'Cheaters are Everywhere'; The Finals Devs Won't Introduce Regional Blockade [Update: Player Number]

Source: Embark Studios.

i

Update

Developers of The Finals just announced that their new online game has already been played by 10 million people. The title is available in free-to-play model on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Original news (December 21)

Embark's debut was very successful. Unfortunately, as with any popular network game (especially free-to-play), The Finals quickly saw the emergence of many cheaters spoiling the fun of others.

Of course, the developers are not idle. The game received update 1.4.0 with "big anti-cheat fixes" to reduce the number of cheaters. Two days earlier, the developers reported a bug that was supposed to make it impossible to block cheaters. Perhaps fixing this glitch is one of the mentioned fixes.

Nevertheless, experience teaches that such solutions will not discourage pseudo-players, and the cheatmakers are not idle either (although, judging by the entries of players, anti-cheat changes so far pass the test). For a long time now, some Internet users have also begun to demand the introduction of a regional blockade, that is, the separation of players from different continents (via threads on Reddit).

Regions and legions of cheaters

Fans point mainly to Asia, and China in particular, citing, among other reasons, the Internet cafes there that offer cheats, which, by the way, are supposed to be largely created in that country. Russia is also frequently mentioned, although much less frequently than China.

However, Embark Studios does not intend to impose a regional blockade in The Finals. Even before today's update, community manager Momo stated on the game's channel on Discord, that "cheaters are in all regions."

On top of that, some cheaters with Chinese nicknames in the game are by no means Chinese, they just want to make it harder to report their transgressions. Momo assured also that a sizable portion of cheat tools were by no means created in China, although he could not share statistics.

The developer did not address the alternative proposal mentioned by fans, also in response to his message: blocking players with too high a ping. In practice, this would exclude most players from distant countries from playing in the region (for example, from China on American or European servers).

The Finals - patch 1.4.0

Leaving aside the issue of cheating, patch 1.4.0 introduces quite a few other changes, including those long-awaited by players.

1. A Christmas event has launched in The Finals. featuring a snowy Monaco map, Christmas cosmetic items and a gift for players.
2. The game's balance has been modified, much attention has been paid to Heavy, which is the most durable character class in The Finals. Changes include a slight weakening of the shield ability and a reduction in maximum health. Minor "adjustments" were also made to weapons (including the flamethrower and the M11 submachine gun) and other gadgets (e.g. weakening mines and the RPG-7 launcher).
3. Besides, the interface has been improved (adding, among other things, a warning about imminent kick from the game for inactivity) and various bugs have been fixed.

The full list of changes in update 1.4.0 can be found on the game's official website.