If you aren’t in The Finals playtest yet, hold on tight. Developer Embark Studios says it’s busy expanding the capacity for its crossplay open beta test as it rockets up the Valve charts. As the hottest multiplayer FPS on Steam right now soars to ever greater heights following the MW3 beta and a Battlefield revival, developer Embark addresses the huge player count, its desire to improve server capacity, and clearing erroneous The Finals matchmaking suspensions that are being incurred by an “unintentional triggering of the leaver penalty.”
Have you reached The Finals? This high-speed multiplayer shooter is taking over steam right now, and rivaling the best FPS games on the market with its colorful character designs, stunning open environments that get blown apart during firefights, and fast-moving combat. With plenty of ways to spec out each of The Finals classes, from grappling hooks and dashes to cloaking devices and deployable shields, there’s plenty of ways to play.
Unfortunately, while it’s certainly making a huge splash on Steam – currently coming in at a peak of 233,071 concurrent players at the time of writing according to SteamDB, putting it as the sixth most-played game on Valve’s platform today – that means the game’s servers are struggling under the weight of all this demand; something the team says it’s hard at work to sort.
“So many people are playing that we’ve hit the ceiling of our current capacity,” Embark Studios reports via the game’s official Discord announcements channel. As such, the team is periodically implementing a player cap as it works to expand its capacity, so if you’re unable to get in at any given point, your best bet is to come back a bit later.
Another consequence of all this traffic is that some players are being knocked out of games and being erroneously hit with a leaver penalty, which leaves you unable to matchmake in The Finals. “As we firefight to accommodate the massive number of people playing The Finals right now, we’re well aware that many of you are suffering from matchmaking suspensions due to unintentional triggering of the leaver penalty,” Embark reports.
“We know this is really frustrating for you,” it continues, “and we have a temporary solution in the mix to alleviate some of this pain.” Firstly, all The Finals matchmaking suspensions have been reset manually by the developer. Secondly, the maximum suspension time is now capped at 30 minutes, with just a ten minute block for a first occurrence. Finally, the team has opened up the Quick Cash and Bank It modes so you can play them while otherwise suspended, though you won’t be able to join tournaments.
“The devs who fixed this for us send their love and respect to all of you,” Embark says, “This is a beta and the point is to fix stuff like this. At the same time, we know you’re taking time out of your days to help us get this game in shape for release. You beta players are our heroes – we could not do this without you.” If you’ve yet to join the fight, then, hopefully, you’ll have a chance to do so, because it’s definitely one of this year’s most promising shooters before The Finals open beta end date rolls around.
Make sure you grab the best The Finals weapons if you want to make it to the eponymous climax, and take a look to see what The Finals open beta rewards look like if you’re still trying to decide whether to jump in now or wait for your next chance to play.