The most helpful review from a veteran (10+ hours at review)
▲ Recommended
991 h at review1,006 h total
21 Jul 2026
For a new player, the game is simply brilliant, but… For someone who’s already clocked up well over a hundred hours, there are three main issues:
1) There’s absolutely no link between your skill level and matchmaking. It’s hard to play this game badly, or even just averagely. Especially in ranked mode.
2) The outsourced Indian support team don’t understand how game balance works. In the context of the latest melee weapon rework, this is glaringly obvious even to a blind person.
3) Smurfing – the developers couldn’t care less about it. I’M SO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ FED UP WITH THESE POINTS IN MM – WHY THE ♥♥♥♥ AM I PLAYING AGAINST DIAMONDS+RUBY AT ANY RANK, GETTING 500 FOR A WIN AND -1500 FOR A LOSS?
The most helpful review from a veteran (10+ hours at review)
▼ Not recommended
1,522 h at review1,661 h total
10 Jul 2026
The best FPS game with many aspect of fun but ruined by bad decisions from the dev.
I must be real here, that I do love this game and still am loving it till now. The gunplay is fun and interactive, chaotic destruction forcing situational adaptation, many ways to build your loadout and creative ways to play them. All of this can never be found in any FPS right when I'm writing this. Only here, where we can have fun and strive to be a better player.
But the state of The Finals now are nothing but a husk of itself.
The Dev doesn't understand the player base and what make their game fun at all. Only catering to the loudest player who didn't learn the game and complain on things to justify their unreasonable points.
The dev don't know how to balance the game. They buff and nerf with data without looking on what's happening in the game. Gun and specialization that overperform still performing well for many seasons(The Winch) and things that shouldn't be nerf would still somehow be nerf for a not so good reason. The fun stuff got nerf and change because "it's unfair" even though most of the overperforming weapons are actually unfair.
Season 11 promised that all melee will be more viable, with the new system and many balancing change. I try to be hopeful since Embark had nerf melee so hard before. Many mistake upon mistake that I never understand why. Even their LIVE proved that they don't know what they're doing. I'm still believing that they would listen to the true player base and change things up with the rework.
But they mess-up, and I'm disappointed. Truly. All weapons feel bad and clunky to use. The new system made the weapon worst. And of course, the same problem again.
There's still many more problem in the game. The dev interaction with the communities is low, Cheater plaguing the game with Anti-cheat that doesn't work at all, and competitiveness ruining the fun of the game because they want esports.
I played since season 1 and love it so much. But what I see now is the game corroding with questionable decisions. I don't usually write reviews, but I need to said something. I don't want to see my beloved game ruined itself. The dev will never read this anyway but this is where I can at least have a say.
I promised if they do fix things, I will change my review. But I will not be expecting anything now. My disappointment have reach it's limits.
Based on the 7,062 most recent Steam reviews · updated 30 Sept 2026
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English reviews: 4,762, 9 Jul 2026 – 30 Sept 2026
Russian reviews: 2,300, 6 Feb 2026 – 30 Sept 2026
▼ Not recommended
1,054 h at review1,054 h total
15 Aug 2026
been playing since season 1 and have been completing every battle pass since season 3. I am terrible at gunplay so I have been mostly been playing bot mode and had a ton of fun. Unfortunately, Embark AI decided that I cheated? In bot mode? And hit me with a permanent ban today. From what I have been seeing, the appeal process is just an AI chatbot. Really feel like a waste of time to be honest. I had fun getting skins in the game but they could just all take it all away. I guess I'll just return to non-live service game I guess. At least I get to own what I like.
I truly believe THE FINALS is the best multi-player shooter on the market, but after 1000hrs Im not having fun anymore..why? the rank system is punishing me for being experienced/good at the game, and I can no longer Recommend THE FINALS based on its terrible matchmaking, you see THE FINALS is a thinking mans FPS and it has a level of complexity(like parts of maps and buildings being fully destructible) the way 3 classes loadouts and abilities can me remixed makes the onboarding/learning curve very rough, I made the mistake of not playing for a while and in that time got deranked from mid gold to bronze, every season ive played i get to gold early now im stuck in silver, the rank system seems to think "balance" is having me LVL100 saddled with LVL30 and unders playing against other players LVL70 and up yes were all in silver BUT!! the the meta gap is large the difference between a lvl20 silver vs a lvl70 is astornomical in this game!!! again for me its not about winning and losing, Im not getting teammates who know what they are doing AND THATS NOT FUN, the last 3 months Ive even had wins i want to abandon, to make the rank system worse, i got my roommate to try THE FINALS after 4 placement matches HE WAS PLACED IN GOLD, hes was in gold for A MONTH, I thought maybe he was somehow better then myself even though i have 1000hrs, I had him play on my Acc where im stuck in Silver and he dropped to bronze and was unable to escape, the rank system is a mess, the game is amazing, maybe its cuz the player base isint gigantic, but I cant Recommend a game that once you have a blast learning it all the fun is gone cuz the matchmaking is terrible, and miss me with the just play with friends ish, the solution to bad matchmaking in games cant ALWAYS be teamup with someone, if the matchmaking cant properly pool players thats the problem
The best FPS game with many aspect of fun but ruined by bad decisions from the dev.
I must be real here, that I do love this game and still am loving it till now. The gunplay is fun and interactive, chaotic destruction forcing situational adaptation, many ways to build your loadout and creative ways to play them. All of this can never be found in any FPS right when I'm writing this. Only here, where we can have fun and strive to be a better player.
But the state of The Finals now are nothing but a husk of itself.
The Dev doesn't understand the player base and what make their game fun at all. Only catering to the loudest player who didn't learn the game and complain on things to justify their unreasonable points.
The dev don't know how to balance the game. They buff and nerf with data without looking on what's happening in the game. Gun and specialization that overperform still performing well for many seasons(The Winch) and things that shouldn't be nerf would still somehow be nerf for a not so good reason. The fun stuff got nerf and change because "it's unfair" even though most of the overperforming weapons are actually unfair.
Season 11 promised that all melee will be more viable, with the new system and many balancing change. I try to be hopeful since Embark had nerf melee so hard before. Many mistake upon mistake that I never understand why. Even their LIVE proved that they don't know what they're doing. I'm still believing that they would listen to the true player base and change things up with the rework.
But they mess-up, and I'm disappointed. Truly. All weapons feel bad and clunky to use. The new system made the weapon worst. And of course, the same problem again.
There's still many more problem in the game. The dev interaction with the communities is low, Cheater plaguing the game with Anti-cheat that doesn't work at all, and competitiveness ruining the fun of the game because they want esports.
I played since season 1 and love it so much. But what I see now is the game corroding with questionable decisions. I don't usually write reviews, but I need to said something. I don't want to see my beloved game ruined itself. The dev will never read this anyway but this is where I can at least have a say.
I promised if they do fix things, I will change my review. But I will not be expecting anything now. My disappointment have reach it's limits.
Ever since denuvo was added to the finals, it's been basically unplayable. On my system it constantly freezes, I was casually playing the finals on and off just to have some fun, now I literally can't without it freezing from normal gameplay, and typically when destruction happens it freezes. This all happens after the first match, and only a little on the first when I boot it up.
For a new player, the game is simply brilliant, but… For someone who’s already clocked up well over a hundred hours, there are three main issues:
1) There’s absolutely no link between your skill level and matchmaking. It’s hard to play this game badly, or even just averagely. Especially in ranked mode.
2) The outsourced Indian support team don’t understand how game balance works. In the context of the latest melee weapon rework, this is glaringly obvious even to a blind person.
3) Smurfing – the developers couldn’t care less about it. I’M SO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ FED UP WITH THESE POINTS IN MM – WHY THE ♥♥♥♥ AM I PLAYING AGAINST DIAMONDS+RUBY AT ANY RANK, GETTING 500 FOR A WIN AND -1500 FOR A LOSS?
This game is unique, and can be quite fun. But for new players, it's extermely rough. If you have a high tolerance for grind, and getting stomped, give it a try,
There's not enough players to create balanced lobbies for newbies anymore. I played with a partner, if alone I imagine the issue is worse. Each night we played this it felt abusive. We'd get pub stomped 10 times in a row chasing that one unicorn balanced game. Wading through lobby after lobby of people 10 even 20x our rank and experience. Until I just decided I was done trying, and will be leaving the game. I didn't manage to get many hours, but I feel that's more a testament to how fast the lobbies ramp up in difficultly. It became consistently unfun before even 10 hours.
The game is unique, and has a lot of cool things buried in the mess. The sandbox is incredible. The potential for team play is there, and can be satisfying. It can be a lot of fun when it clicks. But it's not worth the time, at least for me. Maybe it will see a second wind big enough to create a pool of new players who can fill lobbies, but unlikely. It's probably too late to enjoy this as a newbie.
Why I hate the finals and Embark: An autobiography
My name is MrEden111, often known as Eden, especially in circles on the finals as one of the most dedicated exclusive charge’n’slam sledge players since season 4 from Oceania.
The finals is, and more importantly, *was* a wonderful game, a breath of fresh air in a stale live service industry where your wallet was valued, you as a player was respected, and where the developers would constantly deliver breath taking updates. But having not played season 3, I had little idea of the horrors there were yet to come.
For many seasons the game was pumped with life, after the tremendous success of season 4 with a vast array of new content such as sponsorships, new weapons, and my all-time favourite map; fortune stadium. They would swing hard again with season 5, with Mexico themed beauty bringing in even more content (despite how op the Cerberus was), season 6 bringing even more wonder ignoring the Vegas reskin which was much better than its original predecessor (No the team death match map does not count) … but then came season 7. Because even accounting for the flaws, these were updates that did amazing for the health of the game. Alongside also dealing with issues such as the infamous taser (which later turned to the disabler) to rise player enjoyment.
But I wake up in the morning of season 7, and I open to read the patch notes, my hands went cold and palmy, my heart sank to rest on my lungs. The infamous sledge nerf, the turning point of the game for me and finally opened my eyes to the faults of Embark. Which as a noteworthy mention, was only caused because of this obsession in the heavy playerbase to use winch with the most current powerful weapon, leading to only the weapon being significantly nerfed, which is a relevant issue in the mindset of embark’s balancing philosophy to always look at the surface of the issue instead of the deeper reasons (unless if they outright ignore it of course).
It was then Embark took a turn for me, it was the first season they introduced the $50 ultimate battle trash and pushing out more and more expensive reskins/clothing, prioritising the store (which became even more evident in the future). They started to become more ignorant to the real issues plaguing the game in favour of streamers, they reduced the servers to cut costs down which made international play even worse and even made playing in your own country laggy just to min max profit margins. Melee as a whole by that point had been entirely side lined and made useless while lights became more of a major issue for the casual player base, with most solutions to the issue only worsening overall player enjoyment such as with the cl04 especially.
This all became worse by season 8, the infamous Esports season, for 110 days the game did not receive a single major balance nor particularly small one either because embark refused to endanger their forced esports. They lied to us and themselves that it would bring in new players when in fact it was the most damaging time for the playerbase since season 3. But embark will never have the humility to admit that they failed the players, because they are always right in their eyes with every decision they make and still intend to make season 12 a repeat having learned none of these mistakes.
Things got worse when Arc Raiders released, with an even smaller team, Embark rather than risking their profits. Focused their efforts on making store items before anything else as before every store update had an array of balance changes but it soon became just small footnotes. Leading to significantly less content overall and started to pour out half baked ideas such as the P90 (a glorified light smg for medium), the crossbow which is a reskinned pike, the sad joke of a hover pad and much else, which did little to improve the staling variety for the long-time players like me who made the majority of the player base (and their revenue). This also led to terrible balancing choices that left light just too powerful in the casual scene and left medium as well as heavy weaker, with guns like the light's m11 able to spray down a heavy in seconds with just hip fire.
But the melee was worst of all, melee has been the beaten children of the finals where especially heavy and medium have suffered the worse. Spear didn’t get a major update since season 3 and even took away the ability to emote cancel heavy attack somewhere around season 7 and then proceeded to NERF IT in the melee rework despite being the least popular melee weapon alongside taking away the popular fling technique. Riot shield got its ability to run at angles taken away because screw them I guess no unintended tech allowed for melee. But as a pure example of how Embark does not playtest their ideas at all prior to the new season, riot shield has become THE melee weapon with its shove and great damage making it way too powerful which I’m sure embark will swiftly nerf sooner or later.
With Sledge on the other end of the spectrum where it used the be the symbol of final melee down reduced to its kneecaps broken and now is just a mindless spam weapon where I long for the days you could do combos pre nerf with quick melee (rip m1 + qm = dead light). With the only other strong melee now just being the sword which despite what Embark has said, has only buffed its spamability by making m1 be almost as strong as lunge. The melee rework especially has done nothing to solve the issues of melee being unviable and still leaving melee as a braindead spam weapon category rather than anything that could be take seriously than just a pathetic annoying joke that ticks everyone off, me a sledge player included.
If you have read this far, I applaud you, I could go on all day, but I digress. Do not waste your time on this game, please. While it may be fun for a time, but in the end, it leaves you dead and hollow, wishing it felt as wonderful when you first played. Any hope I had in these Developers to make my favourite game great again have long since passed, and this mockery of a melee rework has put out the candle of whatever passion I had left.
Sincerely, Eden
The best team shooter I have ever played (tied with Titanfall2 perhaps). Better than Apex, better than Team Fortress 2, better than Fortnite. No game compares to the feeling I get from The Finals. It’s messy but dynamic, walls are a suggestion and the cosmetics are amazing. I think the credit has to go to the game show vibe, it really allows for anything. Explosions, mid match events and crazy loadout combinations, animations and skins. 10/10, I highly recommend it to any shooter lover.
Getting banned after more than 350 hours of playtime just for using DS4Windows… lol. I tried contacting support to explain my situation, but it was pointless. All my purchases were gone, and in the end, the only solution was to create a new Steam account. A little advice: never use third-party software for your controller.
---{ Графика }---
☐ Вы забываете, что такое реальность.
☑ Красивый
☐ Хорошо
☐ Достойный
☐ Плохо
☐ Не смотрите на это слишком долго
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Игровой процесс }---
☑ Очень хорошо
☐ Хорошо
☐ Это всего лишь игровой процесс
☐ Мехх
☐ Вместо этого наблюдайте, как сохнет краска.
☐ Просто не надо
---{ Аудио }---
☐ Ушной оргазм
☐ Очень хорошо
☑ Хорошо
☐ Неплохо
☐ Плохо
☐ Теперь я глухой
---{ Аудитория }---
☐ Дети
☑ Подростки
☑ Взрослые
☐ Бабушка
---{Требования к ПК}---
☐ Проверьте, можете ли вы наносить краску.
☐ Картофель
☑ Достойный
☐ Быстро
☐ Богатый парень
☐ Спросите в НАСА, есть ли у них свободный компьютер.
---{ Размер игры }---
☐ Гибкий диск
☐ Старомодный
☐ Работоспособно
☑ Большой
☐ Займет 15% вашего жесткого диска объемом 1 ТБ
☐ Для его хранения вам понадобится целый жесткий диск.
☐ Вам потребуется инвестировать в черную дыру, чтобы хранить все данные.
---{ Сложность }---
☐ Просто нажмите 'W'
☐ Легко
☐ Легко освоить / Сложно стать мастером
☐ Значительное использование мозга
☑ Сложный
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Молоть }---
☐ Нечего молоть
☐ Только если вас интересуют таблицы лидеров/рейтинги.
☐ Не обязательно для продвижения вперед
☐ Средний уровень сложности процесса помола
☐ Слишком много работы
☐ Для прокачки вам понадобится вторая жизнь.
---{ История }---
☑ Нет истории
☐ Немного предыстории
☐ Среднее значение
☐ Хорошо
☐ Прекрасно
☐ Это заменит вашу жизнь
---{ Время игры }---
☐ Достаточно длинный для чашки кофе
☐ Короткий
☐ Среднее значение
☐ Длинный
☑ В бесконечность и за её пределы
---{ Цена }---
☑ Это бесплатно!
☐ Стоит своих денег
☐ Если товар продаётся со скидкой
☐ Если у вас остались свободные деньги
☐ Не рекомендуется
☐ А можно просто сжечь деньги.
---{ Ошибки }---
☐ Никогда не слышал о
☑ Незначительные ошибки
☐ Может раздражать
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ Сама игра — это большой террариум для насекомых.
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10
---{ Автор }---
☑ https://vojtastruhar.github.io/steam-review-template
After this latest patch I give up. The balance team doesn’t know what are they doing, they keep looking at spreadsheets and data and i don’t think they play the game from a “normal” player perspective.
Its 3 weeks of stupid store updates and when it comes to balance.. nothing, they keep breaking the game or making it worst with things no one asked.. and then.. 3 more weeks of store updates..
Bad.. worst.. I can’t write what I actually want to say..
I have 1.3k hours of this
На первый взгляд, игра впечатляет: динамичный геймплей, впечатляющая разрушаемость окружения, смена локаций, всё это создаёт ощущение современного шутера. Но за красивой оболочкой скрывается ряд критических проблем:
-серьёзный дисбаланс по подбору игроков. Система сводит вместе игроков с кардинально разным уровнем навыков. Новички против профи, новички против читеров, новички против донатеров. Баланс разрушается ещё до начала матча.
-Тактика боя. Полная разрушаемость объектов и зданий вроде бы открывает много вариантов для тактических маневров, но не тут то было. Исход боя решает не стратегия -побеждает тот, кто быстрее заметил и точнее выстрелил/ударил.
-Дисбаланс оружия. Часть арсенала откровенно неиграбельна и проигрывает по всем параметрам, существуя скорее для галочки. Особенно оружие ближнего боя.
-Ну и куда же без читеров и донатеров, неотъемлемого атрибута онлайн-игр. Одни получают преимущество за счёт нечестной игры, другие за счёт вложений реальных денег. Но они, в принципе, не главная проблема. Игра вас всё-равно закинет к профи, против которого у вас не будет никаких шансов.
-Невозможность закончить игру преждевременно. Сдаться нельзя, даже если поражение очевидно. Вы вынуждены досиживать до конца раунда, теряя время и нервы.
В общем, просто красивая визуальная и техническая демонстрация, но не сбалансированный шутер. Игра заставляет вас чувствовать себя бессильным перед системой, где ваши навыки почти ничего не значат. Не рекомендую, если цените честную конкуренцию и баланс.
