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The Finals has gained a sizeable fan base since its release in December 2023. The game sees a concurrent player count of 20,000-30,000 on Steam, recently peaking at over 48,000 following the release of Season 2. Despite the relative success that The Finals has seen, it unfortunately pales in comparison to its competitors.
Call of Duty has peaked at 90,000 concurrent players today on Steam which is its most unpopular platform, Apex Legends peaked at 382,000 on Steam alone, and Fortnite peaked today at over 2.5 million concurrent players across all platforms. The Finals did see an all-time peak of 242,000 shortly after the game launched, so it is possible that we could see the game return to its former popularity. Like other popular games, The Finals sees a regular stream of updates and cosmetics added to the game, which are usually well-received. Despite this, The Finals has been unable to consistently reach the heights of other popular games in the genre.
Members of the community took to Reddit to discuss why The Finals is unable to get to the same levels of popularity as other games and also suggest some solutions to help grow its player base. U/Jett_Wave, the person who posted the Reddit thread, did suggest a Twitch Rivals event as a way to boost the popularity of the game. In 2024, the popular streaming platform is planning on hosting over 60 Twitch Rivals events, with none passed March 2024 being announced so far, so it is possible that an event for The Finals could happen. So far this year, Twitch has hosted its Twitch Rivals events for games including Tekken 8, Palworld, and Minecraft, and as I write this post an event is happening for iRacing hosted by GrandPooBear. Twitch Rivals events can help the popularity of a game because all of its participants are streaming the game at the same time which can give it a boost in viewers with the hope it’ll convert them into players. iRacing is a great example of this being true as for the past seven days it has averaged 2,303 concurrent viewers, but it currently has 29,600 viewers as of the time of this writing, making it the 19th most popular category on the platform.
One of the main opinions on the Reddit thread is that players are stuck in their ways and it is difficult to get them to try out another game. U/Positive_Working_157 detailed how they have friends that regularly play Apex Legends and, despite being burnt out on the game and regularly complaining about it, they won’t try a new game and continue to play the game. This was also echoed by u/Numerous_Ad_7006 who shared a similar story but about Fortnite. As someone who has played Fortnite since it was first released in 2017, this is something I can agree with. Even when the game was at its low points and I wasn’t enjoying it as much, I would still play to at least complete each Battle Pass.
Many gamers tend to stick to just one or two competitive games regardless of whether they are currently fun or not, so getting them to add The Finals to that list could be difficult. This is also partly why we’ve seen many competitive games come and go in the past few years, with notable examples being Hyperscape and Spellbreak which both shut down within a couple of years of being released. Epic Games’ own Rumbleverse was shut down within six months of launch, showing that not even the Fortnite developers could compete with its own game.
Another point made by u/Throwaway_Mania8975 is that The Finals is a “resource-intensive game.” This can make it difficult to get new players to check out a new game. Competitive games such as Fortnite, CS: GO, League of Legends, and Valorant, are often praised for being able to be played on almost every device, and in some cases even mobile devices. This makes the games incredibly accessible which can have a positive impact on the player count. The Finals’ recommended specifications call for either an Intel Core i5-9600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor CPU and either a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU. While these are mid-range components from a few generations ago, they are high for achieving 60fps compared to the likes of CS: GO, Valorant, and Fortnite which can all run without a dedicated GPU and meet the minimum requirements.
The final common point made by the community is that, when it comes to active players of The Finals, many are currently splitting their time between the game and Helldivers 2, which has become one of the standout releases of 2024. At the time of writing, Helldivers 2 peaked at over 289,000 concurrent players on Steam for the day and is the third most played game on Steam behind CS: GO and DOTA 2. Although not the same genre, Helldivers 2 is taking away a considerable amount of potential players from many shooters including The Finals.
It does seem as though the odds are stacked against The Finals, but the perception of the game from the community is that it is a breath of fresh air and one of the best shooters available, so I hope the game can continue to find its footing in an oversaturated market and increase its player base as it rolls out new content. If you have yet to dive into The Finals and this post has piqued your interest in the game, I highly recommend you check out our guides on the best Light builds, best Medium builds, and best Heavy builds to help you create the best load out for your playstyle.
