A few days ago, a friend sent me a trailer for a game I’d never heard of before, The Finals, from Embark Studios. While I have grown somewhat immune to F2P multiplayer games trying to be the next Apex, Fortnite or PUBG, this one…this one seemed different.

The trailer was absolutely wild, showing large scale destruction in a way I can’t remember seeing in really any game in this genre before, at least not to this extent. The aesthetic was clean, the gunplay was snappy. What is this?

The Finals is made by ex-Battlefield developers at their new studio, and once you know that, you can feel and see some of that DNA in the game. And when my friend Skillup said he was testing it, and it really was as good as it looked, I wanted to get in too. An email later, I got my own code and I’m happy to report that yeah…this is one to watch. It may not be quite as cinematic as the trailer, but it’s incredibly intense, and there’s a lot to like here.

While I’m not allowed to capture footage or screenshots of anything in the closed alpha, I can report that yes, the destruction is pretty wild and the game is a fun spin on a multiplayer shooter that does feel unique in the space. The main mode, at least the one being tested, is about teams of three grabbing cash boxes and extracting them at certain points on the map, as rival teams try to steal those boxes or the cash-outs themselves.

But the destructive nature of the game really alters some of the fundamentals here. For instance, a modifier I was given on my map was “suspended structures,” so in order to extract, you had to climb a high ladder to a floating building with a cash-out station. But when I saw an enemy doing that, instead of climbing up the ladder myself and getting inevitably shot in the face, I was able to use my assault rifle to shoot out the entire floor of the floating platform, dropping both the player and the cash-out machine a few stories to the ground for a more even fight and chance to steal.

The destruction is so expansive it was almost a little confusing at times. For instance, as I raced to get a cash box upstairs, I found that an enemy had simply…blown up the staircase behind him, and I wasn’t sure how to even move up now, which would instead probably involve leaping to the next building and coming back over on a higher floor. I died before I could further strategize.

I also like the entire aesthetic of what they have going on here, where The Finals is structured like a dystopian game show, a bit like Apex Legends, but less sci-fi, and with wholly customizable kits and characters. Browsing through the store and looking at the outfits and the masks, I was getting Dishonored meets The Purge vibes, which I very much appreciate. If you’re going to sell me microtransactions, at least make sure they’re cool. These are pretty cool.

The current test is rather limited in terms of the modes, maps, weapons and cosmetics, but even just getting the basics of this down, this really does seem like it’s an upcoming game you’re going to want to keep an eye on. I mean, I could be wrong and this may end up being the next Hyperscape, but I don’t think so, and whenever it’s ready for an actual debut, it feels like it’s going to arrive with a fairly significant impact. If so, you heard it here first.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.