When was The Finals release date? With several key ex-Battlefield developers working on this excellent destructive shooter, Embark Studios has come out of the gates swinging with its first game. Despite coming out at a challenging and competitive time, The Finals has managed to establish itself among shooter fans.
With dynamism and intuitiveness at its core, The Finals promises players a new level of chaotic gameplay that sets it within reach of the best FPS games out right now. The game is looking to bring back the classic “only in Battlefield” style moments that many people have been longing for, and pairs this up with stylish cosmetics and a decent roadmap of future content. The Finals is more than worthy of a spot on our best PS5 FPS games and best Xbox FPS games lists, so here’s everything you need to know about it.
The Finals release date
The Finals release date was Friday, December 8, 2023. While the game had been previously announced, it was surprisingly dropped during The Game Awards 2023, meaning players could jump in immediately after the announcement.
The Finals is free-to-play across PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. We’re sorry Xbox One and PS4 players, but The Finals is current-generation only to ensure that Embark Studios can deliver on its ambitious ideas.
After its initial closed The Finals beta periods, the game already looked in a solid shape, with incredibly engrossing core gameplay. The following October, another open beta marked the first time players on all platforms could play together.
While The Finals has a unique gameplay hook compared to these competitors, it is nonetheless suffers direct competition from games like Modern Warfare 3 and Apex Legends that could prevent it attracting the players it needs. Regardless, the game enjoyed a huge launch with hundreds of thousands of concurrent players, and while interest did die down after a couple of weeks, it still maintains a healthy player count.
The Finals gameplay
The Finals is an incredibly fast-paced FPS that puts 12 players (split across four teams, in its core modes) against each other on tight, close-quarters, and fully-destructible maps. The goal is to grab money boxes located across the map and deposit them to win matches.
As you are trying to complete this objective, you are able to use various The Finals weapons to kill your enemies, but also flatten entire buildings, structures, and more with explosives and gadgets. Embark has a number of former Battlefield developers behind it, and the destruction is extremely reminiscent of the series. However, Embark has amped up the destruction even more than Battlefield ever has, with almost everything capable of being blown to smithereens. This gives players exciting opportunities to evade opponents with the objective or setup inventive traps.
For example, some of the crazy situations you can get yourself into involve using items together with weapons, like this player who created a chair turret back in the first The Finals beta.
We’ve had a blast playing as each of The Finals classes to explore all the devious destructive possibilities using the rich tool sandbox. Speaking of, there are three different classes: Light, Medium, and Heavy. Each has different movement speeds and health, as well as access to unique weapons and gear.
If things continue as they are and Embark can keep adding new content regularly, we could see The Finals make it onto our list of the best games to play right now, as it’s hard to not enjoy the bombastic action. If it’s not your cup of tea, check out some other new Xbox games and new PS5 games that you should keep an eye on.