Shroud has declared THE FINALS developers Embark Studios “don’t understand their player base” after the release of a new one-life ranked mode on June 14 set the game’s entire community abuzz—and not in a good way.
While many fans have praised Embark for trying new things in THE FINALS, new playing mode Terminal Attack has fallen flat. In this alternating attack-and-defense battle, players are challenged with an impossible restriction where they can’t heal or revive, so they only have one life to win the match. This is far from a unique concept in first-person shooters, but according to Shroud it’s way off the mark for THE FINALS and its gameplay.
Shroud said when asked about the mode during his latest June stream that it’s “not what you want to play THE FINALS for. You don’t want to play THE FINALS for one life only.” The star streamer then added that it’s a “complete misunderstanding of their own game. Literally, that just shows they don’t understand their own playerbase at all.”
This response was then followed by an even bigger whammy from the human aimbot: Shroud admitted he doesn’t want to play THE FINALS anymore and has been disappointed by the changes the tactical shooter’s devs keep making.
The biggest complaint from THE FINALS fandom has been that because it’s designed so heavily to be a team game, if you die in this new Terminal Attack playlist it feels like you’ve let your team down quite badly. Even worse, it’s in ranked, which means the stakes are much higher and people are more willing to be toxic and flame one another.
This one-life feature slows gameplay so much that players are now suggesting its barely even THE FINALS, which should be “a fast-paced… [and] movement-based game where taking risks is encouraged.” Instead, ranked is now stuck as something more like a tactical shooter—which players say is “boring ass.”
Considering the near-instant FINALS backlash, Shroud seems to be bang-on the money regarding the fan-dev disconnect. Embark has yet to respond to complaints.
