I'm not one to get into a F2P online competitive shooter, but The Finals has hooked me. I used to play a lot of TF2 and L4D vs mode back in the day, but nothing since then has looked like anything I'm interested in playing. Never played any CoD, Battlefield, Overwatch, Destiny, PUBG, Fortnite, Apex Legends, never had any interest. I guess actually I did play Fall Guys for a hot second and it was fun but the novelty wore off quickly and it's not really the same genre. All that is to say I have very little to compare to The Finals.

I only picked it up because environmental destruction in games is interesting to me, and The Finals is free so there was no barrier to entry. I just wanted to check out the destruction mechanics. Now it's the first game I reach for in my free time. Like I said, I don't have the experience or the language to discuss the finer points of the game's balance or whatever and frankly I don't give a shit because I'm having fun. I was playing the new event they have going on and it was so satisfying to know that I could access the heavily guarded cashout station on the floor above me by destroying the ceiling to bring it down to my floor. I'm aware this isn't the first multiplayer shooter to make destruction part of the game, but the way entire buildings can be brought down is so cool and something I haven't seen since maybe the Red Faction games. The other day I got matched with a pair of sledgehammer heavy teammates who didn't even try to win and just ran around leveling the map. We ended up almost winning anyway because they caused so much chaos that the other teams couldn't easily get to the vaults and cashout stations. I love that even when you're not very good at the game (and I'm not) you can just try to create enough chaos that you give your teammates an opening.

Gotta say though, this is my first direct experience with games that have seasons and battle passes and it's wild how manipulative it is. You can see exactly how it's engineered to create FOMO and to keep you from being able to calculate the real monetary value of anything you're buying. Everyone who has been around this block is like "yeah that's how it works" and I follow the industry enough to be familiar with these practices, but it's still kind of shocking. I haven't spent a dime on the game yet, and I may never. We'll see how far I get on the battle pass as a casual player before season 1 ends. I'm not going to be beholden to a game that feels like a job.

Other things I like:

There doesn't appear to be any text chat and voice chat is off by default. You better believe I leave that shit turned off, and the players I get matched with probably hate me for it, but they'll just have to scream into the void. I try to be a good teammate though and use the gestures or indicators or whatever to communicate where I'm going or where enemies are.

Even with the manipulative monetization, there's no way to buy weapons or equipment with real money. Everything that affects gameplay is unlocked by playing the game. We'll see how long that lasts.

Technical performance is generally good.

Interesting aesthetic, lovely environments, cool music.

So anyone else playing it? What's the consensus?