Welcome to update 8.9!
This week, we’re bringing some fresh content your way as well as a long list of bug-fixes, quality-of-life changes and performance improvements thanks to various engine-level optimizations. This update also includes a more robust Spectator mode, an essential feature for our community and the upcoming Grand Major 2025. Season 9 is right around the corner and the team has been hard at work, and we can’t wait to share more with you all soon.
Let’s take a look at everything Update 8.9 has to offer:
NEW LIMITED-TIME MODE | BLAST OFF SOUR CORE
Welcome to the BLAST OFF SOUR CORE! Enter a sour-apple flavored section of Bernal with your tuned-up CL-40, Jump Pad and Evasive Dash and take to the skies! With low gravity on and launch pads in every corner, you’ll do your best work in mid-air!
In this iconic 3 vs 3 Limited-Time Mode, movement is the key to victory. Keep your energy up and never let your guard down!
Out-blast the competition while enjoying a cold OSPUZE courtesy of our generous guest Sponsor! This event will run longer than usual, giving you plenty of time to complete contracts, earn up to 10 free rewards, and make sure your name shines on the top of the leaderboard!
POP. POUR. PERFORM.
STORE UPDATE | WILD POUR WEST SET
This week’s update is all power, no sugar, thanks to OSPUZE.
POP em’ faster than they can PERFORM with the Wild Pour West Set and if necessary, the Zestinator RPG is there to make your message extra clear. And so much more!
ESPORTS | GET READY FOR THE GRAND MAJOR 2025
In case you missed it, check out this hype trailer to get you ready for the Grand Major 2025! We’re getting closer to the big date now! We’ll see you in DreamHack, in person or on Twitch!
UPDATES | PRIVATE MATCH SPECTATOR
Private Match Spectator mode just got smoother and sharper. Hosts can now set separate squad colors for players and spectators, making it easier to follow the action. The team HUD now shows exactly who’s stealing a Cashout, so spectators never miss a clutch moment. We’ve also cleaned things up, the round counter is gone from single-round modes like Blast Off, and that pesky controller bug in the lobby navigation has been fixed.
STARTER BUNDLE | NEW CONTESTANT PACK + 1500MB
New Contestants who want to top up their Multibucks and their style now have the New Contestant Pack, a bundle that comes with OSPUZE gear and 1500 Multibucks. Pick up this one time deal today, Sofia is watching!
SOCIAL | VOICE MODERATION TEST
In an effort to improve the quality and safety of Voice Chat, we’re rolling out the testing of a voice moderation system to help keep conversations safe and enjoyable for everyone. To accommodate the new system, you’ll need to venture into settings and re-enable voice chat and voice moderation in order to participate in voice chat!
We’ll be monitoring this tool to see if it is effective in helping to combat abusive comms in game, hopefully making it safe and fun for more Contestants to enter the Arena with a mic! Your feedback will be an important part of this evaluation process.
EVENT | XP & FANS BOOST ENABLED
Need a hand finishing your Battle Pass or gathering some extra Fans for your Sponsor track? We’ve got you covered! Starting now, you’ll get 200% XP for Daily Contracts and up to 150% XP and Fans for gameplay all the way until the end of the season!
To celebrate the season, we’re calling this one MAJOR XP!
UPDATE | PLAYSTATION 4 SUPPORT
With each new Season of THE FINALS, our technology keeps pushing forward with recent features like Smooth Destruction and Instant Replays and major upgrades in performance and optimization. These improvements are shaping the future of the game, but they also demand more from the hardware that runs it.
As we continue to advance, it’s become increasingly difficult to maintain and optimize PlayStation 4 support, without limiting the features and gamemodes we want to create. Some of our latest systems simply aren’t compatible with the older generation’s technology, and ensuring an identical experience for our players across all platforms means making some tough trade-offs.
When Season 10 begins (18th of March, 2026), we’ll be retiring the PlayStation 4 version of THE FINALS and focusing our support on newer platforms. From that point on you’ll need to play on one of those platforms to keep enjoying the game (your progress and purchases will be stored in your Embark ID and will transfer to anywhere you choose to play). We’re finalizing the details now and we’ll share more information shortly.
Our focus now is on delivering the best possible experience across modern platforms where we can take full advantage of the tech that drives THE FINALS forward.
We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who’s been part of the PS4 community!
REWARDS | TWITCH DROPS
To celebrate the release of OSPUZE SOUR CORE in the meatspace we’ve got a brand new suite of refreshing Twitch Drops coming your way! Watch any of your favorite THE FINALS creators for a total of 4 hours to earn all three drops!
IMPROVEMENTS | QUALITY OF LIFE
Notable fixes in this update include the addition of Instant Replays to Xbox Series S! Never miss a play!
We’ve also fixed a very annoying bug that would prevent players from using Respawn Tokens after being revived while in the Loadout Change screen.
We’ve also been digging deep into performance this patch, identifying many of the in-game stutters that were caused by high memory pressure on the client side, which was caused by high memory pressure on the client side. This update brings major optimizations to help fix that including smarter shader caching (cutting precompiled shaders by 25% and PSO memory by 20%), leaner textures, graphics, and collision meshes, plus smoother replays and improved threading on lower-core CPUs. We’ve also tuned raytraced global illumination for better performance and cleaned up the Weapon and Gadget customization screen. In short, fewer hitches, faster loads, and a smoother ride all around.
Let’s dig into the details:
Content and Bug Fixes
Animation
Fixed a first-person visual issue where the Heavy body could briefly clip into view when sliding when looking down.
Fixed an issue where the first-person arm could sweep across the screen when repeatedly picking up and dropping Arena Carriables
Fixed a brief distortion in the Recurve Bow charging animation when starting a shot immediately after attaching to a Zipline
Fixed a first-person animation issue that could make hands look distorted when inspecting the Pyro Grenade while vaulting
Fixed an issue where the throwing animation could loop after firing the Recurve Bow and quickly swapping to throwable gadgets
Updated the sprint animations for Recurve Bow and Sledgehammer
Fixed a first-person animation issue where the left hand could jitter or clip when performing the Dagger Primary Attack, followed immediately by charging a Secondary Attack
Fixed an issue where C4 could visibly snap toward the hand when throwing while inspecting
Fixed missing animations in places such as self shadows, emoting, or using the Mesh Shield
Fixed an issue where animations could end up in a distorted state after teleporting through a Gateway
Fixed an issue where Gadget throwing animations could play when vaulting
Improved jump/landing transition animations while winding up Grenade throws
Improved animation blending when inspecting during manual reload on ARN-220 and M26 Matter to prevent hand and finger clipping
Fixed an issue where the Throwing Knives of choice did not appear when thrown
Fixed cases where melee attack animations could fail to play after using a Gadget for Spear, Sledgehammer, Dual Blades, or Dagger
Audio
Cashout
Added more commentator voice line variations when a team is wiped
Customization
Fixed emote holograms overriding the props on gestures
Fixed an issue where performing actions like reload or inspect during an emote could reset the equipped weapon animation to the default animation
The Web Designer Pet now moves smoother
Fixed the rifle hologram in the Top Billing Emote from ALFA ACTA so it now renders correctly on player cards and billboards and appears as a proper hologram instead of a solid mesh
Fixed a visual issue where the left hand could briefly flash on screen while crouching or inspecting during the Model 1887 cycle action when using the Dough Wrangler or Eclipse Shade skins
Added description to heads and headwears that modify the Contestant’s voice
Gameplay
Improved destruction to reduce jitter and prevent buildings from ‘jumping’ during collapses by adding velocity limits and adjusting post-break impulse behavior
Fixed an issue where destruction updates could desync the strain system, causing structures to break excessively
Fixed an issue where Vanishing Bomb invisibility could persist after firing the last bullet of some Weapons
Fixed an issue where changing between crouching and standing during an interaction (e.g. stealing) could cancel it when near the edge of the interaction range
Fixed an issue where you couldn’t respawn with a token after being revived while the loadout screen was open
Fixed an issue where the incorrect team would win in Powershift if Overtime was triggered while the platform was at the center of the map
Fixed and issue where the healing emitter would sometimes not starting healing after throws
Instant Replays
Added support for Instant Replays on Xbox Series S
Optimized the time it takes to transition in and out of Instant Replays
Map
SYS$HORIZON
Slightly adjusted some of the cubes around the voxel bridge connecting the two Library wings to remove some narrow unexpected sightlines between them and make climbing into the upper floors more intuitive
Fortune Stadium
Fixed Zipline rotation to ensure correct orientation
Kyoto
Fixed grass clipping through Jump Pads and improved their integration with better level dressing and guidance
Corrected in-world branding visuals
Las Vegas
Fixed some ladders and Ziplines around the ENGIMO building having the wrong color
Practice Range
Added the Heaven or Else leaderboard trophy
Fixed an issue where the Loadout selection overlay didn’t block background input
Performance
Dev Note: Various system memory optimizations are listed below. We have seen that high memory pressure can cause in-game stutters due to page faults. The goal of these optimizations are to reduce memory pressure and thus lower the risk of stutters during gameplay.
Optimized shader cache based on graphics quality. Reduces precompiled shaders by ~25% and PSO memory usage by ~20%.
Dev note: Note that changing Effects quality during gameplay may trigger shader compilation and cause brief stuttering.
Various optimizations to textures, graphics and collision meshes in order to lower memory usage
Fixed an issue that could cause overly blurry textures and lowpoly meshes when running close to video memory limits
Rebalanced raytraced global illumination graphics quality settings to improve performance
Improved performance on the Weapon/Gadget customization screen
Improved performance by optimizing audio systems
Improved threading efficiency on CPUs with low core count
Private Match
Host can now set squad colors separately for spectators and players
Removed the round counter from the Choose Contestant Pack screen when a mode has only one round (e.g. Blast Off)
Spectators can now see which player is currently stealing a Cashout in the team HUD
Fixed an issue where navigating the Private Match lobby could move focus out of visible options and cause lost menu control when confirming with a controller
Social
Improved reliability and performance of rich presence to more consistently show player status to friends
Friends set to invisible/hidden on their platform no longer trigger “went online” entries in the event log
Fixed an issue where the Social menu didn’t update immediately. Requests, Recent, and Blocked tabs now refresh without needing to leave and re-enter the Social menu
We’re testing a new voice moderation tool, so all voice chat settings are turned off by default in this Update. Go into your settings to re-enable your voice chat by enabling voice moderation
Improved Discord friend presence updates: when a friend returns from Invisible/Offline, their status now refreshes correctly instead of appearing as Online Elsewhere or In Main Menu
Fixed a VoIP issue where leaving a match while in a party would mute both members, requiring them to re-enable voice chat
Fixed a bug where the Xbox icon was shown on the Xbox platform for Discord-only friends
The ‘join game’ functionality is no longer shown on your Steam profile. Now random friends will not be able to enter your party uninvited
Spectator
Improved spectator experience by making the spectator launch into the follow player view after the initial tunnel sequence
Improved spectator death camera: when spectating in first-person and the player you’re watching is eliminated, the camera now briefly tracks the killer before transitioning to their perspective for a smoother handoff
Added a spectator option to hide player names and health bars beyond 80m, with a toggle to control visibility at long distances
Added an option to hide all HUD elements in Spectator mode, including world icons and scoreboards
Spectator HUD:Team background color now covers the full bottom bar
Changed the default keybind for toggling ranged health bars from L to Y while spectating on Mouse & Keyboard to avoid overlapping inputs
Improved spectator team view with a gradient backplate and corrected horizontal alignment in the right-side
Added more fine-grained camera control
Fixed an issue where UI glitch/burst damage effects could persist on screen after switching from Follow Player to Free Camera while spectating in Private Matches
Stability
Resolved a rare crash that could happen when ending a private lobby session
UI
Fixed an issue where game mode specific Loadouts could not be re-ordered
Fixed an issue where newly purchased weapon skins and other customization items were not equipped after purchase when selecting equip
Clarified the Social screen by adding separate labels for muting and unmuting voice and text chat
Fixed multiple bugs where Fans earned at End of Round could appear negative
Added a confirmation dialog when creating a new Contestant from Playstyles
Removed non-functional Create Contestant button when at the maximum number of Contestants
Added mouse-over sounds to voice customization and expression lists
Restored missing compass in certain event modes
Ranked Tournament
Improvements on the tournament introduction and outro screen now more accurately represent the selected archetype and, in some cases, will show more customization options
The Windows activity bar will now flash to notify players of a started game
Team Deathmatch
We have now added Match Recap to TDM!
Cashout
The scoreboard now considers ongoing Cashouts when sorting teams
Fixed an issue where the the distance to the objective was not visible on objective icons
Fixed an issue where the Cashbox distance marker could flicker when many world icons were on screen
Fixed an issue where, if an opposing team is in possession of the Cashbox when a squad respawns, the Cashbox icon could go invisible forever.
Clubs
Fixed an issue where the Clubs background theme showed incorrect colors or defaulted to red after viewing the end-of-round landing page
Weapons
Spear
Fixed an issue where the secondary attack could become unresponsive for a few seconds if it was interrupted by the Winch Claw
Security
Updates from the Anti-Cheat team!
Denuvo rollout is now complete and is working almost beyond expectations.
Anybrain rollout is also complete and has proved to be a valuable tool for us in detecting Xim and Cronus Zen like devices.
We are constantly improving our detections and investigating new capabilities to ensure we keep THE FINALS fair and secure for our players. It’s full steam ahead and we’re getting pretty warmed up!
Finally, we’d like to take the opportunity to advise against using third-party tools like Cheat Engine. Depending on how it is used, it could lead to warnings or a direct ban.
/Tom and Magnum