Embark Studios confirms that it won’t be extending The Finals open beta, despite the colossal success of the new multiplayer FPS from the former DICE and Battlefield developers. Players were able to try the game for free on Steam for a whole week, with massive concurrent player counts greeting the game despite the early access launch of Modern Warfare 3, and the studio’s controversy around using AI voices over real actors.
After a week, The Finals open beta is over, and the colossally successful free period for the new shooter isn’t being extended at all. With hundreds of thousands of players in the game at any given time, Embark says it has been “thrilling and humbling” to see the success of the FPS game.
“Today we roll out the shutdown of Open Beta – starting now,” Embark community lead Dusty Gustafsson says. “Consoles have already come offline, but PC players might have a bit more time to play.
“We’ll post a message here when The Finals Open Beta is fully offline on all platforms. Thank you so much for being here with us, testing with us, and blowing our minds with your enthusiasm.”
As of publication, it looks like you can still get a few matches in on Steam, with tens of thousands of players in the game, but it’ll be coming offline any minute now.
In a previous post to the the Finals Discord server, Gustafsson adds “This Open Beta has been thrilling and humbling for us – but we have no intention of extending the beta beyond Sunday, November 5, as planned.” So don’t expect any extension due to the game’s popularity.
The story of The Finals has already been one paved with success and controversy, as while the number of Steam players has been so astronomical that Embark had to widen server capacity, it also came to light that the studio has been using AI voices for The Finals.
Players and professionals across the industry have been deriding the use of AI in the game, not just for ethical concerns, but because it also just sounds pretty bad. Embark says that AI voices aren’t “an end goal” for The Finals.
While they won’t be much use to you until a full launch, you’ll want to brush up on the best The Finals classes and The Finals system requirements, especially if you want to squeeze in a last game or two.
