The Finals Gets Surprise Release During The Game Awards

Following its open beta that ended in November, The Finals from Embark Studios made an appearance at The Game Awards with the studio sharing the release date for the game. But unlike other games that got release dates in trailers that put the games several months out, The Finals is getting a surprise release on this very day. Embark Studios announced tonight during The Game Awards that the free-to-play shooter game is now out on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms with the first season of the game's content getting started right away, too.

The announcement for The Finals' sudden release was shared in a gameplay trailer to show the game off to more who perhaps didn't take part in the beta or other tests in the past. Early tests for The Finals were limited to the PC platform only while the open beta was available on other platforms, but given that the final beta is when the game really started getting attention and taking off on Steam, it might've been too late at that point for others to get in on it.

The Finals Gameplay Trailer & Release Date

Thankfully for those who missed out before, you can try The Finals now with no commitment other than your time given that the game is free. There are in-game purchases, of course, including a battle pass option just as one would expect from any live-service game nowadays, but as for the game itself, you can check it out for free right now. The trailer itself is also live and can be seen above.

Given that this game is launching abruptly on a day when so many eyes will be on The Game Awards anyway, it's reasonable to expect that there may be some complications with the matchmaking depending on how many people are trying to play, though the weekend will hopefully proceed smoothly if that's the case to give people their first full, uninterrupted weekend of The Finals.

What Is The Finals?

If this is your first time being introduced to the game at all, here's what you need to know about it. The Finals has different game modes, but its core experience, "Cashout," puts players in teams of three where they compete in a televised game show scenario. Coins are earned by eliminating opponents with those eliminations and other stats taken into account when tallying up the winners at the end of a match. Players choose between three different classes -- Light, Medium, and Heavy -- outfitted with varying weapon possibilities players can configure. These factors all lend it traits of battle royale and extraction games, though it's a game that doesn't fit squarely into those genres.

One of the key factors in The Finals that made it so appealing to people was the destruction players could unleash on the environment. Drawing comparisons to Battlefield games, buildings and other objects and structures in The Finals can be destroyed with that task made easier by things like sledgehammer which can be brought into a match. 

The Finals emerged to quite the strong start during its open beta, so we'll see this weekend if that interest persists now that the game will be fully out on every platform.