The Finals Season 2 is a pivotal moment for the anarchic shooter

The Finals Season 2 is almost here and we got to play the game for a couple hours before launch. For what is proving to be an important moment for the game, here’s what we thought of what we saw.

In live services, seasons are really important to the health of a game. They’re where new content is added, big meta changes are implemented, and importantly, an audience comes back after downtime. 

Naturally, players drop off after a big launch, as people move on or become distracted with other releases. And then, every couple of months or so, a game will try to get its player base back with its new seasonal output. 

However, Season 2 is always an important one for a game, especially after a big launch that’s done well. That initial launch can be massive, but the long-term life of a live service is determined by how many people come back the second time around. 

That’s where The Finals currently finds itself. The game’s launch in December was a breath of fresh air for the shooter genre. The absurd destructibility, longer TTKs, and dedication to being just plain fun attracted a large audience. Of course, that initial burst of players has fallen off somewhat – and now it’s time to see how many the game can bring back. Is the Finals a flash in the pan, or a game that will have long-term support and audience? With Season 2 of the game, it’s time to find out.

Get your Neon

Season 2 brings a distinct vibe to The Finals that wasn’t there before. In lore, a hacking group called the CNS has taken over the games, infecting the gameshow with a lot of pixellated, hacker-y neon vibes. It’s a well-worn aesthetic, and almost feels mandatory for every live service game to have their ‘cyber’ season – but it does complement the Final’s premise and aesthetic seamlessly.

It’s a pretty creative swing, making something that feels different from the launch. More so, all aspects in Season 2 feel part of a cohesive whole as a content drop. With the game being infected with all these cyber-hacker vibes, it already feels like we’re subverting some of the aesthetics of the original launch. It could have been easy, even expected to just expand on the ‘destructive gameshow’ vibe of the first launch, but Embark is already out there making distinct identities for these seasons. 

How that aesthetic manifests isn’t just through the menu overhauls, and items contained in the Battle Pass (though that doesn’t hurt). The season brings with it a new weapon for every class, four battlefield-shaping gadgets, a new map, and a new play mode, alongside various other touch-ups. 

The new map is where the cyber-neon feels is at its peak. SYS$HORIZON has been implemented into the games by the CNS, and it’s full to the brim with destructible, colorful buildings. This is easily the best-looking map in The Finals, breaking up the previous aesthetic that could see maps bleeding into each other. This is memorable, with bridges and floating platforms of displaced geometry.

Glitch in the matrix

Carrying on with the whole voxel-vibe, the new gadgets coming to the game also feed into the overall feel of Season 2. There are four coming with the season, and they all mess around with both the battlefield and the reality of the maps themselves. 

Medium has come out the best here with two new gadgets to choose from. The Dematerializer temporarily phases out building surfaces, giving you new entries without having to destroy a structure for future use. The Data Reshaper is a fun tool for anyone who likes a bit of chaos too. When used, it will transform anything it hits, like a barrier, a turret, or mine, into another object like a chair or table. This is great for clearing out heavily fortified defense points. 

Lights, while only getting one gadget do get a really fun one. The mobility-based class can now move around even more with the new gadget, The Gateway. When activated, it creates a portal in one place and then you can activate it again to place the other end. For any Symmettra or Wraith enjoyers, this will be familiar territory. With all the entries and escapes this presents, you really can start thinking with science. 

The Heavys on the other hand get access to The Anti-Gravity Cube. The big boys and girls of the arenas are well known for tearing apart buildings and lowering objectives from ceiling tops to lobbies. However, it’s usually been a one-way street. As the title suggests, this cube gives you the ability to start raising objects up, like the objective – or other players. This can be used to reshape a situation, or merely slow people down, but it’s definitely a pretty interesting new gadget. 

On top of the gadgets, there is also a new weapon for every class – Lights get the 93R burst pistol, mediums get the FAMAS burst rifle, and Heavys add the KS-23 Slug shotgun to their arsenal.  

Shifting gears

The other major addition to the season is a brand new mode – Power Shift. First off, for those who have more than two friends and have struggled with your group sizes, this mode is the first 5v5 mode. 

It is casual focused, so leans heavier on the silliness of The Finals – and most definitely on its destructiveness. The idea of the mode is to control a moving platform and try to have it in your territory at the end of the game. The platform’s path goes through buildings, and it is an uncaring monolith that will plow through them like a knife to hot butter. 

If you’ve played Push in Overwatch 2, it’s a little bit like that, but if at the end of the game, the winner is which side the robot ended on – and if the robot was a massive, unstoppable yellow hockey puck that plowed through buildings as if they weren’t there. 

The only real issue is that with all the defensive abilities and area control, it can make existing on the platform exceptionally hard. When you’re being bombarded with pyro and gas grenades, it can become a lot quickly. That said, I also got onto the platform with a hammer and smashed through four other players bunkered down so it does swing in roundabouts. It’s in those moments you remember exactly why The Finals rules. 

Can it Hack it?

The Finals Season 2 has a lot riding on it for Embark. How this goes for the Swedish team will likely shape the long-term viability of The Finals as a franchise. However, from what I’ve played, I’d say Embark has done all it can to freshen things up and bring some really interesting new toys to the game. 

The season’s strong aesthetic gives it an identity that almost all of the new content adheres to. The cyber-neon theming might be a little tired, but it works within the confines of The Finals. It also brings a unique arsenal of weapons and gadgets to the game that adds a lot to the battlefield. Gravity lifts, dematerialisers, portals, and more change the playing field, opening up a lot more opportunities for new fights and ideas. That’s ultimately what you want from a seasonal update. 

The success of Season 2 and potentially, the Finals will come down to the audience’s reaction to it. Will players flock back to the arena shooter, or will streamers and content creators come back and stay? Only time will tell, but from everything I played this season, I’m optimistic about The Final’s chances of being a meaningful ongoing game.