The Finals. Season 2. Private Matches

Today I'm bringing you the very first community update, a brand new article concept where we can have more casual conversations about the finals. Sometimes it will just be me here, and sometimes we'll have special guests. But today we have a very special topic, and I am very excited for private matches.

And boy, we knew you were excited, but maybe not this excited for it. I just want to hop on quickly and talk about private matches, what they will look like at the start of season 2, how they work, and what they might become over time. Here we are in game in season 2 of the finals, so this is in the game mode selection screen.

I'm going to go ahead and hover over the private match. I'm going to click it, and boom, we are ready to create our very own private match. From here, there is just one setting you need to be on the lookout for, and that is game mode. At the start of private matches with the launch of season 2, private matches will only support two game modes.

Bank it and Quick Cash. Over time, we are looking to expand this to all our game modes, of course, but this is the first version. I'm going to select Quick Cash. I'm going to click Create Game, and just like that, we have our very own private match. From here, you can see the list of people in it; it's just me right now.

Amar osar and I have a crown next to my name just to highlight that I am currently the lobby owner. If I were to leave this lobby when there are friends in it, someone else would take my place as the owner instead. On the left, you'll see some white numbers and letters. That's the invite code or the match ID.

This is what you copy and send to your friends or competitors if you're playing organized competitive play so that they can join your game. All they have to do is take this code, then slap it into join match, hit join game, and they're in. As people join, they will start filling up this list right here.

We currently only see my name, and the list will just populate downward, and it's important to note something here about how parties work. The party that you have when you join the private match is the party you will have in the lobby and the party you will have in the game. So if I was already part of a team and I clicked join game, I would bring my three men with me and we would play together.

If you're just inviting a bunch of solo players who aren't in any party, the parties will be formed as you enter the game based on the order in which you enter the lobby, meaning that the first three people to join in the private match will become the first party, then the next three people will become the second party, and so on and so forth.

At this point, all that's left for me to do is really invite five more friends, because, as you can see right here, you need at least six people to start a private match. And that's about it really when it comes to what private matches will be at the launch of season 2, like I said this is a pretty barebones version of private matches and we are aware that there's way more things we can do here, things like map selection so you can choose which map to play on support for all our game modes you can hop into Powers shift with your friends and just have fun there, and then things like a better Lobby UI you can organize your teams on the fly in the lobby and maybe even The Spectator right which will be super helpful both for competitive play but also just for Content creation where you want to fly around the map all of these are things that we know are very important to this feature but we really just wanted to get an early version out into the hands of our community as fast as possible so you can play it give feedback and help us develop it with you, we've seen what this community is capable of already with beautifully organized tournaments using some simple things like Q sniping or Pub stomping.

But this is a first version to allow some more fun things to happen, like organized competitive play or just inviting five friends and saying. Hey, today sledgehammers only, let's tear Las Vegas apart, then you can start doing that. The rest of these features that we know would make this a more complete private mass experience are things that we are dedicated to building, but instead of giving you a road map right now with dates, which I know maybe would have been nice.

I'm just going to let our actions speak for themselves. You will notice that we will add things update by update; that's going to make this a more complete experience, and over time, as you give us feedback on what you want to see as well. I am certain that private matches will become an amazing tool for you to play the finals in your way, and that's just about it.

That wraps up our very first version of the community update. I hope you've enjoyed watching it, and I hope you're excited for season 2 with everything that it brings, from maps to weapons to gadgets to private matches. I can't wait to see what you all get up to in season 2, and personally, I'm going to see all of you in the arena on March 14th with season 2 of the finals.

Until then, have a fantastic day, evening, and night.