The Finals: Revolutionary Destruction Meets Team-Based PVP Combat

The online shooter genre is notoriously unforgiving — for every enduring franchise like Call of Duty, Halo, or Apex Legends, a long trail of forgotten titles barely registers a blip before disappearing entirely. Into this crowded, high-stakes arena steps The Finals, a team-based PVP shooter from Embark Studios that stakes its identity not on incremental refinements, but on something genuinely uncommon: a fully destructible environment that actively rewrites the rules of engagement match by match. Dressed in the gleaming spectacle of a televised gameshow, complete with a pair of energetic live-sports announcers and a vibrant, over-saturated color palette, The Finals conjures the campy, neon-soaked vision of futuristic competition that felt like science fiction in decades past — a sensibility it wears knowingly, never tipping from fun self-awareness into tiresome parody.

A Gameshow Battlefield: How the Core Competitive Format Works

Structurally, The Finals casts squads of three against rival three-person teams in a virtual money-collection competition set inside elaborately detailed arenas. The premise owes something to the campy excess of classic televised gladiatorial programming — picture a 1980s bloodsport spectacle redesigned around 3v3v3 gunfights and the result would land somewhere near what Embark has built here. Two primary modes anchor the experience, each with a distinct rhythm and strategic texture.

Quick Cash is the more focused of the two casual offerings. Teams converge on vault locations, then fight to hold a designated deposit point long enough to bank the cash — a structure that reliably pulls all three squads into the same volatile zone at predictable intervals. Crucially, progress toward a deposit is never erased when another team steals control, which keeps momentum steady and prevents matches from devolving into grinding stalemates. The result is an experience that stays active and chaotic from the opening seconds to the final buzzer.

Bank It operates on a looser philosophy. Coins flow from vaults scattered across the map and from the pockets of eliminated players, creating a dual incentive to both pick fights and chase deposits. The push-and-pull between hunting enemies and rushing to cash out before dying is perpetually tense — and the payoff of cornering an opponent right at the deposit terminal to scoop every coin they were carrying is among the mode’s most satisfying moments. The mode leans more toward scattered individual duels than coordinated objective control, giving it a distinctly different character from Quick Cash’s compressed chaos.

Individually, both modes are well designed and generally very fun. The fact that The Finals is limited to just those two options, however, is a red flag. If the player base starts to grow tired of these game types and there aren’t any other options, there is a real possibility of people moving on before too long. While this didn’t present an immediate problem within the hours of play reviewed, it does raise legitimate questions about the long-term sustainability of the player community — questions that only new modes added through future updates can meaningfully answer.

High-Stakes Tournament Structure Elevates the Ranked Competitive Experience

After completing initial matches, players unlock Tournament mode, and this is where the competitive spirit of The Finals fully crystallizes. Eight teams enter the bracket, split into two simultaneous four-team games. The top two finishers from each preliminary advance into a shared round, and the two survivors then square off in a decisive head-to-head 3v3 to claim the overall title. The structure balances the pressure of genuine bracket competition against rounds that are brisk enough to make losing feel instructive rather than punishing — which generates an almost irresistible “one more game” pull after every tournament concludes. A ranked variant layered on top of this framework allows players to climb through leagues based on sustained performance, providing long-term structured progression for those who want to commit seriously.

Three Distinct Weight Classes and Their Impact on Tactical Gameplay

Players choose from three character archetypes before each match, and the differences between them are substantial enough to shape entire team strategies. The Light build sacrifices raw stopping power for exceptional mobility, anchored by a grappling hook that enables rapid repositioning across the vertical, frequently crumbling geometry of The Finals’ arenas. The Medium sits at the center of the spectrum, built around team support — its signature healing beam can sustain teammates through prolonged engagements in ways that fundamentally change how a squad approaches coordinated pushes. The Heavy, meanwhile, channels the spirit of a wall-demolishing juggernaut: enormous health reserves, devastating weapon options, and the ability to punch directly through structural walls, bypassing conventional entry points entirely.

Equipment selection further layers complexity onto the pre-match preparation. Standard options like frag grenades and deployable cover serve their expected functions reliably, but the more inventive gadgets are where The Finals distinguishes itself from the conventional armory. Jump pads that launch players skyward, goo grenades that seal off corridors with expanding foam, and pyro grenades that create area-denial fire zones all push players to think creatively about the battlefield. Some gadgets are available across all classes, while others are class-restricted — the Medium’s defibrillator being the clearest example of a tool whose presence on a team meaningfully changes the risk calculus every time a squadmate falls.

Balancing Problems and Progression Pacing Remain the Sharpest Criticisms

The equipment choices are somewhat undercut by balance issues that remain a concern at the moment. Heavies tend to be ubiquitous in competitive modes, and their huge health pool and high damage output makes it easy to see why. Certain weapons like the flamethrower, grenade launcher, and sword seem to make up an outsized portion of the player arsenal encountered across matches as well. Hopefully future updates can even things out, but as it is, a lightweight build with the semi-automatic battle rifle, for example, really struggles to compete with the rest of the meta, and that’s a shame.

Cosmetic progression compounds the frustration. Each character archetype supports a substantial range of unlockable visual customizations, earned either through accumulated XP or purchased with real-world currency. The rate at which worthwhile cosmetics become accessible through play alone is painfully slow — after roughly 20 hours of time invested, the best available free options amounted to items like fanny packs and tights for a single character, making full squad customization feel essentially unattainable without spending money.

The in-game currency used for non-cosmetic unlocks — designated as VRs — presents a similar friction. Abilities, weapons, and gadgets all require VRs to access, and the rate at which they accumulate through normal play is tuned too conservatively for a game that rewards experimentation across different builds. The gap between wanting to test a new loadout configuration and actually having the currency to do so is wider than feels appropriate for a game centered on strategic flexibility.

Multibucks — the premium paid currency — fund the top tier of cosmetic items, and the game threads the needle fairly well on what these unlock. Items like an Elvis-inspired jumpsuit available through the paid battle pass or gold weapon skins purchasable outright are distinctive enough to appeal without feeling mandatory. Critically, nothing locked behind Multibucks confers any competitive advantage, and because VRs are earned exclusively through play, there is no pay-to-win pathway. One cosmetic item — a small cat wearing a tinfoil hat that perches on a player’s shoulder during matches — stands out as particularly difficult to resist regardless of spending preferences.