The Finals Season 12: Primetime is upon us! After getting to play it at a preview event, I have to say that it’s pure fun, with improved destruction, new party-style solo modes, a tricky new playstyle for Lights, and more! Overall, it’s more The Finals, through and through.
I first played some classic Cash Out on the newly reworked Seoul map. There are new jump pads that lend to a cleaner map flow, as well as a new building. It’s not a massive, fundamental-changing rework, instead offering refinements to an already classic map, and it definitely feels good to play on. I didn’t get to play on the reworked Skyway Stadium, Las Vegas Stadium, or Monaco maps, so keep an eye out for those.
Highlighting my entire preview experience was the new dynamic destruction. Destruction is more fluid than ever, with damaged structures contorting and hinging instead of breaking apart rigidly. Explosives will affect the new debris by pushing it away rather than simply breaking it apart. In fact, explosives can even affect smoke and gas now, temporarily blowing a cloud away. Speaking of which, gas and smoke will no longer breach through walls. The new destruction offers more outcomes that unfold naturally.
I ran around Seoul with the new light build, the infiltrator, with the translocator and mimic device, as well as the true sight specialization. I have to say, the trickery potential one can get up to with this new build is infinite. The translocator allows you to select an item, then swap places with it. You can mark a red canister and make it your own personal rocket, swapping at the last second. Or, you could charge into a room full of enemies and swap with your teammates' turret.
There’s also the mimic device, which transforms players into basically any object they scan, maintaining that item’s traits. If you transform into a healing orb and get damaged, you will lose your cover and the effects of the orb will start. Then again, you could turn into a red canister, have your teammates launch you at enemies, then have them send another red canister that you’ve scanned with your translocator to swap with. Like I said, the trickery potential is endless!
Finally, there’s the True Sight specialization, which does what it says on the can. Enemy players and barrels are highlighted over a blue gridded background, even through smoke. Imagine swapping places with a smoke canister, only to come back with True Sight on! These new items just scream Light main, and I’m looking forward to seeing crazy fake-out plays.
Speaking of crazy plays, Scotty will call out players by name for various actions! Whether you're crushing the competition or fumbling off the map, Scotty will have commentary on your match. For those who don’t want to participate, they can turn on streamer mode. Apparently this is just the beginning of dynamic commentary, so I’m excited to see where it goes from here.
The Finals is also getting a new Solo mode called Solo Showdown. According to the devs, about 60% of The Finals players queue alone. This new mode is really a bunch of mini-modes, akin to party games, picked randomly. Though, according to the devs I played with, there should be some protections from repeatedly getting experiences that are too same-y over and over. The overarching goal of these modes is to get as much money as possible and stay out of the knockout zone, aka the bottom four players.
The first mode I played was One and Gunned, where everyone gets a revolver and one bullet, and every shot kills instantly. The only way to get more ammo is to get kills, so if you miss your shot, you’ll have to resort to melee. Every once in a while, an event will highlight all players on the map, so there’s no hiding. It was a fun time chaining together kills and testing my reaction speeds against a map full of potential one-shots. I played it on both Galaxy Estates and Kyoto, and liked it a lot more on the former, as it just felt more arcadey due to the openness of the map. Kyoto felt a tad bit claustrophobic, with a lot of places to hide.
Next up I played Blast Off, a returning mode where players have launch pads, APS, the dash specialization, and modified grenade launchers that shoot rockets. It’s super satisfying landing a direct hit on an enemy who's soaring through the air, though equally satisfying chunking down health bars of those who dared touch the ground.
After Blast Off, I played my favorite mini-mode, Slam-A-Rama, which gives everyone an empowered Charge N’ Slam skill and jump pads, on top of the stronger jump pads littered around the map. Players gather at those larger jump pads like moths to a flame, trying to slam any approaching targets, or even slamming each other mid-air. Honestly, nothing is more satisfying than hopping on a jump pad, smashing through a player mid-air as they burst into a flurry of coins, only to land back on the jump pad and keep the streak going. It’s pure dumb fun.
The next mini-mode I played was the returning Heavy Hitters. Players are on suspended structures high up in space, with the goal of knocking as many other players off the platforms as possible. To achieve this goal, players are given a sledgehammer, a jump pad, a gravity cube, a healing orb that absolutely launches people who get hit by it, and the Charge N’ Slam ability. I can’t say for certain, but I believe that the lower one’s health is, the further they go flying, like in Super Smash Bros. There’s a lot of strategy to be had in this mode, or you could simply third-party someone’s fight. Overall, it fits in with the party-pack vibe of these mini modes.
Finally, we have Turbo Tussle, which takes place around the speed tunnels on Galaxy Estates. All participants are Lights with the Dash specialization, sawed off shotguns, and incendiary grenades. It’s an adrenaline-filled speed fest where reaction time takes precedence over strategy. I loved opening a door to another section of the speed tunnel only to find an unsuspecting enemy, though in truth I was often in that position myself. Remember, these are just some of the eight mini-modes for Solo Showdown. The best way I could sum them up is: they're like Halo custom games from back in the day, silly fun that maintains a competitive element.
It’s time for the battle pass rewards overview! White, black, and gold seem to be the running theme among the Ultimate cosmetics, and I must say, they have some stellar particle effects, with beautiful gold flecks emanating from most of them. Among the Ultimate cosmetics, there are 6 mythic cosmetics and 6 legendary cosmetics (plus two legendary cosmetics on the bonus pages.) As always, keep in mind that these are just the Ultimate cosmetics that cap off every page; there are bound to be more of each rarity on every page. In total, there are 106 rewards in total for players to grind for!
It’s clear that Embark has been cooking up the results of Prime Time for a while now, and in my humble opinion, they cooked hard. Between the fun new party-night-style game modes in Solo Showdown, the reworked classic maps, the insane dynamic destruction upgrades, and Light’s new Infiltrator playstyle, this might be the most hype I’ve had for a season of The Finals since the beta!
Huge thanks to the Embark team for inviting me to the preview event, and another massive thanks to the Embarkers, Mart and Oscar, who teamed up with me!
