Improving the New Player Experience
2025.08.29
Improving the New Player Experience: Playstyles
Matt Lowe, Design Director for THE FINALS
Hi folks,
One of our primary goals for 2025 has been to improve the experience of playing THE FINALS for new players. And with more new players than ever entering the Arena, I am here to talk to you about the next phase of those efforts, a new way to unlock Specializations, Weapons and Gadgets in the game.
But don’t panic! They’re still available to fully unlock just by playing! :)
Let’s jump into the details.
THE RESEARCH
To achieve our goal of improving the onboarding process for new Contestants, we’ve run a series of tests to better understand what a new player encounters in their first few hours, including:
Testing different default game modes for new players (TDM, PowerShift, Head 2 Head) instead of Quick Cash
Playtester sessions where new players narrated their first hours in the game to highlight places where they were confused and how they learned
Tested different Loadouts for first time players and different starting Body types
Adjusting the rate at which new players unlock Weapons
One of the biggest takeaways from our research is that new players arriving in THE FINALS, with past experience in other FPS games, don’t immediately understand the variety on offer from the large array of Specializations, Gadgets, Weapons and tools made available to them in our giant sandbox of a game. Instead, their focus almost immediately goes to the gun and using it to solve every problem.
We understand this temptation. Guns are fun to use, provide immediate feedback and offer a core test of skill, but when we first set out to build THE FINALS we knew we wanted to make an FPS that was more than that. We wanted to make an FPS that was about interactivity, creativity, and chaos, where using dynamism to outthink your opponent should feel as powerful as outshooting them. We believe that’s why many of you fell in love with the game.
ENTER PLAYSTYLES
With Season 8, we want new players to immediately see the variety THE FINALS has to offer!
That’s why we’re introducing Playstyles: pre-made Contestant templates combining a Specialization, Weapon, and Gadgets into a recognizable style of play. Each comes with a strong fantasy behind it, something new players can instantly connect with.
Here’s a first look at three of the ten Playstyles available:
Scout
Light Build | Grapple Hook | SR-84 Sniper Rifle | Sonar Grenades | Thermal Bore
A Scout dominates the high ground. They are able to breach and attack objectives from long range, while providing valuable intel for their team.
Demolisher
Heavy Build | Charge ‘N’ Slam | M134 Minigun | RPG-7 | Explosive Mine | Pyro Grenade
A champion of destruction, the Demolisher brings down any structure in their way. They smash their way to the objective, creating holes and access points for their team, being sure to destroy any opponents in their way, too. Of course, the Sledgehammer is in the reserve.
Hacker
Medium Build | Dematerializer | FAMAS | Data Reshaper | Zipline | Pyro Grenade
The master of manipulating the virtual world, the Hacker can open and close surfaces at will, allowing their team to pass through them. They also have the power to transform enemy defenses into harmless props.
Each Playstyle contains four core items (one Specialization, one Weapon, and two Gadgets). The remaining five items that make up the playstyle’s complete Loadout and Reserve come from a pool of automatically unlocked ‘starter’ items that include several Weapons and Gadgets.
UNLOCKING PLAYSTYLES
Starting in Season 8, new players arriving in THE FINALS will unlock three playstyles by default when they first boot up the game, and they will immediately be granted a Playstyle Token that will allow them to unlock a fourth playstyle of their choice. Every few rounds, over the player’s first 20 rounds played, they will unlock additional Playstyle Tokens until they have unlocked all of the current playstyles.
The sharp-eyed among you will have realized that this new feature doesn’t include all the items currently in the game, and that is correct. Alongside Playstyles, there’s also a pool of 25+ unlockable items. These remain exactly as before, purchased with VRs.
FOR EXISTING PLAYERS
If you are a seasoned player of THE FINALS, you are likely well past your first 20 rounds and have unlocked plenty of equipment.
When Season 8 launches, you’ll automatically receive all of the 15 starter items, whether you’ve already unlocked them or not.
If you already own any item in an existing Playstyle, you’ll receive the rest of the items in that set immediately. If you don’t own any core items in a Playstyle, it will be locked and you’ll have to play a small number of matches to earn a Playstyle Token.
All future Playstyles will follow this same system: you'll need to play a small number of rounds to earn a Token and unlock the Playstyle.
This might sound complex, but once the initial transition has occurred it should be fairly intuitive. Most importantly, for new players coming in from Season 8 onwards, unlocking equipment should be very clear and easy to follow.
NOT A HERO SHOOTER
We really want to stress at this point that Playstyles are not heroes, and as much as we love hero shooters and MOBAs at Embark, we’re not planning to turn THE FINALS into either. THE FINALS is a ‘hero builder’ where you freely mix and match Specializations, Weapons, and Gadgets to create builds.
Playstyles are simply a set of templates that will better introduce new players to the wealth of varied gameplay in THE FINALS. They also make unlocking items faster and more intuitive, and this will ensure our newbies have a much better time getting to grips with our pretty complex game.
From the start of Season 8, whenever you create a new Contestant, instead of selecting Light, Medium or Heavy, you’ll select one of the available Playstyles. This is to offer some consistency across the game’s UI. From that point onward you’ll be free to fully customize your Contestant as you see fit as you always have.
THE BIG PICTURE
This system will give new players a clearer and faster introduction, immediately showing them the variety the game has to offer and the wide array of strategies and tactics at their fingertips.
To our existing fans, these changes should have a low impact on your experience while also helping new players join this community. It’s never been a better time to get your friends to play THE FINALS!
