The Finals devs respond to accusations of slowed gameplay: “There was no change”

The Finals review rating on Steam briefly fell to “mixed” with a number of players saying the full game feels slower than the beta. Oddly enough, the devs have stated that the movement mechanics remain the same.

The Finals is the latest FPS trendsetter to take the internet by storm. After an explosive beta that overtook giants like CoD and CS:GO in player count, the full game shadow dropped during The Game Awards 2023.

The Finals’ full release has enjoyed similar success to the beta. The newly minted game recently eclipsed Modern Warfare 3 in the Steam charts with over 200,000 concurrent players.

Despite the rapid success of the title, The Finals’ Steam reviews recently lowered to mixed thanks to over 8,000 negative reviews. Many of them claimed the game feels slower than the beta. The development team responded on Discord with some confusion.

Checking the Steam reviews for The Finals, they’re laden with references to slowed gameplay. Many of the negative ratings are simply plastered with “Revert the speed cowards”.

The problem is, Embark Studios claims that nothing has been done to the movement speed of characters since the beta. They have identified some potential issues and responded with some possible fixes on Discord, however.

“We have been investigating your feedback on the feel of the movement from Open Beta to now. It’s been hard to pinpoint because there was no change in the movement system or the movement speed between the two tests,” wrote Embark community lead Dusty Gustafsson

“In the past month, we have made small adjustments to animations, sounds, and settings that, in combination, may be giving the feeling of slower movement,” they explained. The core setting responsible appears to be a change in the default FOV from 100 to 71.

Gustafsson has said that Embark will be looking to rebalance some of the animation changes but a change in settings should mitigate feelings of slowness. “for your part, changing your FOV can be really helpful,” they suggested.

If you’re after more help with The Finals, we have a few guides to help you get ahead of the early adopters.

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