While our complete impression piece for The Finals is now live, there’s a lot more to talk about outside of just the gameplay. So in the tradition of past previews we’ve run, here’s a written outline detailing everything we learned from our time with The Finals closed Beta test. Get ready, because there’s a lot of information to take in.

• Related Reading: The Finals Beta Gameplay – Watch 30 Minutes of Raw Footage Featuring Gunplay, Destruction, and More

The Finals Beta Loadout Details, World and Narrative Info and More:

World and Narrative

• “The Finals” is the name of a popular virtual game show. It serves as a window to a bigger world that the game set in.
• The devs referred to the world as having two spaces; One the Meatspace, and the other the Virtual World. Most inhabitants of Meatspace spend their time in the Virtual World. 
• The game takes place 75 years in the future. 
• Contestants and showrunners join The Finals via VR tech.
• The VR world is described as hyper-realistic.
• You play as a contestant in search of fame, riches, and the favor of sponsors. 
• Sponsors want exposure to this massive audience for their brand and products/services, and sponsored gear is a sign of success for contestants.
• The show’s mascot is named Nama Tama.
• The commentators are named Scotty and June. They provide info on the match to viewers as it’s being played out. 
• The Announcer, who is just called The Announcer, is the voice players will hear throughout as they’ll speak through speakers set all over the arenas. 
• The spectators – Not something the devs told us, but if you pay attention around the arena, there are holographic bleachers with spectators filling them to further enhance the idea that this is a game show.
• Because this is a game show, no one is actually getting hurt. It’s all taking place in virtual reality, and the devs show this by having players explode into coins upon elimination.
• The show is NOT a battle royale, nor a military sim. It’s a tournament-based game with elimination in an arena setting.

Destruction 

• You can destroy almost everything you see. 
• The things you can’t destroy they’re mostly related to some of the traversal equipment like lifts and such. It makes sense, as there must be a viable option to reach rooftops outside zip lines. You can, however, destroy the entire building around it.
• You can tell, with the destruction, that these are DICE veterans. After 13 years, we finally have a multiplayer game that exceeds the level of destruction that the Bad Company series provided. 
• I made a compilation video with a mix of b-roll and our gameplay that showcases what you can expect from the level of destruction The Finals provides. You can watch it here: The Finals Destruction Showcase – Bringing Down the House Literally.
• The destruction is entirely physics-based.
  • That means buildings won’t crumble just because you apply enough damage to them. You need to destroy critical support points. 
  • You can demolish a building, level by level, if you’re moving from the top floor and going down. Of course, you can set enough C4s on the bottom level and make the entire building fall on itself. 
  • Alternatively, if firefights are happening in the lower level of a building, and it takes a decent amount of damage, someone can blow up the roof, caving it in. The building can crumble due to the roof’s weight and if the foundation and support have been damaged enough. 
  • Different weapons will cause a different level of destruction too. Blowing up a wall with a rocket launcher won’t be the same as using a C4 and other explosives. 
• The destruction is more than just eye candy.
  • The Finals is not a static shooter; players must develop and use strategies to win. They do this by taking advantage of everything the environment offers, including, but not limited to, destruction.
  • Bad Company & Bad Company 2 are great examples, with bits of Rainbow Six Seige influence seen here, too. You can breach any wall you want and use it to your advantage. The Finals, however, is not a slow-paced shooter like Siege. 
  • Offensive example – During my play session, I encountered an opponent hiding in a room below. While my teammates distracted them, I blew up the ceiling to drop down so we could get the upper hand with the element of surprise. 
  • Defensive example – Cashout stations must be defended until they’ve been cashed out. Other players can steal these cashouts, so you must defend it until it’s finished. In one case, I saw someone on my team plant some C4 on the ceiling below one of these stations. As they were about to steal it, they triggered the C4, blowing up the floor the cash station was on and dropping it down. The explosion caused so much damage that it caused the cash station to continue dropping to the next floor. This caught the opposing team off, allowing us to wipe them as they returned to the cash station. 
  • Other advantages include creating additional coverage when there is none. You drop the side of the building and use the rubble as cover.
  • In Seoul, one of the two arenas available in the Beta, bridges connect buildings. You can demolish these bridges, cutting off lanes in an arena. 
• There are boxes filled with canisters suspended in the air by rope. The canisters will be different depending on what’s labeled on the box. Sometimes it’s explosives, other times poison gas. If you shoot these boxes, it sets whatever canister is inside off, causing massive damage to the surrounding environment. 
• You can pick up canisters and throw them. 
• There are other objects that you can throw, as well as set on fire, like an area with a forest. Fire spreads, but not that far.
• The heavy build character has a unique ability that lets them charge, demolishing everything in their path. It’s an easy ability to use for bringing buildings down. Their ground slam ability also causes damage to structures. 

Visuals

• The destruction looks good, but the overall graphics look incredible. Hard to believe this is going to be a free-to-play game when it rivals even some AAA games out there for visuals. Possibly the best-looking multiplayer shooter I’ve played. 
• RTX global illumination was available in our play session. Lighting and shadow were all dynamic, reacting to what was happening in the environment.  
• Ray trace reflection wasn’t available, though understanding how taxing it can be. Reflections are handled by screen spacing. 
• NVIDIA DLSS frame generation, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS are supported.
• I thought the alpha build was impressive when I played it last year; the Beta is even better in terms of performance and visuals. 

Builds, General Gameplay, and Features

• You can pick three builds: Light, medium, and heavy. 
• There are six build slots available for players to customize. 
• All builds have customizable loadouts.
• Builds loadouts consist of – 1 specialization (ability,) 1 weapon, and 3 gadgets. 
• Additionally, there are 4 slots called reserve slots. These are for tournaments and let you slightly change your loadout before the start of each round. 
• Each build has different mobility, HP, gadgets, items, weapons, and signature abilities. A light build will move faster than a heavy build, but the trade-off is they have less health, whereas a heavy build is tankier. 
• Build Abilities (only one can be equipped) 
  • Light – Cloak, grappling hook, dash.
  • Medium – Recon vision, dome shield.
  • Heavy – Charge, ground slam.
• The Finals include all the archetypes of weapons: Pistols, SMGs, LMGs, assault rifles, automatics, RPGs, and even a sword!
• Some weapons in these types are exclusive to specific builds.
• A signature ability is comparable to abilities from a hero genre. They’re unique to that build. Light build, for example, can cloak. We saw a healing ability, some turrets, to some offensive moves, like a charging run attack from the heavy build. These recharge over time. None stood out as being overpowered, though more feedback will have to decide that.
• I want to state that this is not a hero shooter despite those abilities. The devs dub it a “Hero builder.” Contestants are given the freedom of who they want to be, and how they want to play. 
• There’s a goo gun. It does no damage but can offer some of the most creative uses. I was in a firefight with an opposing team, and my teammate shot some goo in front of me, creating a wall of coverage. Someone destroyed a wall in a building that we patched up with goo. Goo is a lot harder to blow up compared to a wall. I saw someone use the goo as a ramp to help climb around on structures. 
• All builds can be customized with different clothing. There are loads of them, and being free-to-play, this is where the monetization of the game comes in. 
• What can be customized on a character – Outfits, body type, face, hair, headwear, facewear, upper body, crossbody, badge, back, wrist, hands, lower border, and feet. 
• The cosmetics lean into the silly side of the game. I had a glowing skull head on my character and saw others in ballerina outfits. I saw tons more, and overall, I thought they looked pretty awesome, 
• Poses and emotes are also in the game. 
• I believe some emotes are being tweaked, as I found some to last way too long.
• Guns and melee weapons have skins and charms. There’s a Twitch charm for those wondering. 
• Some of the charms have animated effects, like gas pouring out of a skull, or a globe spinning around.
• Some weapon skins change their appearance completely. They aren’t just different colors. The dagger for example has an Osthyvel skin, which is a Swedish cheese slicer. I saw a twig skin available in the battle pass.
• These are purely cosmetic, with no gameplay value changes, even on the beefier-looking weapon skins. 
• A battle pass and a storefront are confirmed. The store will sell items individually or as a bundle. 
• The closed beta will not involve buying things with real money per the official FAQ on discord. 
• Two game modes were available to play in our session: cashout and tournament. 
  • Cashout – Four teams consisting of three players face off against one another. The goal? Collect cash boxes, deposit them in a cash station, and defend the point until the money has been extracted. The team with the most money at the end wins. 
  • Ranked Tournament – This was 16 team tournament where four matches were played simultaneously. The matches were knockout rounds, which was a mode from the alpha. Winners of the knockout rounds will progress through these brackets, facing off against the winners from the other matches until the finals. Tournaments were a four-tier bracket. 
  • Knockout is a mode similar to cashout, only instead of the match ending on a timer, a round ends, eliminating the team with the least amount of money. It goes on until there is one team left standing. Unsure if this will be available as a standalone mode during the closed beta.
• If you didn’t catch it, Rank is in. 
• Shooting Range (practice?) will be available in the closed Beta, though we didn’t try this. Quickplay and tournament will also be available for everyone in the Beta tomorrow. 
• Toward the second half of a match, in-game events will activate. Here are the ones we experienced.  
  • Mega-Damage – All damage is cranked up.
  • The Dead Go Boom – When somebody is eliminated, their body will explode, damaging anyone (including allies) near them.
  • Meteor Shower – Meteors start raining down on the arena, wreaking havoc. 
  • Death Match – Eliminating a contestant will reward your team with more cash while this modifier is active. 
• Arenas (maps) are based on real-world locations.
• Two arenas were featured in this play session – Monaco and Seoul 
  • Monaco – A city filled with alleyways and tightly packed buildings. A perfect arena for close-quarters combat. 
  • Seoul – The level took place in high skyscrapers and focused on verticality. Buildings are spaced out with a skyway system to get between them. This arena also featured spots you can fall to death since you’re playing way above the city.  
• I might be wrong, but I don’t recall there being any fall damage, which is fine considering how often you have to jump down from a building.
• Arenas have a day and night variant. Not only that, but they also have different weather variants. Sometimes Monaco is bright and sunny with clear skies. Other times you may drop in, and it’s storming or a fog-filled day. These weather effects can happen in both day and night settings. 
• Nighttime isn’t pitch dark, but the option to take night goggles with you is there. 
• Arenas are based on real-world locations. 
• There are a lot of dynamic objects moving around the arenas, like moving platforms and lifts. 
• When a teammate is eliminated, a small statue of themselves will lie on the ground. You can revive them. Otherwise, they’ll need to wait for the spawn timer to end. One really cool feature is that if they died in a “hot zone” where there is constant action, you can rush in and pick up their statue. You can run or throw it to safety to increase your chances of reviving them. 
• Cash boxes, which are boxes filled with money that you deposit into cash stations, can also be thrown. You can throw it to teammates, or if you need to get it away from enemies, you can throw it off to the distance, leaving space to engage the enemies. 
• Matches have a time limit that is displayed on the top. If you look at the skybox of the arenas, there are displays that also show the timer. 
• There’s a career profile page that tracks stats and progress. 
• In addition to the battle pass, there are also player levels that you can progress through that have rewards. 
• Easter Eggs – The community already knows how elaborate Embark has been with hiding secrets throughout all the marketing stuff so far. The beta is sure to hide some things, including answers to some of those Easter Eggs already found by the community.

Network Related Info

• Server-side movement and destruction – Movement and destruction don’t happen on the client side, it’s all server-side. 
• Movement and destruction happen in the same way for everyone and at the same time. It’s all synced.
• The team is really proud to have made these server-side features a reality.

Whew, still with us? Good, hope you learned some cool and interesting things about The Finals, though I’m sure there’s plenty that I missed here that you’ll soon discover once the closed Beta is live.

The Finals Closed Beta starts tomorrow and will run for two weeks, ending on March 21. If you haven’t already registered, be sure to do so by visiting the official Steam page as spots are still open with invites expected to go out Tuesday, and throughout the beta period.