No match of World Tour or Cash Out is the same in The Finals. From the bombastic destruction to the sheer gameplay variety available, finding the right balance of fairness and skill is always a priority for Embark Studios. Season 6 of the shooter introduces three new weapons, one of which is a devasting mini-gun that can rip down walls. In my recent chat with the developer, we discussed the studio’s core pillar: “dynamism.”
In any of the major FPS games on portable gaming consoles like the Steam Deck, it can often feel like you’re getting unfairly squashed by your opponents. The Finals isn’t entirely free of this feeling, but as I approach 500 hours of playtime, I can confidently say this is down to my performance – not poorly designed encounters.
“I think something we’ve definitely learned through the last year is the pace at which we balance the game. During Season 1 and 2 we adjusted the balance very frequently, to the point where we got feedback that the game was changing too quickly and players struggled with getting to know the game before it changed again,” an Embark Studios representative shares with me.
The game’s debut season rings strong in my mind, with endless onslaughts of Light class players abusing the Cloaking Device ability and the infamous ‘snuke’ – a player-made combination of propane cylinders and explosives – capable of destroying rivals in one shot.
Following nerfs and tweaks, the studio says, “during Season 3 and 4 we dialed our balance back to mainly a start-of-the-season balance pass, and a mid-season one. That got the feedback that the meta turned too stale and changed too seldom.” After a round of experimentation, the developer believes it has “found a good cadence where we will still feature two larger balance changes per season, but then leave options open for smaller adjustments between those.”
The Finals Season 6 continues these efforts, ushering a key weapon into rotation, the aforementioned M134 mini-gun. In my experience, this weapon adds pressure to firefights rather than sheer damage. The roaring sound of it combined with suppressive fire is enough to cause mistakes on my end, often costing my team an easy win. Embark Studios relays to me that “when we add new items to the game, the decision on what to add typically comes from one of two places. Some items are specifically aimed at filling gaps in the meta that we think we’d like to address […] the other thing that drives our choice of new items is the game’s pillars. The Finals is a game that has what we call ‘dynamism’ at its heart.”
Dynamism shines bright often in The Final. You can manipulate environments at will and leverage the game’s excellent physics system to create play styles on the fly. The notion brings life to the mini-gun: “This is very much where the Mini-gun idea came from; it wasn’t so much a need in the meta, [but] as a desire to give players another tool that had a very unique playstyle as well as one that could contribute to our PvP sandbox.”
When it comes to any of the game’s vast arsenal and gadgets, the developer iterates that it “identify these needs by playing the game ourselves, observing players playing, looking at analytics data and reading player feedback, to see where there might be gaps or opportunities for change” in the future. Lastly, I have to ask about the Stun Gun, as it remains out of action, to which the studio says, “the Stun Gun will return this season for sure.” So there you have it, contestants. Season 6 is the Stun Gun’s almighty renaissance.
You can also check out the rest of my chat with Embark Studios as we clarify whether The Finals is dying, where the next The Finals map could go, and why the Las Vegas arena overhaul was crucial to keep the game fresh.
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