The Finals reinvents its destruction: buildings that bend and matches that shift

Embark Studios is preparing the biggest shake-up The Finals has seen since launch. According to Vandal, an update arriving on October 20 will overhaul the free-to-play shooter's destruction system with deformable structures, dynamic debris and shockwaves. The core idea has a name: gradual destruction. Buildings will no longer simply be either standing or reduced to rubble. They will have a whole range of in-between states.

Why does it matter? Because in The Finals, destruction isn't decoration, it's the backbone of the game. Every wall that falls opens a line of fire, every floor that gets blown out changes a route and every collapse can decide who walks away with the cashbox. If Embark changes how buildings break, it also changes how the game is played. That hits competitive players head-on, along with everyone who makes a living showing off impossible plays on video.

What you need to know

• The update lands on October 20 and is, according to Embark, the biggest change to destruction since launch.
• The headline feature is gradual destruction, with many more states between intact and rubble.
• Floors will be able to sag without breaking off, walls will be able to tilt, and entire sections of a building will be able to bend or rotate without coming apart.
• Structures will remain playable while they collapse. A half-sunken floor can become a makeshift ramp between two levels.
• The package also includes dynamic debris and shockwaves.

What changes in practice

Until now, the logic was almost binary. A structure either held up or came crashing down, and what was left behind was debris with little further use. The new system adds shades of grey to that black and white. Embark insists this isn't a visual facelift. The goal is for the environment to transform while the fight is happening, and for those transformations to create new tactical options.

The change affects everyone who jumps into a match, but especially teams that drill rotations, objective defense setups and vertical attacks. A floor that used to vanish and drop you to the level below may now be left hanging at an angle. That opens new access points, covers angles that were previously exposed and forces you to read the map differently every round.

Our take

Here at Underworld Lordz, we see this as the right call. The Finals has always prided itself on destruction, but the all-or-nothing feel fell short of what a system like this promises. Turning a collapse into a playable process rather than a one-off event makes every building an ever-changing puzzle. For creative players, it's a gift. Makeshift ramps, tilted floors and rotating sections are going to produce plays we can't even imagine today, and content creators will have material for weeks.

That said, we also have doubts, and not small ones. More in-between states mean more variables, and more variables mean less predictability. In competitive play, predictability isn't boring: it's what lets teams prepare strategies, practice executions and reward the team that knows the map best. If two identical rounds end with structures deformed in different ways, the line between skill and luck starts to blur. On top of that comes the technical question mark. Dynamic debris and shockwaves sound spectacular, but we'll have to see how performance and network sync hold up when several teams are tearing everything down at once. None of that is confirmed or ruled out by the information available so far. That's why we're flagging it as the thing to watch on the 20th.

Our advice for competitive players is clear. Don't wait for the first tournament to adapt. The first few weeks after the patch will be pure lab time: jump into matches, trigger collapses on purpose and figure out which structures give you an edge when they bend instead of falling. The team that cracks the new behavior first will hold an advantage for quite a while.

What do you think?

Gradual destruction could turn The Finals into the most dynamic shooter around, or into chaos that's hard to master in competitive play. It all depends on how Embark delivers starting October 20. We're already eager to try it, with our doubts firmly noted. Do you think more destruction will make the game more tactical or more random? Drop by the team chat or our Discord and tell us where you stand.