The new 3v3v3 shooter The Finals from Embark Studios feels slower than it did in the betas, many players said this weekend. These criticisms came about after the game got a surprise launch after The Game Awards with returning players from past The Finals tests confused to find that their characters were seemingly a bit more sluggish compared to what they’d experienced in the past. These criticisms led the game to briefly dip down to a less than desirable review score on Steam with several of the reviews players left calling out the movement issues after a couple of hours with the full release.
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But here’s the thing: Embark Studios says nothing has changed regarding movement that would warrant these concerns. Not to invalidate players’ perceptions of the movement system, however, Embark Studios added in response to these frustrations that it feels it’s pinpointed why, exactly, movement feels different from before.
The Finals Movement “Changes”
Community lead Dusty Gustafsson from Embark Studios took to the game’s Discord this weekend to address some of these complaints about the movement system. For one, Gustafsson said that changes were made regarding different animations in the game which now might contribute to making players feel as though they’re moving slower even if they’re not. The community lead also said that players’ FOV settings might’ve been changed from the beta to now which could’ve also made it appear as players were moving slower, so the recommendation was to change FOV back to something more preferable if you haven’t checked it already.
“We have identified a few things that might be causing everyone to experience the gameplay differently,” Gustafsson said. “In the past month, we have made small adjustments to animations, sounds, and settings that, in combination, may be giving the feeling of slower movement – especially in light and medium archetypes. Settings were reset as well, so FOV is defaulted to 71, which can have a huge impact on how the game feels.”
The launch patch notes for The Finals did include several changes in the “Movement” category such as “Made multiple updates to vaulting responsiveness and general smoothness when traversing” and “Updated various first-person animations to better sync with footsteps,” but they never said anything about movement speed itself being adjusted.
This communication from the devs has led to a bit of an “aha!” moment for many of the players who were initially criticizing movement changes and are now realizing that things aren’t really different at all. Several players have already updated their Steam reviews or shared new ones to backtrack on lower scores and say that the FOV changes did, in fact, help their situations. Other players still have taken to the Steam reviews and other forums like the game’s subreddit to spread awareness of the movement situation so that people don’t continually misplace their criticisms of the game.
