Embark Studious recently took everyone by surprise after unexpectedly launching their latest game, The Finals. And the game has managed to cement itself as the last big game of 2023 before the year ends.
The Finals is a free-to-play shooter game that supports full cross-play and cross-progression. The game looked promising right from the launch of the initial trailer and now the response that the game has received after release proves that the game has a long road ahead.
When was The Finals released?
Embark Studios surprised fans at the recently concluded The Game Awards 2023 ceremony by taking the opportunity to launch the game. Although it wasn’t unexpected considering the fact that the game had gone through multiple phases of beta testing over the past months, it was a bit surprising since the developers had not revealed the release date prior.
The devs had conducted multiple rounds of beta testing since March 2023, including an open beta in October 2023. Additionally, they had also shared a tentative release window of November or December 2023, however, the exact date was unknown. The Finals launched on December 7, 2023, on PC (Steam), PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Currently, The Finals is in its first season, which includes new content and a battle pass.
The Finals overtakes Call of Duty on Steam
The Finals was among one of the most anticipated games. The anticipation of the game was evident when the open beta of the game went live in October leading to excessive pressure on the servers, thus causing the servers to crash. In fact the number of players who signed up and played the open beta was much more than the devs expected.
And now that the game has been released, the response is equally overwhelming. The player numbers on Steam indicate how popular the game has become within a matter of barely four days. Currently, The Finals is at the seventh spot on the list of Steam’s top sellers. Interestingly, the game is among the top 10 despite being a free-to-play game competing with paid games in the run.
In fact The Finals has even overtaken some of the most popular games including Activision’s latest game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and the 2023 Game of the Year Baldur’s Gate 3.
The Finals has recorded the peak concurrent playership of 242,619 in its four days since release. Its 24-hour peak stands at 241,961 players. Other games preceding The Finals include Counter-Strike 2, DOTA, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Apex Legends, Naraka: Bladepoint, and GTA 5 in that order. It’s a little behind GTA 5 at the sixth spot currently.
Besides the game is enjoying ‘Mostly Positive’ reviews on Valve’s video game distribution channel. In the coming days, it won’t be surprising to see it perform even better among gamers. As reported earlier, there are high chances that The Finals will turn out to be a holy grail for Embark Studios.
The Finals is one of the only two games developed by Embark Studios. The studio is relatively new but possesses a lot of experience with several DICE veterans as part of their team.