The Finals Review: I’m Not a “Shooter Person,” But I Have 555 Hours

I started playing around the beta, and at some point, it turned into the multiplayer game I keep coming back to. I’ll queue up with my husband (we actually grinded to Platinum together in ranked), but I’ll also happily queue up completely alone. I buy the battle pass every single season. I like supporting the developers, they genuinely put out great stuff, and I don’t want to miss anything.

I brought receipts.

It appears that I’ve spent 555.8 hours in this arena. I feel I have officially earned the right to an opinion (and maybe an OSPUZE sponsorship).

Despite all that, I am still not a “shooter person.” I usually lean toward cozy games like Moonlight Peaks, and I don’t spend my weekends bouncing between competitive FPS games, memorizing recoil patterns or practicing my aim for hours. I spend the vast majority of my time in this game playing the Medium class, running the healing beam, and anxiously trying to keep my squad alive. But The Finals completely hooked me.

And I finally know why.

The Finals is a free-to-play, team-based FPS built around objective modes, destructible environments, and a game-show-style presentation. You play as Light, Medium, or Heavy, each with different weapons and abilities, and most matches revolve around fighting over cashouts while the arena slowly falls apart around you. It’s fast, chaotic, and more about adapting to what’s happening around you than just winning every gunfight.

You don’t need god-tier aim to be useful.

This is the main reason The Finals clicked for me when so many others didn't. Don't get me wrong, good aim helps. When I first started I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. My aim has improved massively, and I can actually hold my own now. But the game doesn’t demand that you be the best shot in the lobby to win a game.

Sometimes, the smartest move is refusing to take a fair fight. You can flank. Blow through a wall or floor. Drop the cashout into the basement. Wait like a vulture for two other teams to wear each other down, then walk in and mop up. A well-timed gadget or clutch heal can win a fight just as decisively as good aim. I love that. My favorite moments aren’t when I outshoot someone - they’re when I outsmart them. There is a deep, petty satisfaction in watching a team set up an impenetrable defense, looking at it, and deciding, “Nope, I’m just making my own door.”

Every match is a localized natural disaster.

Destruction is chaotic, but it also completely changes how a game plays out.

A pristine office building at the start of a match can be reduced to a rubble staircase and scaffolding by the time you’re defending or making a steal. The floor vanishes. A heavy takes out a wall. A third team crashes through the ceiling. Everyone is frantically improvising while the architecture literally crumbles around them.

The game will also throw a random mid-match event at you. Just when things feel chaotic enough, the arena will drop into low gravity, summon an alien invasion, or rain meteors down on the bulding you were trying to defend.

The threat of repetition is virtually nonexistent. Even on a map I’ve played two hundred times, the chaos is unscripted. Sometimes the destruction ruins your plan. Sometimes the destruction becomes the plan. And sometimes, everything goes so wrong that all you can do is laugh.

The highs are incredibly high.

This game is incredible at generating moments that make your cortisol spike. Successfully completing a steal at the literal last second. A revive in the middle of a warzone you should not have been reviving in. Pulling out a win when your entire squad was one misclick away from a team wipe.

For about fifteen seconds, your team is in sync. You are e-sports legends. And then somebody accidentally steps on a gas mine and blows the steal. (Not speaking from experience.)

Those clutch adrenaline spikes are why I never get bored. One bad match doesn’t mean much when the next one could turn into the best game of the night.

I actually play it by myself.

This is the highest compliment I can give a multiplayer game: I solo queue. Willingly and on purpose.

Most games I only touch if a friend is already in Discord. But I’ll boot up The Finals just because I want to play. I feel useful. Obviously, it’s much better with my husband so we can actually communicate, but I don't need anyone else there to hit "Play." That’s how you accidentally accumulate 555 hours.

I’ve tried solo queuing in other shooters, but this is the only one where I’ve actually felt confident in my abilities without getting dragged into the toxic environment that comes with a lot of online games.

The drip is immaculate.

I am deeply susceptible to digital fashion, and the developers absolutely know it.

The outfits have way more personality than the usual tactical shooter gear. You can go from looking genuinely intimidating to looking like a walking punchline. You can look like you wandered in from a 1950s sci-fi B-movie. The cosmetics have refreshing personality, which is why I happily buy the battle pass every season. Do I need it all? No. But I will be upset if I don't earn something. I also like that you have to work for it.

The devs actually give a damn.

You can tell the studio still cares about this game. Every season feels a little different, the cosmetics stay creative, and they keep adding things that make me curious enough to come back and try them. Between the themes, map changes, new weapons, gadgets, events, and balance changes, there’s almost always something going on.

I don’t love every patch - nobody with 500+ hours in a live-service game does, but I’d much rather play a game where the developers are clearly still experimenting than one that feels like it’s just being kept alive.

Okay, but two things make me want to scream.

I adore this game, but I am a hater at heart.

First: the AFK teammate. I do not care if you miss every shot. I do not care if you accidentally RPG our own shield. But loading into a team-based objective game just to stand perfectly still in a corner while staring into the void? Absolute agony. Especially when you die and have to waste a respawn coin because your third teammate is currently contemplating the meaning of life three buildings away.

Second: the matchmaking roulette. I don’t expect to win them all. Getting outplayed is fine. But there are definitely matches where the game drops you into a sweat lobby and you spend the next ten minutes getting absolutely demolished by people who clearly do this for a living. I just want to feel like I had a fighting chance.

So why do I stay?

Because after half a thousand hours, I still get surprised.

I still see things happen that I’ve never seen before. I still find sneakier ways to steal a cashout. I still get hyped for patch notes. I still gladly queue up alone.

There are games I play for a weekend, and games I obsess over for a month. The Finals has earned a spot in my permanent rotation.

I’m not a shooter person. Apparently, I’m just a The Finals person.

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