Hey there, Contestants!

This week, we are bringing a bunch of bug fixes, some performance improvements, changes to Point Break, balance changes and more! The recent DDoS attacks have also been largely mitigated by now, so the game should be back to normal service!

Check out the full notes below.

As part of our ongoing process of protecting the game from bad actors, we have introduced new rules for your Embark ID Display Name that will make it easier for our moderation tools to find offensive names.
 
If your Display Name did not fit in the new rule system, it was likely changed, with no cooldown so you can pick a new one easily. You can change your name in the settings menu by going to Settings > Social > Account, then choose Edit Embark ID.
 

If you were affected by this change, you may also have received an inbox message warning about possible permanent bans. That message was sent by mistake, and we are sorry for the confusion it caused. Please disregard it. Only accounts with display names that were clearly and severely inappropriate were meant to receive that warning.

Are you a full-on Embark stan?

Earn the Voltage Marauder Set in THE FINALS when you own ARC Raiders[arcraiders.com]! Simply connect your same Embark ID account across both games, then sit back, and watch the rewards roll in! 

Send your opponents down a slippery slope in style with the Peak-Form Striker and the Slope Slammer sets. And you know what, sometimes you just need to get right to the point: We added Finger guns. 

Watch out, Contestants, Orbital Breach has been enabled in the Arena. You will have to think twice about taking a break in the corner of a room as this event combines Hackout, letting you see nearby opponents through walls, and Orbital Lasers, targeting anyone standing still for too long. Use this to your advantage but remember, other teams will as well.

Let your feline side take over and leave no chance to the competition with the Glitch Prowler Set. Embrace the cuteness, lull your opponents in a false sense of security, and strike :3

Glitch in, start the hunt, and always land on your feet! 

As a part of our ongoing performance work, this patch has tons of small performance fixes for objects used on Bernal, Nozomi, Seoul. We’ve made dozens of micro changes that may not spell out noticeable improvements this time, but there are hundreds more planned and together they’ll build a better experience overall, change by change. 

Foomp - Foomp foomp foomp - BRRT BRRT
We have a brand new set of free Twitch drops ready for you to grab!
Simply watch anyone playing THE FINALS with Drops Enabled to be eligible to earn the Greenroom Glitch CL40 for 1 hour, Greenroom Glitch MGL32 for 2 hours and the Greenroom Glitch 93R for watching 4 hours!

*Drops available until Feb 12

Dome Shield

• Decreased health from 300 to 250

Dev Note: The Dome Shield has essentially been a ‘must have’ for Heavy players for quite some time and does lack a range of hard counters. This is especially bad in double Heavy team compositions, where they’re able to spam Dome Shields. This adjustment aims to reduce the value of the item in the short term. Longer term, we’d like to introduce more shield counters to better balance out the Dome Shield and Mesh Shield.  

Glitch Grenade

• Increased ammo from 1 to 2

• Increased cooldown from 12 to 25 seconds

Dev Note: Our changes to Glitch Grenade in 9.0 aimed to ask more of players when it came to Glitch Grenade placement, by removing the second, immediately available grenade. In hindsight, we see that this has been too punishing and removed some key utility, so we’ve decided to return to having two ammo. To add more cost to Glitch usage though, the cooldown has been raised to 25 seconds.

Point Break

• Added constraint zones around Grand Vaults, preventing them from being moved too far from their initial spawn point

Dev note: Moving objectives is something we feel is part of the ‘Dynamism’ pillar in THE FINALS. However, we want to make sure it remains fun and balanced. In Point Break especially, the location of the objective can quickly shift the balance of the mode. With this change we aim to reach a nice balance between dynamic objectives and a reliable Point Break match experience.

• Added the ability to spectate from the position of your Revive Statue when eliminated in Point Break mode 

• SYS$Horizon: Adjusted the location of an attacker spawn in phases two and three, to better balance the distances as the objectives progress

• Bernal: Adjusted the location of an attacker spawn in phase two, to better balance the distances as the objectives progress

• Bernal: Added ladders for comfortable flow from the adjusted spawn location to objectives

FCAR

• Increased damage from 22 to 23

• Decreased rate of fire from 540 RPM to 520 RPM

Dev Note: We’ve seen both ‘poke’ (long ranged, high damage) and ‘brawl’ (short ranged, high damage) weapons increasingly becoming the top weapons in the meta over the last season or so, and this was never really intentional. It’s left a lot of automatic weapons struggling performance wise by comparison, so we’re making various small nudges to a range of automatic weapons in 9.7 to help them out. This FCAR change, a small buff in overall DPS for the weapon, is one of those. 

M60

• Decreased dispersion when aiming down sights while standing and moving, making the weapon more accurate

• Decreased dispersion when firing from the hip, in some stances, where the dispersion level could reach unintended extreme values

Dev Note: These changes should make the M60 feel easier to use, hopefully bringing it closer to the Lewis Gun in usage. 

P90

• Increased damage falloff minimum range from 16m to 18m, giving the weapon a slightly longer effective range

• Increased damage falloff max range from 22m to 24m, giving the weapon a slightly longer effective range

Dev Note: Similar to the FCAR change above, this is to increase the P90’s viability.

Pike-556

• Increased damage from 48 to 49

Dev Note: Our last round of changes to the Pike-556, along with the CB-01’s overall performance, have really hurt the Pike’s popularity in a serious way. This small tweak should bump its viability.

XP-54

• Increased rate of fire from 860 RPM to 880 RPM

Dev Note: Another FCAR-like change, hopefully boosting the XP-54’s viability.

Gateway

• Fixed an issue where some actions (such as throwing a grenade, backstabs, reloads, etc) could visually reset when passing through a Gateway

• Added new commentator voice lines in Point Break when the Grand Vault is activated or deactivated

• Fixed an issue where all sound effects could stay muted after leaving a paused Private Match until the game was restarted

• Polished commentator audio when a stolen Cashout is taken back

• Fixed an issue where custom bow audio could be heard by other players

• Fixed an issue where fountain water sound effects continued playing after the fountain was destroyed

• Fixed mismatching vocalizations and breathing sounds for the "Deep” voice 

• Fixed an issue where the match intro commentary did not play at the start of Quick Cash on Fangwai City

• Set the "Revive Request" dialogue cutoff distance to 100 m so it only plays for nearby squad members

• Clarified Rookie "Arena Challenges" objectives to require completing a challenge (not just playing), and fixed "Deal 5,000 damage with Gadgets" so Guardian Turrets no longer progress it

• Fixed unreliable tracking for the "Deal damage with grenades" contract (including CL40 damage)

• Fixed the broken Sky Bridge Saboteur Achievement in Seoul

• Fixed issue where the 'Get X eliminations in a single match, X times' contract could be progressed multiple times during a single match

• Fixed a visual issue where the Baggy Battle Cargos could push the feet inward

• Fixed some items looking too different depending on the video quality settings 

• Fixed an issue where the Frostclava could clip with faces

• Improved clarity of loadout and contestant preview icons

• Fixed cases where textures could appear low-resolution, such as the first loadout icon and certain masks on low settings

• Fixed an issue where the Frostbite Flyer skin on the Frag Grenade could appear to glow unnaturally in shadowed areas

• Fixed an issue where equipped Multi-Device skins, charms, and stickers were not shown on the tablet preview from the loadout overview 

• Fixed issue where some longer capes and cloaks would not attach properly

• Fixed an issue where movement input could become temporarily unresponsive after network connection problems

• Fixed an issue where players revived with the Defibrillator during Point Break phase transitions could respawn in the wrong area

Fangwai City 

• Fixed several spots where players could stand on invisible collision

• Restored missing stairs to improve navigation

• Fixed an issue where a street could appear excessively bright on PS4

Kyoto

• Added a path from the Villa Compound into the courtyard behind the Entrance building

• Spread out barrel spawn points to prevent chain reactions 

Las Vegas

• Fixed a visual issue where a wall could display broken materials after destruction

Monaco

• Fixed boxes that could float in the air after the floors were destroyed

• Fixed window collision that could block players from climbing through

Practice Range 

• Updated the S8 trophy leaderboards and added the S9 Snowball Blitz trophy

• Fixed an exploit where players could escape the map by using Goo

Skyway Stadium

• Fixed an issue where the construction cranes bottom section could not be destroyed

• Adjusted texture sampling setting to improve Xbox GPU performance

• Improve performance and movement around stairs, elevators, and escalators

• Ongoing GPU optimization for Las Vegas

• The Stay as a Party feature has been updated with new animations and sounds

• Added an option to appear offline, hiding your online status from other players

Dev Note: Please note that if you are also friends on other platforms, such as Steam, you need to set yourself as “invisible” there as well.

• Restricted the allowed characters in Display names to create a more streamlined and easily moderated system 

• Scoreboard and social menus now display the correct platform icon

Dematerializer

• Fixed an issue where the Dematerializer could consume a charge without dematerializing anything

• Fixed an issue where the spectator camera zoom distance would drift when using a gamepad

• Fixed a crash in the store menu on PlayStation

• Added a subtle shimmer effect to game mode buttons when pressed

• Fixed a bug where buying Battle Pass levels could cause gamepad focus to be lost, preventing navigation until leaving the menu

• Fixed an issue where the Match Recap timeline could list squads in the wrong order 

• Improved the accuracy of cash totals when selecting a bar in the Match Recap Timeline

• Improved controller navigation reliability in the main menu by restoring focus automatically after certain actions

• Fixed a one-frame flash at the start of certain UI animations, including the Player Card

• Polished the Stay as a Party avatar animation for smoother visuals and improved pulse timing

• Fixed the Match Recap screen in TDM sometimes showing the wrong team's winning score

• Fixed an issue where the Scoreboard could get stuck if held open when the round ended in TDM

• Fixed Motion Blur Mode and Lens Distortion settings sometimes showing incorrect states after resetting video settings to default

• Fixed an issue where Player Cards could appear missing or as black tiles in the Match Recap and other screens

• Fixed an issue where the pickup prompt appeared even when glitched or nullified

• Match Recap in Power Shift now shows the final win bonus cash (including Overtime wins), so the last bar reflects the full amount awarded to the winning team

• Fixed the Grand Vault to show the correct value at round start and update during its animation. 

• Improved Attacker and Defender labels in Point Break 

• Fixed an issue where multiple tournament brackets could appear at once on the Ranked Tournament and World Tour screens

General

• Fixed an issue where the H+ Infuser’s healing visuals could look incorrect when healing a teammate 

Kyoto

• Fixed wrongly assigned destruction materials on wooden beams 

• Fixed an issue where boats moved in an unrealistic way

• Fixed issue where Concrete Canopy would cause some Weapons to render incorrectly 

• Added subtle movement to the water to improve visual clarity

We’re still making up for the skewed holiday schedule, so this week is a store update and an adjustment to matchmaking in Ranked Cashout.  

Next week, you can expect to see bug fixes, balance changes, and a few additional content drops. If you’ve been keeping an eye on the World Tour Screen, you know that Super Cashball Weekend is coming in 9.8, so locate your cleats and get ready to go for the goal, along with a few more sweet surprises on the horizon!

Check out the tactical trio we’ve added today: 

Tactical gear for tacti-cool people like you! Helmet, vest, camo.. It’s time to gear up for the Arena with this brand new Blizzard Ops Crew set. And if you’re feeling like matching your arsenal with your clothing, the Tundra Striker Pack is the perfect choice. They’ll never see you coming…

Matchmaking 

Ranked Cashout

• Made a slight adjustment to Ranked matchmaking, to lower the chances that Ruby/Diamond players might face Platinum/Gold players during very off-peak times of the day. This may increase the wait times for Ruby players during those time periods