The Finals fills the destructive void Battlefield left behind

The Finals is currently available on Xbox Series X|S via a cross-platform open beta. After spending some time playing, we can confirm that it is destructively good fun!

Opinion by Tom West

Published 03 Nov 2023

After sitting on the sidelines waiting for our chance to battle for fame and glory, Embark Studios’ upcoming free-to-play FPS game, The Finals, is finally available on Xbox Series X|S for a cross-platform open beta. The test kicked off last week and is running until November 5, and after spending some time playing the beautiful-looking shooter, and basking in its destructive glory, I figured I’d give you all my two cents… lucky you!

The Finals grabbed my attention with its explosive reveal trailer last year, piquing my interest with a display of carnage… and after playing this beta, I have to say, it has not disappointed me. It blends the high-octane, ability-fueled gunplay of games like Apex Legends with a destructible map similar to Battlefield: Bad Company 2 — and the result is pure carnage. The beta has two game modes on offer: Quick Cash, which is a 3v3v3 mode that tasks teams with fighting over cash vaults, with the first team to “cashout” three vaults being declared the winner, and Bank It, a 3v3v3v3 attrition-style mode that has you stealing enemy cash by killing them. Both modes have proven to be a ton of fun so far, but it’s the annihilation of the environment that has me giddy like a child at Christmas.

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds

Now, to put things into perspective. The Finals is set within a virtual arena as a sporting event, so your characters, or Contestants, are immune to fall damage (unless they fall into a bottomless void) and the pesky damage caused by a building falling on their head. That’s pretty handy considering that almost everything in The Finals can be blown to smithereens. An enemy team claiming a vault on the floor above you? No worries, throw a breaching charge on the ceiling and bring that vault to you. No direct route to the action ahead of you? Pull out your RPG and make your own pathway! Hell, you can obliterate sky bridges to make life harder for your opponents if that’s what you want to do. If you cause enough damage to a building, the entire thing can start to collapse like a Jenga tower, creating chaos for everyone within its walls.

The destruction physics in The Finals are fantastic, and the impressive destruction doesn’t stop with just the buildings, either. One main feature of Embark Studios’ shooter is Goo, which can be found loaded in grenades or found in throwable containers found around the map — other containers include toxic gas-filled tanks, explosive canisters that can be fired across the map like torpedoes, and the like. The Goo though, is an awesome defensive tactic that acts as a countermeasure to the destructive nature of The Finals. The wonderful stuff acts much like expanding foam, and even fills out in a similar satisfying arc, blocking up windows, doors, corridors, and any other routes your opponents might use to attack your position. When everything is collapsing around you, a team working as a unit can use the Goo to lock down the area you’re trying to protect — although, perfect it is not! Have a pyro grenade or a trigger-happy flamer get some fire inside your position, and it is toasting time for you all! Fire is awesome here and consumes everything in its wake to create raging infernos.

Having spent some time basking in the carnage this week, it got me thinking: destruction physics are something sorely lacking in current shooters. While I’ve called out Battlefield in the title, for good reason, most modern shooters have ignored this most glorious of mechanics for far too long — Call of Duty, Halo, Titanfall, you’re all guilty of this! Call of Duty, for instance, while arguably the king of first-person shooters, still has lackluster map destruction. Of course, it doesn’t always work for every shooter, as Call of Duty focuses on the actual gunplay, but seriously, would it hurt for us to have the ability to remove a wall or two, Activision?

Battlefield has been put to shame

the finals destruction leaves battlefield wanting

The biggest disappointment of all first-person shooters, and one that has proven that destruction can, will, and does work for its gameplay, is Battlefield. DICE’s series has been the reigning champion of shooters for me since I first booted up Battlefield 1942 on my PC many, many moons ago, and I’ve played every entry since — yes, I even like Battlefield 2042 and Hardline! Over the years, DICE has experimented with various destruction physics in its games, but for whatever reason refuses to stick with any consistent way of demolishing its maps.

We’ve seen extreme destruction in the form of “Levolutions” in the likes of Battlefield 4, and Battlefield 2042 offers a tamer feature with some of its map events, but mostly focuses on extreme weather. The series’ destruction physics was at an all-time high with the Bad Company games, though. Instead of a particular structure having the Levolution mechanic attached, Bad Company 2 would allow you to shatter almost any building by taking out its walls, causing the structure to shudder and shake before collapsing into a plume of dust, sending any players holed up inside scrambling for an exit. It was an awesome experience in multiplayer, and ensured that you were never safe when indoors — there is a feeling of uncertainty that sits with you when you know that a tank can hammer through the wall at any time.

Now, though, DICE seems content with giving us the ability to blow a hole in a wall or destroy some environmental objects. With the power of modern hardware, it does beg the question as to why we’re not getting that level of destruction in the Battlefield games anymore. It’s not like players haven’t been screaming for the series to take a Bad Company approach to multiplayer once again. Having played The Finals, it has me longing for DICE to give us that level of destruction in the next Battlefield game. For now, though, I’ll be excitedly waiting to wreak havoc in Embark Studios’ free-to-play game when it launches in full on Xbox Series X|S and other platforms.

We don’t have a release date for The Finals just yet, but judging by the quality of the beta, I shouldn’t think we’ll be waiting too much longer. For now, though, why not check out some of the other free Xbox games while you wait?

See you in the arena, fellow Contestants!

More THE FINALS stories:

Xbox Series X|S

Written by Tom West

Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.