Our gun is trained on the doorway and our surviving teammate is skulking in the corner with a dagger, ready for any intruder that might try to scupper our chances in this virtual gameshow. Suddenly, the walls cave in, the ceiling collapses, and gunfire, explosions and expanding blobs of goo start to fill the room. We’ve made an elementary mistake, which is to treat The Finals like a conventional shooter.
Amplified destruction is just one of the twists introduced by this free-to-play first-person shooter from Embark Studios, the company founded in 2018 by veterans of DICE and the Battlefield series. “Sometimes it feels as if the game industry has been reskinning the same game over and over again,” the studio’s chief content officer, Rob Runesson, notes. “We actually said: ‘There must be things here nobody has tried’.” Where most shooters glue our eyes to the iron sights, The Finals has us scouring the world for opportunities to traverse, transform and weaponise it.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
CHANTS OF SENNAAR
How Babel helped a world of stealth become a world of words
MEGHNA JAYANTH
Around the industry in eight games: one writer's journey through indie to triple-A and back again.
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Sam Fisher's final outing is also his most enigmatic
Post Script
How low should a boss go?
TWO POINT STUDIOS
How a new studio rose from the ashes of Lionhead success not simulated
RAIDERS OF THE ARCHIVE
Wolfenstein-style shootouts are just a small part of the picture in MachineGames' maximalist Indy game
SPLITGATE 2
If it ain't broke, don't fix Split
KINGDOM COME: DELIVERANCE II
A bigger, better - and funnier Bohemian rhapsody
Narrative Engine
Write it like you stole it
The Outer Limits
Journeys fo the farthest reaches of interactive entertainment
