The Finals gets surprise release during the 2023 Game Awards

The finale, one of the most exciting new shooters of 2023 despite only existing in beta, finally has a release date. It's over… now! Developer Embark Studios announced the news during the Game Awards 2023.

Created by ex-Battlefield developers, The finale is a free-to-play first-person shooter in which several teams of three shoot at each other to see which team is the best at shooting the other teams. Embark Studios ran a closed beta in the spring and an open beta from late October to early November, which saw great success 7.5 million players.

One of the big attractions The finale is that it is not a battle royale. There is no circle or storm or slowly approaching safe zone. You also aren't really punished for being eliminated, aside from a short 20-second respawn timer. Matches last no longer than 15 minutes. It feels like a throwback to the deathmatch modes that dominated the mid-2000s, except it's just as gorgeous and technically impressive as any other modern shooter. Nostalgia for an earlier, arguably simpler era of gaming undoubtedly plays a role The finalepopularity.

The other big appeal is that any building can explode.

Last week I got the chance to play The finale during a private media session for illustration purposes The finale' last status before launch. I can't express how many times the thing I was standing on exploded.

Image: Embark Studios

For the most part, that follows Polygon's more extensive preview The finale from earlier this year. The general concept is that you take part in some sort of shiny, violent, futuristic game show. Matches take place on maps such as Monaco and Las Vegas. (Get it? Because of gambling!) If you get eliminated, you turn into a pile of coins. (Also because of gambling.) Buildings don't suffer such a cartoonish fate, however. If you shoot a wall or floor with an RPG, it will collapse into a pile of rubble. If a building sustains enough structural damage, the whole thing will collapse – even if you sit painstakingly on the eaves trying to defeat an opponent.

You can choose from three classes, simply called 'light', 'medium' and 'heavy', each featuring all the equipment and movement speed (or lack thereof) you'd expect from those barebones classifications. For the session, Embark divided attendees into teams of three. We played two different quick play modes: Quick Cash and Bank It. In both modes, your score is not calculated based on how many eliminations you have, but based on how much money you can steal from opponents and deliver to different drop points. But I'll be honest: the shooting The finale is so distractingly solid – so emblematic of Battlefield's golden age – that I couldn't resist spending my time spouting and praying over learning “rules” and “objectives.” You're welcome, teammates!

Image: Embark Studios

The finale also features a tournament component with higher stakes than the quick play modes. If your team does not finish in the top two in your existing round, you will be eliminated from the bracket. (I'm not sure what happens after the first round, because our team finished last. Twice.)

I would be remiss not to mention our playing experience The finale was marred by technical problems. Such things are generally excusable for a beta version; that's the whole point of betas, after all. Yet in about half the matches we played, one or two players from our three-man team inexplicably failed. That matches, one player would be dropped. Since The finale has no option to re-enter an existing match, because one party member was kicked out we all had to quit. (Let the record reflect that otherwise we would have absolutely won all those games.)

Aside from the hiccups, which may not be present at all in today's full release, The finale is an energetic and competent multiplayer shooter that I could see myself diving into for a few rounds Halo Infinity becomes too frustrating. Players have largely moved away from the kind of arena-style gameplay seen here, so sure, like the match that defines this game's minimalist lore: The finale is ultimately a gamble. But I hope it pays off.

The finale is now available for PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series