The Finals Update 11.3.0 tunes melee weapons and brings back Strike a Pose

THE FINALS Update 11.3.0 brings back the Strike a Pose event, adds a new store set and Twitch Drops, adjusts several weapons and melee tools, and delivers a large batch of bug fixes. Embark also shared new details about Elytra, its in-house anti-cheat system, which remains in limited testing and is not enforcing protections for most players yet.

The update announcement is available through the official Steam post for Update 11.3.0.

Strike a Pose returns in Team Deathmatch

Strike a Pose is back in Team Deathmatch. Eliminating an opponent creates a small dance floor, giving contestants a chance to show off an emote while earning extra cash. The event is built for teams that can turn a takedown into a quick celebration before the next fight begins.

New store items, Twitch Drops, and an ARC Raiders reward

The Marshal Meteor Set arrives in the store with a GALAXY ESTATES patrol theme. Players can also earn the Showtime Blue Set by watching THE FINALS streams with Drops Enabled on Twitch. The rewards are distributed at these viewing milestones:

• 1 hour: Showtime Blue Spear
• 2 hours: Showtime Blue Dual Blades
• 4 hours: Showtime Blue Sword

The Twitch Drops are available until August 13, 2026, and rewards may take up to 24 hours to arrive.

Players who take on ARC Raiders and face the ARC can unlock the Azimuth Set in THE FINALS. Embark warns that those rewards may also take up to 24 hours to appear.

Two esports broadcasts arrive on Saturday

Cycle 3 will have two broadcasts on the same Saturday. The AMERICAS region will play its Top 8 for the cycle title and series points, while EMEA will hold its Top 16, with eight teams advancing.

In AMERICAS, Unphased won Cycle 2 and currently leads the region. ENVY returns, Luminon (prev Team ED) is back after finishing third last time, and the Kansas City Pioneers return after missing the Cycle 2 Top 8.

Five Fears leads EMEA with 175 points, 75 points ahead of the nearest challenger. The region’s previous cycle champion, Teiko, was eliminated in the Top 16 and scored no points.

In APAC, HIBOO moved back into first place by passing KZ. HIBOO leads 230-225, while DRG remains close behind at 200 points.

Cycle 4 will be the final cycle of the season. The team with the most points in each region will receive a direct invite to The Grand Major 2026. Galaxy Estates will join the map pool for that cycle.

Cycle 4 sign-ups are open across all three regions. APAC qualifiers begin August 8, AMERICAS qualifiers begin August 15, and EMEA qualifiers begin August 22. Registration is available through the APAC sign-up page, AMERICAS sign-up page, and EMEA sign-up page.

The AMERICAS Top 8 broadcast will begin at 18:00 UTC+2, 18:00 CET, or 12:00 p.m. EST on the official THE FINALS Twitch channel.

Patch Notes for Update 11.3.0

Update 11.3.0 focuses on melee weapon follow-up changes after the Season 11 rework, along with a C4 cooldown increase, adjustments to the Grappling Hook, and damage changes for the BFR, FAMAS, KS-23, and Spear. The rest of the update covers animation, audio, maps, bots, social features, UI, and anti-cheat testing.

Balance Changes

Gadgets

C4

• Increased cooldown from 30s to 45s

Dev Note: The C4 has been an outlier in terms of win rate and usage for Heavy for quite some time, and the archetype in general performs very well compared to Mediums and Lights. The ability to use C4 for 2-3 drops per Cashout fight is part of that power, so this change is aimed to reduce that slightly and bring the C4 more inline with some of the other Heavy Gadgets

Specializations

Grappling Hook

• Decreased cooldown from 7s to 6s

Dev Note: The Grappling Hook struggles to get the same attention from players as the Light’s other Specializations and it’s something we’d like to address, but it can be difficult to do so as a lot of the options that exist to buff the Grapple Hook also risk breaking map pacing (travel time between objectives for example) and could split teams. This change is a small nudge to see if we can help the Grapple Hook without needing to consider more fundamental reworks of it

Weapons

BFR

• Increased damage from 88 to 90

Dev Note: The BFR lags quite a bit behind the bulk of the other Heavy weapons at present, on various efficacy metrics. This change is to hopefully nudge it back into relevance slightly

Dagger

• Increased lunge distance on primary and secondary attacks from 4.5m to 5m
• Increased max lunge speed slightly to support the increased lunge distance
• Increased the secondary attack’s sweep time slightly, to help ensure that backstabs can more reliably hit targets at max lung distance

Dev Note: As expected, following the 11.0 melee re-work a bunch of the melee weapons needed additional tweaks and changes once we saw how they performed in the real world. In the case of the Dagger, one of the initial issues we saw were issues pertaining to getting onto targets and being able to hit them reliably, these changes aim to address that

Dual Blades

• Increased Precision zone angle from 8 to 9 degrees, making it slightly easier to land precise strikes
• Increased lunge distance on primary attacks from 4.5m to 5m
• Increased max lunge speed slightly to support the increased lunge distance
• Updated the Cross Slash attack to always lunge forwards when at full stamina, even when stationary. Previously the attack required some forward input to trigger the lunge
• Increased player movement speed when using the Deflect stance by 25%

Dev Note: Our previous changes to the Dual Blades lunge distances were a little too aggressive, so we’ve nudged the lunge distances back up again as well as giving the Blades a slightly more generous Precision Angle. The 11.0 reduction to movement speed while Deflecting, of 50%, was also too aggressive so we’ve dialed that back with these changes. There is also a quality of life change here how the Cross Slash attack’s lunge works to make it slightly more reliable

FAMAS

• Increased damage from 23 to 24

Dev Note: Similar to the BFR, the FAMAS lags a little behind a fairly tight cluster of Medium weapons in terms of effectiveness. This change is a nudge to try and close that gap

KS-23

• Reduced damage from 110 to 104
• Increased damage falloff multiplier from 0.64 to 0.675, to keep the weapon’s damage at max range consistent despite the damage reduction

Dev Note: Prior to 11.0, and despite its high utility, the KS-23 lagged behind a lot of other Heavy weapons and we wanted to address that. There were worries that the weapon was being ‘slept on’, but we felt it was time for a change to try and help the weapon regardless. Sometimes, making a change is the only way to find ‘the truth’ of why it performs as it does across all the different modes, skill tiers and so on. We can see from the last few weeks on live that the increase to 110 damage was too much, so we’re reducing it to 104 with this update to break some of the attack combo breakpoints and lower DPS. We do still think the pre-11.0 KS-23 needed a small buff, hence not returning to 100 damage per shot immediately, but we’ll continue to monitor how it plays at 104 damage and will adjust it again in later updates if we feel it’s needed

Riot Shield

• Increased Precision zone angle from 9 to 10 degrees, making it slightly easier to land precise strikes
• Increased lunge distance on primary attacks from 4.25m to 5m
• Increased primary attack damage from 82 to 83
• Updated the Shield Bash attack to always lunge forwards when at full stamina, even when stationary. Previously the attack required some forward input to trigger the lunge

Dev Note: We’ve seen feedback from some players who feel the Riot Shield has lost a lot of its power with the 11.0 update and the changes here to the Precision angle, lunge distance and damage are to address that to some extent. That said, we want to state that the changes made to Riot Shield in 11.0 were very deliberately aimed at giving it a new style of play and role, one that more reliably allows tanking of damage as well as acting as an ‘anchor’ for team fights and objective defense. On Medium, we want Dual Blades to be the more aggressive push-forwards brawling melee weapon, while the Riot Shield is more defensive and about stalling opposing players or anchoring fights, and we think the Riot Shield is definitely able to fill that role more now than it could prior to 11.0. We’ll continue to monitor how it performs as the season goes on and will adjust as we need to

Spear

• Increased precise hit damage of primary attacks from 74 to 82
• Increased base damage of primary attacks 55 to 57
• Increased the damage of the three swing secondary attack sequence from 75/100/125 to 75/125/150

Dev Note: The damage adjustments made to the Spear with 11.0 have proven to be more severe than we intended. The changes made here aim to address that

Bug Fixes

Animation

• Fixed an issue where aiming down sights could be slower than intended immediately after a Quick Melee kick
• Fixed animation blending when inspecting or reloading after deploying or on first spawn
• Fixed an issue where Quick Melee sometimes failed to play immediately after a kick
• Improved hand placement on the Riot Shield during swipe attacks to polish animation visuals

Audio

• Fixed an issue where the audio on Bot weapons could get stuck when firing in short bursts
• Updated the Data Reshaper sound to be more audible for the user
• Fixed missing audio for the Dual Blades Tractor Beam inspect animation

Cosmetic

• Fixed Signature Stickers not displaying on the Cashbox during insertion at the Cashout Station
• Fixed an issue where the Weapon in the Ready the Steel Emote could disappear at long range
• Fixed an issue where using “Equip to All” after purchasing or equipping a bundle could result in only some Contestants being equipped
• Fixed The Hawk Commander hair clipping through headwear
• Fixed an issue where the Key Change Emote’s music could briefly loop after the animation ended
• Fixed clipping on some face mask cosmetics so they no longer intersect with the face
• Fixed an issue where the Countdown Companion watch face could appear distorted or fail to display the time in certain lighting conditions
• Fixed misalignment of the Series 2000 Lenses eyes when used with the Alien Complexion face
• Fixed a visible seam between the neck and body when using The Observer’s Mirage Face
• Fixed an issue where the Lava Luster heating effect could transfer between Weapons and vanish after the first shot
• Resolved an issue that caused excessive glowing when previewing skins
• Fixed texture stretching and sticker clipping on the YinYang Bang skin for AKM and Healing Beam
• Corrected visual issues on Magnetic Mirage
• Adjusted Retro Robot visuals to better match Light and Heavy Archetypes
• Fixed an issue where the Sledgehammer could appear too close to its spikes in menus and Loadout preview, causing hand clipping
• Fixed an issue where the card and decals on the Throwing Knives skin could appear blank
• Fixed iron sight alignment on the R .357 for a Rain City Special
• Fixed an issue where the Weapon was missing when previewing Deploy or Inspect animations for the Fizzkick Brawler Set in the Store

Gadgets

Dome Shield

• Fixed an issue where friendly melee attacks could damage your Dome Shield

Game Modes

Power Shift

• Fixed an issue where some member of the team could spawn in a different location at the start of the round

Point Break

• Rounds that reach the time limit now conclude with a defender win rather than ending abruptly

Gameplay

• Bots now gain awareness when taking damage, improving their responsiveness to attackers
• Improved bot movement to navigate more smoothly around targets and maintain avoidance behavior even when idle
• Fixed a bug where throwing, catching and dropping a barrel would cause it to break instantly
• Bots now coordinate to avoid crowding the same objective or interactable, spreading out across targets instead of stacking together
• Bots no longer get stuck firing at Explosive Mines and will switch targets if they can’t destroy them
• Fixed an issue where the Quick Melee kick wouldn’t trigger when Melee Aim Assist was disabled
• Fixed an issue where normal quick melee also caused knockback
• Fix issue with goo walls sometimes not spawning properly
• Added a progress bar when remotely picking up objects using a controller

Maps

Seoul

• Fixed an issue where damaging a stairwell in the Apartments could cause the building to collapse excessively

FANGWAI CITY

• Fixed a collision on a backdrop building that could cause a Cashbox to get stuck
• Fixed floating bushes appearing after destroying planters
• Fixed an indestructible pipe

KYOTO

• Updated destruction by increasing the sturdiness of most buildings for more consistent gameplay

Las Vegas

• Fixed visual z-fighting/texture flickering near the western casino entrance

Nozomi/Citadel

• Fixed an issue where Contestants could get stuck under the water slide

Monaco

• Fixed a floating tree

Practice Range

• Added Season 10 and Season 11 trophies

Galaxy Estates

• Increased the mass of the oxygen pods in the Cosmo Physique building so their physics behave more appropriately for their size
• Fixed an issue where you would detach unexpectedly from a Zipline if you interacted with it through a gap in the fence between Orbital Homes and Cosmo Physique
• Slightly adjusted the height of some tables to prevent getting snagged on them
• Flipped the direction a set of doors open in the upper Nova Villa building to create more comfortable flow to-and-from the staircase in the glass corner
• Slightly reduced the depth of the pools around the center Eden Dome building and Nova Villas, so gadgets can be seen better in the water
• Fixed an issue where the meteors of the Meteor Shower game show event would hit the out-of-bounds ceiling
• Fix for carriables falling into the Centre Dome planter
• Fixed missing input prompt for slowing down in the anti-gravity columns when only having Crouch Toggle assigned

Social

Clubs

• Fixed an issue where Contestants couldn’t join a same-club member’s party when they had Open to Join enabled

General

• When set to Show as Offline, party size is no longer shown and the status no longer flickers when toggling Open to Join
• Kicked teammates now leave squad voice chat immediately
• Party invites and Join Their Party are now disabled when a match has been found, and invites to players already in a match or queue appear unavailable, preventing players from entering sessions solo or splitting from their party

Voice Chat

• Improved reliability and responsiveness of voice chat indicators across Friends, Team, and Squad screens
• Improved voice chat speaking indicators to update accurately across the HUD and social screens

UI

General

• Selecting the Music Player widget now opens the Music tab in Settings instead of General
• Fixed an issue where team wipe entries in the kill feed could display the wrong or duplicated team name
• Fixed an issue where opening the Equipment Wheel together with the Ping Wheel could gray out the UI and prevent using Weapons or Gadgets when using a controller
• Fixed an issue with the loading screen having an overlapping video playing in the background when returning to the main menu from the end of round
• Fixed an issue where the Player Card preview could appear in the Contestants menu when backing out and opening options at the same time
• Corrected the 93R’s ammo count in the weapon stats to show 27, matching the in-game value
• Corrected the Pike-556 headshot multiplier shown in the equipment overview to display 1.75x instead of 1.5x

VFX

• Fixed an issue where bullet traces could be fired from the wrong location

Anti-Cheat

Elytra, Embark’s in-house anti-cheat solution built by VAIIYA Corp., is in a limited testing phase. Embark is testing it with a small group of selected players and technology partners, including NVIDIA GeForce NOW and Microsoft, to check compatibility, stability, and performance across the hardware and platforms used by players.

For most players, Elytra may already be installed and running in the background, but it is not yet enforcing anti-cheat protections. Embark plans to update the service’s status reporting so players can see more clearly whether it is active for them. Once testing is complete, the studio will begin a gradual wider rollout. Embark is targeting Update 11.6 for the start of that expansion, although testing results may change the timing.

Update 11.3.0 gives melee weapons several careful adjustments while adding a few ways to spend time outside the standard match loop. Tell us which balance change you’re watching most closely in the comments, and follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, and Instagram.

The Finals

Developed by Embark Studios

The Finals is the world’s first Dynamism Shooter, a free-to-play, fast-paced, physics-driven, first-person shooter set on the stage of the biggest Gameshow of the future! Fight for Fans and fortune in fully-destructible, virtual Arenas that guarantee no two rounds will ever play the same!

• Genre: Shooter
• Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5
• Perspective: First person
• Modes: Multiplayer, Co-operative
• Release: 2023-12-07
• Publisher: Embark Studios
• Age Rating:
• IGDB Rating: 74.2/100

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