Joining the market of competitive shooters, The Finals is quite a unique entry into the genre. Developed by former DICE employees, who formed Embark Studios, it offers a great range of movement options, a massive arsenal of weapons, and lots of colorful chaos.
In The Finals, you go to battle in squads of three players and need to break into the cash vaults on the map, grab what loot you can, and deliver it to specific drop-off points. You’ll then have to defend those areas for a bit to lock in your points. If that sounds like a lot of hard work, you can always try to benefit from robbing another team, who did most of that for you already.
This cool game mode opens up lots of tactics, which combined with all the character builds on offer makes for quite a bit of depth. We’ll give you some tips on how to find your footing in The Finals and lead your team to victory and wealth.
Size matters
Before you’re able to pick your gear, The Finals asks you to define your character’s size – light, medium, and heavy are available. These types have quite a significant impact on how you play, as every size gets access to different weapons. Heavier characters also sport more health, whereas lighter characters benefit from additional mobility. We’d recommend you take your time to experiment around a bit with different builds to see what you have most fun with. Fortunately, it’s easy to lose weight in the game.
Diverse gear is key
Naturally, you’re bringing a primary weapon to every match, but aside from that you can pack a variety of secondary equipment. This gear is not actually consumable, but works on a cooldown basis, which incentivizes you to take different pieces of equipment with you. Sure, you could go all out on different grenades, but you’ll never run out even with just one. Why not instead bring a zipline gun, a defibrillator, or some goo grenades? Those all provide some excellent utility.
No time to lose
The Finals doesn’t have massive maps, but is a more intimate experience: Four teams fight for two cash vaults, which means that you’ll eventually end up fighting in threeway or even fourway skirmishes. Accordingly, you shouldn’t really waste much time starting a slow and methodical siege, even though that would be a better way to assault an enemy position. More adversaries will show up in your back, so better get on with it.
Timing is everything
There is a balance to be found between immediately storming a position and playing it smart, though. The locations of vaults and drop-off points are always visible on the map, and you’ll also get an indication of other teams interacting with these points at any given moment. If the enemy beats you to a position by just a few moments, don’t go in immediately. Pick your moment and wait until they leave to ambush them. Alternatively, blow a hole into a wall somewhere and make yourself an alternative attack route.
Unleash chaos
No matter how clever you go about doing things, The Finals will more often than not succumb to absolute chaos during a match – and you should embrace that. Take fights as they come, blow up buildings, zip through the air, and cover the streets in sticky goo. Think about it this way: the more chaos there is, the more chaos your opponents will also have to cope with. At least being the instigator of all that chaos will give you a modicum of control. Force the enemy to play your game, and you’ll always have an advantage.
Written by Ryan Woodrow and Marco Wutz on behalf of GLHF.
