The Finals Season 2 Is Insane. Gameplay, Impressions, And Everything New
CNS, a fictional hacking group, has broken into the game code and changed the world to be kind of glitchy, wild, and colorful. The new glitchy gadgets let you create holes and surfaces and then close them back up for stealth insertions. You can also completely reconstruct objects in the environment to become other stuff.
They also have anti-gravity grenades and portal grenades. It's pretty wild stuff, and it shows just how much freedom the developers have with their game and design. I've been a fan of the concept of the finals right from the start. A game within a game allows the developers to do just about anything they want for the sake of fun, and it's absolutely showing with season 2.
I got to jump into some early rounds and check out the new gadgets and maps the other day. Shout out to Embark for inviting me, and basically, CNS has hacked this new map and made it super colorful. It's sort of an 80s fever dream, which very much fits in line with the world game concept. Now there's cool new guns and gadgets that I definitely want to talk about, but one of the more interesting or enjoyable things that I found right away was the new game mode, and to be honest, generally speaking, limited-time events or new game modes in these types of games don't always peque my interest, but the finals have been needing a little bit more of a brain-off way to play, and the new 5v5 mode provides just that.
It's basically a king of the hill, or payload. Style game mode with a moving platform that bashes through buildings and pretty much any sort of object in its way. The team that spends the most time on this platform during the round wins, but that doesn't always mean that standing on the platform is the best strategy.
There can be lots of overlooks and ways to take people out, so there's usually a battle surrounding this moving platform. And I got to say it's very fun, and having only two teams pretty much negates the whole third-party problem that the other modes have, but there's still enough players to keep the action constant.
I had a great time just jumping in, getting some kills, dying trying to defend the platform, and just respawning without having to do complex math in my head and figure out what the best angle of approach and time to attack was that was usually common in the other mode. I think this is a great addition to the game and a very much needed one for a more casual way to approach the finals, and frankly, when it comes to the way that people play the finals, season 1 had some issues with it, which I think the developers are definitely acknowledging.
Many of those with season 2, with season 1 it took so long to unlock new battle pass ranks and level up your character to unlock that new gear that well frankly you probably paid for I think a lot of the players simply got burned out I know I did and I was kind of annoyed that I had, dropped money for tiers that I wasn't really willing to grind to get and in the later half of the season the devs actually ended up just doubling the XP that you would get toward the battle pass but that only made it so that you needed to play like 50 hours to unlock everything instead of a 100, now luckily and hopefully as I haven't really gotten to test this out yet the devs have some new solutions to make that seasonal grind less of a grind and more enjoyable they're introducing a new contract system on top of the previous XP earn rates It's pretty straightforward if you've done daily contracts before, and it's simple things like getting x amount of damage or playing x amount of matches in exchange for some additional XP.
There's also a new circuit system that is kind of similar to daily challenges, but they're going to be unlocked at different times throughout the season, and each tier is going to have a whole bunch of challenges that you can complete to unlock new cosmetic items like emotes and additional flare. Again, the challenges seem like they're basic things, such as getting X number of kills or whatever like that, so hopefully those upgrades make the season far more appealing and less grindy now, as was the case with season 1.
The cosmetic upgrades really are amazing with season 2, and Bark has certainly proven themselves in the art department, and I'm really digging the TV characters and everything that they've got going on now, any way you slice it. The finals are a pretty high-skilled game, and it's attracted a lot of players who want to play it more competitively.
But the tools to do that haven't really been in place for season 1 and season 2 are bringing a big change to a lot of that stuff. They're updating the ranking system to be more fair and balanced around teamwork. I'm not entirely sure how big of a difference this will make to ranked play, but it seems like they're doing a substantial overhaul to it, and they're also adding private matches as a brand new feature.
If you can get at least six players together, you can host a private match for the purpose of practicing strategies or even hosting your own tournament. This is huge for the competitive world, and it means the finals can actually build a community around tournaments, assuming that's what the players want, but it does look like there's a lot of people who want to do that, and alternatively, it could just become a really fun way to have a tournament among friends, which is generally a great and much needed feature.
Of course, there are also some new primary weapons. The Famas is probably my favorite of the three; it's for the medium class, and it provides a really good medium-range burst fire weapon.
In the wild, where some of the heavy's base weapons are already very powerful, introducing one where you have to hit your shots or you have to go for head shots will be interesting to see. The light class gets the 93r burst fire pistol; it's a cool little gun. I didn't try it much because I'm not a huge light-class player, but generally speaking, the final primary weapons are somewhat secondary to a lot of the cool new gadgets and abilities.
One of the coolest new things is the medium class getting the ability to make holes in surfaces, and it is quite cool. You do have to use it in the ability slot, though, so you're sacrificing a heal beam or a turret, but it is a really neat way to create a stealthy entry point to rooms or areas. Something that this game has kind of lacked up until now is that usually everyone's just busting through walls like the Kool-Aid man, but now an entire team could potentially sneak up behind you before even having to open fire or explode a wall.
