Season 9 of THE FINALS Dragon Rising Reworks the Arena
Embark Studios has announced the official launch of Season 9 of THE FINALS, "Dragon Rising." This update takes the gameshow further into infusing Chinese culture within the historic symbolism alongside the energy of cyberpunk. From a vertical megacity map to a chaotic new 16-player game mode and a complete overhaul of how players earn rewards, this season promises to be majorly impactful.
New Map Fangwai City
Fangwai City opens the arena to action. This map is sheer dramatism and has some verticality, recalling real places such as Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Players will twist around a dense chaotic fray of towering apartment blocks and high walkways and have serene riverfront gardens.
The developers built this map to enhance the saxophone "Dynamism," ensuring destruction physics as smooth as possible and at the same time various combat zones. Whether you are tussling through a maze of winding pathways or scaling skyscraper heights set against electric city backdrops, production leads you in rockstar fashion-this promises to be a real playground for every single playstyle
New Game Mode Point Break
Season 9 brings it up to eleven with Point Break, a new mode that features 16-player lobbies. It's moot at this juncture as to whether this is symptomatic of a more general depressurization across the whole app space.
- The Objective - Attackers have to control and destroy nine Grand Vaults before the counter of respawn tokens runs out. They win by emptying the tokens of the Attacker.
- The Pacing It really is a rolling battle and the stakes increase at every phase. Progressing Attacker gets all the more coin, makin' this high-speed, messy, and rhythmic fight unlike any other currently in the game
You Will Find Major Overhaul of Progression World Tour 2.0 and Reward Coins
Pretty much all the quality-of-life overhaul going into the progression system is World Tour 2.0. World Tour 2.0 will act as the central hub for all gameplay. For the purposes of your World Tour Badge, any efforts in Ranked, Power Shift, or Team Deathmatch will collect into World Tour 2.0.
It's also gone with the heavy shackling of the past reward structure. Embark has introduced Reward Coins. Instead of getting a certain skin awarded to you at the end of the season, you will earn Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Ruby, or Emerald coins depending on your rank, which you can use to purchase the exact weapon skins you really want
Gameplay Updates Sponsors and Double Jeopardy
Two huge rule changes are making waves in the competitive arena
- Sponsor Freedom You are not fixed to a sponsor all season anymore. You can sign with any brand, including new VOLPE and OSPUZE, and swap at any time. Fans earned contribute only to your currently signed sponsor.
- Double Jeopardy In Cashout mode, inserting a second Cashbox in an active station carries a high price. If a team initiates a "double" but fails to secure the cashout, they will lose % 50 of their total cash at the moment. This aims to allow shadowing teams some time to catch up, while forcing leaders to think twice before getting greedy.
Technical Upgrades and Smooth Destruction
Season 9 isn't merely about the content; it's about the performance. A major upgrade to Visual Destruction means walls will now break into realistic debris instead of disintegrating, giving a whole new tactical cover. This Smooth Destruction is fully deployed to the island of Monaco and really all of Fangwai City.
The foregoing besides the physics meshes for characters and environments are already redesigned for reduced memory usage and stuttering. Optims have been made in particular to support the 16-player chaos of Point Break, but they will also be enhancing performance in all other modes. The Kyoto map has also received specific GPU and vegetation optimization.
Key Balance Changes
Patch notes to that patch include a very long list of adjustments, meant to shake the meta up a bit. Here are the highlights
Controller Adjustments
Cooldowns have been introduced to the snap aim in order to lessen the effect of the snap-aiming way on long-range shooting. There is a 1.5s cooldown for sniper rifles and 1s for shotguns and revolvers. Effectiveness on snapping is now also distance dependent.
Weapon & Gadget Tuning
- Winch Claw (Heavy) Drastically nerfed. Now blocks under Dome and Mesh Shields, breaks if too far away from the impact point, decreases stun duration.
- 93R (Light) Damage and range that aren't up to par considering other options.
- Model 1887 (Medium) Tactical reload animation is much faster.
- Frag Grenades Slight buff to radius.
- Glitch Grenades Ammo count reduced from 2 to 1 with the Cooldown reduced significantly.
- RPG-7 Damage increased to 110, primarily to help clear Goo more effectively.
Security Clarifications
According to the Anti-Cheat team, the integration of Denuvo and Anybrain has produced currently novel data streams that will signify a wholesomely fresh increase in the detection of aimbots/input manipulation/hardware cheats.
Dragon Rising is available now with a new Battle Pass featuring 106 rewards for Premium players and a dedicated Ultimate tier for the most devout fans
