny thing for me is that I didn’t notice it, I guess because English isn’t my native language. And that’s why I wanted to comment: with Embark being a Sweden group, and having a South Korean publisher, i have to wonder how much of this was had a “malicious”/cheap angle (let’s use some shitty AI service to generate the voices, who cares if they are low quality, it’s cheap!) and how much is that they are like me, and for them, they actually sounded fine enough, for real.
Yeah I mentioned this briefly:
I didn’t notice it at first either, especially under all the gunfire, music and dazzle, but as I played more certain things just started sounding a bit weird and ‘off’. It doesn’t bother me much because it’s not really why I’m playing the game but it is still disappointing when I know a real voice actor could bring so much more to the commentary. And unfortunately it doesn’t seem like these are placeholders:
https://x.com/GetGianni/status/1718229113461240092?s=20
I uninstalled this the other night because I’ve played enough to know this is one I’m going to want to play more of, preferably with friends instead of randoms. Really promising.
The voice overs are totally genetic esports garbage, so there’s really no value in having people voice them. They would still be garbage.
The game itself though isnt too bad though. Not sure how much staying power it will have, but it’s been fun over the past week.
I dunno. These are particularly bad. If I hadn’t been told they were AI, I would suspect they were non-actors, like dev folks, drafted to do the VO, or one of those weird deals where they get actors that are not actually native English speakers to do the work. The odd pauses and inflections are off-putting.
They’re certainly no “Mmmmonster kill!” or “HEADSHOT!”
https://twitter.com/reachthefinals/status/1721489859552907493
“An unforgettable week for us — a whopping 7.5 MILLION contestants entered the arena! Now it’s time for us to hunker down and get back to work on all the fixes and improvements you helped us identify. GG and until next time!”
When is this game slated for release?
3 vs 3? No vehicles? Where exactly is the Battlefield in this smashup?
Destruction I expect.
Everything is destructable. If you watch some videos, you’ll see it.
Bah, this does not a battlefield game make.
It’s also made by ex-Battlefield devs.