The Finals: Guns, Girders, and Steal

First posted on Medium in 2024

In the oversaturated field of live-service games, it’s rare to find something worth playing. Having dedicated over 500 hours of my life to trekking through the damp, muddy swamps of Louisiana in Hunt: Showdown, I knew it would be difficult to stumble on a game of such quality. At the same time, my friends and I had had quite enough of its unforgiving combat, punishing difficulty, and its sewage-water colored color palette. Hunt was simultaneously intensely cerebral, yet also incredibly frustrating when you get shot in the head from half a kilometer away 20 minutes into a map. We wanted to play something where we would be guaranteed at least a half-decent gunfight within the first five minutes of joining a game. Luckily for us, a new squad-based PVP shooter was just coming onto the market: The Finals.

Based on the premise that players were participating in a virtual combat arena to compete for money and glory, The Finals sets teams of players against each other to capture “vaults” of money and deposit them in “cashout” machines and defend them from being stolen. This low-stakes setting matched the goofy art-design and tongue-in-cheek corporate dystopian aesthetic. Although I wasn’t immediately pulled in, my friends, who were increasingly desperate in their pleas for us to waste our time doing anything other than playing Hunt, managed to convince me to give it a try.

And here I am, almost 250 hours in and putting even more time and effort to write an article about it! The developers, Embark Studio, have impressively succeeded in standing out in the crowd of generic online shooters by drawing the best ideas from other games, while also innovating to keep things fresh. Most importantly, it went all in, investing in something desperately lacking in the online game marketplace: emergent gameplay. In The Finals, your tools, your environment, and your ultimate goal come together to create an incredibly chaotic yet endlessly creative experience. No matter how many rounds you play, you will always find something new to surprise you – either from your enemies, your allies, or even yourself.

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Steal, steal, steal! The words echoed in my head and we smashed our way through the building, seconds ticking down. I charged down the hospital corridor, coming to a screeching halt just before the yawning abyss beyond the window. Turning around, I hefted my machine gun up to provide a hail of supporting gunfire as my friends dashed past confused enemies. Before they could regain their bearings, a large wall of concrete-like goo popped up, blocking their way to us. A quick word of appreciation to the light gunman next to me, before we turned towards the blank, non-descript wall to our left. Our destination, just beyond it. With a cry, I crashed straight through.

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In this PVP shooter, players can choose between three “classes” – Heavy, Medium, and Light – which all have different abilities, weapons, and gear to pick from. While weapons, abilities, and most utility tools are class-restricted, this does not mean that each class is restricted to a single role. Rather, the massive variety of options in each class provides infinite variety, while the differing mobility and health of each class keeps the gameplay rooted and balanced. For instance, the Heavy has access to a massive wire-mesh shield as an ability. This shield, combined with the Heavy’s plodding movement and large health pool, makes him into a character similar to Overwatch’s Reinhardt, who provides essential support to damage-dealing or objective-stealing teammates. On the other hand, the Light has access to Tracer’s zippy dashes, but also has similarly low health. These class differences balance out the styles of play, making them all viable in different situations. And when I speak of the style of play – there really are many, many to choose from. The Medium, for instance, has access to a medi-beam straight from Team Fortress 2’s Medic – and a turret, just like the Engineer. They also have ziplines and jump-pads, like those from Apex Legends.

Now, you might be noticing a pattern – something someone could charitably call “learning from others.” But to be frank, The Finals’ developers are not afraid of stealing ideas. The Medium’s movements and controls make you feel like you’re playing a character straight from Call of Duty, while the Light’s speed and nimbleness is drawn from Apex-style player mobility. Aside from the mentioned weapons and abilities, the Light has the TF2 Spy’s backstabbing knife and Scout’s sawed-off shotgun, Apex’s grappling hook; the Heavy has OW Roadhog’s hook and – most impressively – the Goo Gun straight from Arkane’s Prey. A Medium with a turret, mines, and a shotgun can quickly set up an effective killzone for defending points, while one that took the Healing Beam, ziplines, a jump-pad provides incredible support through mobility and survivability. The developers took the best ideas from the best shooters – creating an incredible variety that provides a playstyle for every need and want.

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Leaving behind a bear-sized hole in the wall, my momentum took me past the bright yellow cashout machine chirping and straight into an enemy. He turned towards me, but did not even have time to pull the trigger before I barreled right through, turning him into an explosion of gold coins. Behind me, I heard the quiet rattle of my friend’s Uzi and another crash of gold. I turned and readied my gun – only to fall straight through the floor. I realized my inevitable doom as I fell through the blue-ish tint of the dematerialized concrete, straight into a kill-zone of turrets, mines, and assault rifle bullets.

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In talking about the incredible range of tools and abilities available to the player in The Finals, I must admit I intentionally omitted a few. This was because those were so closely intertwined with another integral aspect of The Finals that I could not discuss one without the other. What I’m talking about is… the environment. Taking place in an all-virtual world, we have access to interesting mish-mash of maps based on places like Monaco, Kyoto, Las Vegas, Seoul – and one map that really leans into the hacker/glitch aesthetic. But what makes these maps unique are their destructibility. Walls can be smashed, floors can be blown up, whole buildings can come tumbling down. While other games have had “destructible” environments, they are either scripted – like the “Levolution” events in Battlefield – or too minor to truly impact the gameplay. In The Finals, if you see a wall, it’s coming down. Thus, abilities like the Heavy’s charge and slam, which sends you careening through buildings like a wrecking ball, or the Medium’s dematerializer, which turns surfaces transparent and incorporeal, or tools like breaching charges, C4, and RPG, can have a major effect on the environment. Imagine you’re set up inside a room a hospital, defending your cashout. The ceiling above you can suddenly turn translucent, heralding a grenade’s hiss and a hail of gunfire, turning your team into fish in a barrel. Standing in a corner, you might be knocked straight out the window as the Heavy charges through the wall. Or a well-placed breaching charge by a Light may drop the cashout down a few floors, so you can’t stop them from stealing it. Moreover, explosive cannisters littered about the map can always serve to blow up a wall in a pinch.

With these options always in play, every fight in The Finals feels like a scene from an old Kungfu movie. With a few skillful plays, you can make the environment your greatest friend and the enemies’ greatest foe. As a Heavy main, it is my ultimate pleasure to charge through a wall into unsuspecting enemies, upturning all their well-laid plans. Thinking on your feet and thinking about your environment – that’s the key to succeeding in The Finals.

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As I explode into gold coins, my screen snaps over to spectate my teammates. A man down, with just a few seconds left on the clock, my friends had to finish the steal. Our Light throws a Goo grenade, blocking sight to the Medium taking the cashout. Suddenly – a green fog fills the screen. A gas grenade, lobbed through the tiny gap between the ceiling and the goo wall. The Medium, trapped and gasping, quickly succumbs and pops out of existence with the clink of coins. Fire from someone’s pyro grenade hits the goo, and the room briefly flashes with an explosion as the flames react with the gas. A final chance – with the gas cleared and the defending team engaged with another foe below, the Light takes a brave step forward – towards the cashout.

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But these tools would be wasted if the game’s objective was to just take out the enemy team. Why bother with tactics and skullduggery if a good shot from a rifle could solve all your problems? To ensure that there would be a pressing need to think smart and utilize all the tools at your disposal, the developers crafted the key to The Finals:

The cashout. The Final’s signature game mode pits four teams of three players against each other to bring vaults of cash to cashout machines, then defend them for a set amount of time. Opposing teams can attempt to steal the cashout before time runs out to snag the money instead. With only two vaults and two cashout machines in play at any moment, players are funneled towards these clear objectives, which can be located within a skyscraper, on hanging scaffolding, on moving platforms, or even out in the open. After the mad scramble for the vault ends, and a team manages to throw it into the cashout, the countdown begins. And just like in Rainbow Six Siege, it’s big brain time. Attacking or defending – you have to predict your enemies’ plans, and use the tools you have to take them down.

With all the tools available for both attackers and defenders, each battle for the cashout is an epic affair. If the cashout is located on a hanging platform, perhaps the defending team has set up turrets and angles on the adjacent platforms. Blowing down those could take out their high-ground advantage – but that would require lots of explosives, perhaps more than your team brought. A quick jump pad onto one the platforms could create a beachhead and allow for an assault, but unless you take an unexpected route, you may be leaping straight into a killing zone. Bringing down the cashout is another possibility – if you’re quick enough and lucky enough, maybe a combination of the debris and a well-placed goo wall could allow for a speedy steal. The defending team will, of course, understand all of this as well; if they have a Heavy, their RPG could make quick work of any would-be thieves if they have a good angle.

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We all held our breath as the progress bar filled up. Just a few more seconds – then we heard the noise. A great clattering, a guttural groan from the depths of hospital. The building was coming down. And then, with just a sliver left on the bar, the floor fell through. Heaving slabs of concrete came apart, with the Light falling one way and the cashout the other. Three, two, one – third place. A stunned silence, before we roared with disappointment, with victory snatched away as it came into our grasp.

But even as we commiserated on our loss, groaning about the unfairness of it all, we were already back in the queue, ready to jump back into this virtual arena for money and glory.

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Tools, environment, impetus: these are the three components of the Holy Trinity of emergent gameplay. Each new round brings new players, new abilities, new potential for a unique encounter. In a stifling field where innovation is in short supply, I’m glad to say that The Finals have crashed straight through, bringing in a much-needed breath of fresh air.