Season 9 of THE FINALS, Dragon Rising, went live with a new arena, a new eight-player mode, and a sweeping progression overhaul. Dragon Rising drew from Chinese cultural motifs and cityscapes and shipped a new map called Fangwai City, a vertical megacity built for destruction and fast movement. Fangwai City joined the rotation for Cashout, Ranked Cashout, Quick Cash, Head 2 Head, and Team Deathmatch.

The important change for the season was Point Break, an eight-player take on Cashout that pits teams of Attackers and Defenders against nine Grand Vaults. Attackers must destroy the vaults before they run out of respawn tokens while Defenders try to drain attacker coins. The mode was designed for sustained, high-stakes pushes and supports private matches. Progression was reworked into World Tour 2.0, which consolidated rewards tracking into a single progression that counts activity across all game modes. The old World Tour Tournament mode was renamed Cashout, and players earn an Emerald Coin for reaching the top World Tour Badge level plus Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Ruby Reward Coins from Ranked Cashout. Reward Coins let players pick weapon skins rather than receiving predetermined seasonal items.

Cashout gained a major gameplay rule called Double Jeopardy. When a team inserts a second Cashbox into an active Cashout Station, the bank is at high risk. If that team does not control the station when the cashout completes, they will lose 50% of their cash total. The change was described as a way to keep doubling as a comeback option while making it a meaningful gamble for leaders. Season 9 also introduced Sponsor flexibility, allowing players to sign with any Sponsor at will and switch sponsors without long-term lock-in. New loyalty tracks for official Season 9 Sponsors VOLPE and OSPUZE were added, and Twitch Drops launched the Calvin the Cube cosmetic drops for viewers.

Performance and quality of life saw a broad push. The team reworked physics meshes and texture memory usage to reduce stutter, tuned Instant Replays with a new download system, and made optimizations specifically for Kyoto to improve GPU performance. Visual destruction received a big upgrade, so fallen structures leave attached debris that can be used for traversal. Monaco now supports Smooth Destruction across the entire map. Controller aim snapping was rebalanced with new weapons added to snapping and adjusted cooldowns by weapon class. Several gadgets, weapons, and specializations received tuning: the Breach Charge cooldown dropped, Dome Shields now block the Winch Claw, the Thermal Bore fuse and cooldown were reduced, and the Dual Blades and certain LMGs saw damage or precision tweaks. Many weapon, gadget, and gameplay fixes were listed in the full notes.

The update contained a long list of bug fixes and polish across animation, audio, contracts, cosmetics, maps, and UI. Examples include fixes for reload and inspect animations, improved announcer audio, corrected contract progression, cosmetic clipping fixes, and better spectator and social behavior. Quick Cash had rare spawn fixes for cashout stations and Point Break was added to Private Matches. Security received a marked upgrade with the rollout of Denuvo and Anybrain, which the developers said increased detection of input manipulation, aimbots, anti-recoil, and hardware-assisted cheats. The team said detections are conservative and that investigations were run to reduce false positives while the anti-cheat continues to evolve.

The full patch notes can be found below:

Balance Changes

Dev Note: To hopefully make the dev notes a little less verbose, we’ve removed dev notes from some of the changes below that are fairly self-explanatory. Most of these changes are small nudges and amendments to an item with the goal of increasing their desirability/viability slightly.  

Controller

• Added aim snapping to the following weapons:

  • .50 Akimbos

  • BFR Titan

  • CB-01 Repeater

  • Cerberus 12GA

  • KS-23

  • M26 Matter

  • Model 1887

  • R .357

  • Recurve Bow

  • SA1216

  • SR-84

• Increased the cooldown on aim snapping from 0.5s to 0.7s 

• Added a 1.5s cooldown for aim snapping with sniper rifles

• Added a 1s cooldown for aim snapping with shotguns, revolvers and grenade launchers

• Aim snapping now scales with distance, meaning it no longer gives a stronger effect at longer ranges

Dev Note: This change to aim snapping at distance allows us to reduce the effectiveness of long ranged weapons at longer ranges more than we could previously. Previously, snapping made longer ranged headshots a little too easy but was constrained by how snapping worked at closer ranges, with this change they should require more aim from the player. 

Gadgets 

Breach Charge

• Decreased cooldown from 30s to 20s

Dome Shield

• Added the ability for Dome Shields to block the Winch Claw

Dev Note: The Winch Claw has been dominating the Heavy meta and this adjustment is an effort to offer some more counter-play.

Frag Grenade

• Increased outer radius from 5m to 5.5m

• Increased max damage radius from 2.5m to 2.75m

Dev Note: The Frag Grenade is a little under-powered, although it still sees very high usage and is reasonably effective. As a result, we’re only adjusting its power slightly to see how it impacts things.

Gas Grenade

• Decreased cooldown from 30s to 24s

Gateway

• Decreased max range from 70m to 50m

Dev Note: The Gateway has become a little too effective at allowing very long, very fast rotations by teams, cannibalizing the value of items like Zipline too much. 

Glitch Grenade

• Decreased ammo count from 2 to 1

• Decreased cooldown 20s to 12s

Dev Note: This change is made to require players to be more accurate with their Glitch Grenade usage to get pay-off from it, rather than having an immediately available second grenade to cover up for misses. The shorter cooldown is there to ensure a miss isn’t overly punishing.

Goo

• Increased explosive damage multiplier versus goo from 2.0 to 2.25

Dev Notes: Goo has become highly effective in the current meta and we want to offer some more effective counters to it. This change is to help explosive items remove goo slightly faster.

Pyro Grenade

• Decreased cooldown from 30s to 24s
  

Pyro Mine

• Decreased explosive damage from 80 to 55

Dev Note: the Pyro Mine cannibalizes the role of the Explosive Mine a little too much, this adjustment should help to address that.

Thermal Bore

• Decreased fuse time from 2.5s to 1.75s

• Decreased cooldown from 45s to 35s

• Decreased the amount of lingering smoke, making it easier to see after it detonates
  

RPG-7

• Increased damage from 100 to 110

Dev Note: This adjustment is mostly targeted at improving the RPG’s effectiveness versus Goo, without having a significant impact on player versus player combat.

Game Modes

Cashout Mode (including Ranked Tournaments)

• Introduced Double Jeopardy mechanic. If a team ‘doubles’ a Cashout, i.e. puts a second Cashbox into an already active Cashout Station, if that team does not own the Cashout Station at the point the cashout concludes, they will lose 50% of their cash total.

Dev Note: This is a brand new mechanic aimed at reducing the rate of ‘doubling’ Cashboxes in Cashout and Ranked Tournaments, something many players consider to be aimed specifically at preventing the 2nd placed team from progressing to the next round of the tournament.

We want doubling to be a part of the many viable strategies that teams can use to help win the game or stage an epic comeback. Double Jeopardy allows us to keep the epic comebacks and clutch plays that ‘doubling’ offers, especially for 3rd and 4th placed teams who are playing from behind. If a 1st place team wants to ‘double’ the Cashboxes now, they’re putting their own lead on the line to the tune of 50% of their cash.

This is a considerable change to the game, so as always we’ll monitor how it plays ‘in the wild’ and will keep an eye on player feedback following its launch.

Ranked Tournaments

• Cashboxes will no longer despawn when overtime begins, as they would previously

Dev Notes: With the addition of Double Jeopardy, this mechanic is less warranted now. This change also brings Ranked Tournaments back in line with regular Cashout.

World Tour

• Renamed World Tour to Cashout

Dev Notes: With World Tour being moved to be a wrapper for the wider game, covering all modes, we’ve renamed the old World Tour Tournaments to Cashout.

Progression Systems

Ranked Tournaments

• Increased the overall accuracy of Ranked Score (RS) calculations, which will result in slightly smaller RS changes from match to match

• Re-balanced RS calculations to make first round losses in tournaments less extreme, especially for highly seeded teams

Dev Notes: When digging into data from recent seasons we were able to confirm the general feedback that being a highly seeded team in a match, but facing a first round elimination, could result in RS losses that might take a full tournament win to earn back. This was especially common around the Silver and Gold ranking tiers. In the most extreme cases, albeit somewhat uncommon, we saw that a first round loss could require six rounds won to recoup the RS. This change should alleviate those extreme cases. 

Specializations

Mesh Shield

• Increased max health from 750 to 850

• Added the ability for Dome Shields to block the Winch Claw

• Dev Note: This Winch Claw has been dominating the Heavy meta for a while now, so this adjustment should offer some more counter-play to it. It also should increase the viability of the Mesh Shield.
  

Winch Claw

• Decreased the max stun duration from 0.65s to 0.5s

• Decreased the minimum stun duration from 0.35s to 0.2s

• Added functionality where, if the clawed victim is far away from the initial point of collision, the Winch Claw will break. This addresses an issue where the Winch Claw could sometimes appear to grab players around walls

• Winch Claw now retracts as soon as it hits an object it can’t latch onto, reducing time spent lingering in the air

Dev Note: These changes aim to address some of the more common frustrations players experience when facing the Winch Claw, which has become quite dominant in the meta across multiple modes. The hope is to bring the Heavy’s Specializations more in line with each other in terms of viability/impact.

Weapons 

93R

• Decreased damage from 26 to 24

• Decreased the damage fall-off start range from 32m to 30m

• Decreased the damage fall-off end range from 40m to 37.5m

• Increased the damage fall-off multiplier at max range from 40% to 50%, meaning it does slightly more damage at long-range

Dev Note: For much of the last season the 93R has outperformed the second and third placed weapons on damage and eliminations per round by almost 10%, that’s above the acceptable range. These changes are aimed at bringing it in line with the other top weapons.

BFR Titan

• Decreased environmental damage from 130 to 95

• Decreased the rate of fire from 85 RPM to 82 RPM

Dev Note: The BFR is the very definition of a ‘love it or hate it’ weapon, where its top end performance is very good but where its parameters put it very close to feeling clunky and ineffective to use. As a result, it makes this weapon quite hard to balance. We want to give it a fair power level without making it feel awkward to use. We hope the RPM change here brings it to the right place, but we’ll continue to monitor how it performs.

Dual Blades

• Increased the damage of the the third attack in the attack sequence from 65 to 100

Dev Note: We feel like the Dual Blades’ full attack combo hasn’t been offering the pay-off it deserves. This adjustment should address that.

KS-23

• Decreased bullet dispersion across all stances when aiming down sights (ADS) by approximately 30%, making the weapon more precise

Dev Note: After the positive feedback that the feel of the BFR has received, we’ve decided to push the KS-23’s dispersion in a similar direction, without making the two items too similar.

Lewis Gun

• Increased damage from 22 to 23

Dev Note: Both Heavy LMGs have been somewhat ineffective compared to other options available to the Heavy. This slight nudge aims to push the Lewis Gun towards greater viability.

M134 Minigun

• Decreased bullet dispersion slightly when crouching or standing still and aiming down sights (ADS), making the weapon more precise

Dev Note: Seasoned players are already able to get solid performances out of the Minigun, but we’ve noticed some casual players can sometimes struggle with it. This change is an attempt to bridge that gap, making the Minigun slightly easier to use, hopefully without buffing its top end power too much.

M60

• Decreased the amount of vertical recoil during the first 8 bullets of the firing sequence, making the M60 slightly easier to control

• Slightly increased the amount of vertical recoil after the 30th bullet in the firing sequence, making the M60 slightly harder to control during sustained firing
  

Model 1887

• Decreased tactical reload intro animation duration from 2.2s to 1.5s, meaning the weapon reloads faster

Dev Note: We know that some of the Model’s reload animations have been a cause of frustration for players. We’re not done with the Model yet, it’s one of a number of guns that would benefit from a ‘reload checkpoint’ system, and it’s still our intent to introduce a system like that sometime in the next year.

V9S

• Increased the damage fall-off start range from 10m to 15m

• Increased the damage fall-off end range from 15m to 25m

• Increased the damage fall-off multiplier at max range from 62% to 65%, meaning it does slightly more damage at long-range
  

Content and Bug Fixes

Animation

• Fixed an issue where the P90 tactical reload could twist the arm unnaturally

• Fixed an issue where the left hand could briefly appear during the Model 1887 Cycle Action when using the Dough Wrangler or Eclipse Shade skins while crouching or inspecting

• Fixed an issue in the Practice Range where switching weapons via Change Loadout while reloading could cause the new weapon to continue playing the reload animation incorrectly 

• Fixed an issue causing Light Contestants’ hands to twist unnaturally during interactions from a certain angle, such as stealing a Cashout 

• Fixed an issue where Contestants could appear to run in place when lightly pushing the left stick forward on a controller

• Improved the animation transition from deploying to zooming in, most noticeable with the RPG-7

• Fixed an issue where an Akimbo pistol could appear to float during hazard reaction animations (e.g., gas or fire) or during Quick Melee 

• Weapons are more responsive animationwise when firing from the hip while sprinting

Audio

• Fixed an issue where the XP-54 empty reload sound could continue playing after the animation was interrupted (e.g. picking something up or interacting)

• Tuned the audio mix for the Pocket Pop & Play charm’s mini-game

• Fixed an issue where the announcer’s elimination-streak line could become very quiet mid-sentence

• Fixed a missing reload sound on the ARN220 so it’s audible to other players

• Reduced unintended rattling/foley audio that could loop during idle or light movement, most noticeable when using the M60

• Voice lines requesting revives from players who are far away are now suppressed to reduce audio spam

• Added a confirmation beep when recalling deployable gadgets

• Fixed an issue where the Riot Shield’s deploy animation sometimes played no sound, including during the Choose Contestant Pack

Contracts

• Fixed an issue where “Get X eliminations in a single match, X times” Contracts could progress multiple times within a single round

• Fixed issues in several Contracts where cash from the last Cashout in Quick Cash wasn’t counted, the last kill in TDM wasn’t counted, or cash from the last won round in TDM was counted twice

• Fixed an issue where “Restore 1000 health to teammates” contract could be progressed through self-healing

• Healing Emitter healing now correctly counts toward the “Restore 1000 health to teammates” contract

Cosmetics

• Emote props no longer fall through the floor during use

• Store offer previews for custom animations now match the animations rarity

• Added the ability to favorite skins for use with skin randomization

• Fixed blurriness affecting large headwear on Player Cards

• Fixed the hair from Liquid Assets to stop clipping with certain headwear

• Fixed clipping issues between the Captain Ironmark Head and ballistic masks for better character appearance

• Fixed exposure compensation for TGM25 Red & Gold weapon skins so the red stripe no longer appears too dim in bright light or too bright in dark lighting

• Moved the PULSAR Ski Mask from Facewear to Headwear
  The cap is now removed when wearing the Skimask with hoods to avoid clipping

• Fixed visual distortion and spawn delay when using the Pressed Advantage gesture while moving

• Fixed clipping on the Bats & Jacks upper body item when using the muscular Heavy body type

• Adjusted the R.357 inspect animation to reduce finger clipping when using the QuickSpark sight with the Plundersteel skin

• Fixed an issue where the Minigun’s Loadout Loaded Deploy animation sometimes played only partially

• Fixed an issue where some CL40 skins applied the wrong texture to projectile shells

• Fixed cases where headwear could clip with ears or nose on certain face shapes

• Added an Ogre voice effect when equipping the Ogre Head item

• Fixed severe clipping on the La Furia Cempasúchil headwear at lower settings

• The Protocol Core and Shadowframe Suit now supports Pets and is compatible with upper-back items

• Fixed an issue where Player Cards could appear low-resolution in menus

• Fixed an issue where Contestant Pack icons on player cards could appear blurry

• Adjusted sticker placement on the FCAR Disciple of Sound skin so stickers are no longer obscured by the hand during the Inspect animation

• The CL-40 skins Corecharge Melt, Arcadia Obliterator, and Toybox Trigger now eject the correct casings (spent cans, retro cylinder, and toy shells) instead of default shells

• All eyes will now work with the Arch Rival face

• Fixed distortion on the Stacktrace Reaper and Verisect Duality skins for the .50 Akimbo, improving visual clarity

• Adjusted the diver outfit in first-person view by reducing shoulder size and removing the net to prevent visual obstruction

Gadgets

Thermal Bore

• Fixed an issue where the Thermal Bore could pass through surfaces (including Goo) without activating

Game Modes

Private Matches 

• Added support for the Point Break Game Mode 

Quick Cash

• Fixed a rare issue where cashout stations stopped spawning

• Fixed a rare issue where cashboxes could not be inserter

Powershift

• Due to a snag in the travel path of the platform, Kyoto has temporarily been removed from rotation and will return in 9.4

Gameplay

• Cannons are now physics-enabled, reacting to movement, forces, and collisions for more dynamic interactions

• Fixed an issue where aim assist could continue targeting an eliminated player 

• Fixed an issue with aim assist that would cause it to move incorrectly when switching between targets

• Fixed an issue that would cause the reload to start to early after firing the last bullet on some weapons

• Thrown Carriables now activate more reliably when thrown

• Fixed an issue where firing immediately after equipping some weapons could result in missing firing and recoil animations

• Fixed friendly Practice Range bots not shooting at enemy bots and enemy bots not shooting at the player

• Fixed an issue where switching from the Lockbolt to the M60 or Lewis Gun caused ADS times to be longer than intended

• Fixed an issue where attempting to retrieve a Guardian Turret or Healing Emitter immediately after equipping it could ignore the input

• Fixed an issue with Ziplines that would sometimes make contestants jitter when using them

• Fixed an issue with Quick Melee not respecting cooldown when swapping items

Dev Note: This change addresses the Quick Melee ‘rapid fire’ exploit that we’ve seen in matches recently

Maps

Nozomi/Citadel

• Fixed floating ivy 

• Fixed z-fighting (where two textures are overlapping, causing them to flicker) between overlapping ground materials, including areas under a staircase, to improve visual clarity

• Fixed an issue where objects in the CNS streets area could disappear when viewed from above

Monaco

• Enabled Smooth Destruction on all buildings, allowing them to collapse into nearby structures to cause more realistic looking destruction 

• Refined destruction in the Cathedral area

• Fixed a hole in the ground near the Cathedral that could appear after a wall was destroyed

Seoul

• Fixed collision on a backdrop to prevent unexpected interactions

• Fixed a misaligned occluder on the mall facade that caused visual glitches and allowed players to clip into the wall and fire from unintended angles

• Adjusted geometry in the Under Construction variant to prevent players from clipping into a vent and firing from an unintended position

• Fixed an occlusion issue on an apartment building that could allow clipping and unintended line-of-sight through walls

Bernal

• The Hotel’s pool jump pad is now present in all variants and game modes

• Fixed floating tree branches after destroying a stump in the Residential area

P.E.A.C.E. Center 

• Fixed floating sandbags after destruction 

Kyoto

• Adjusted cover and traversal options around Hillside, Pavilion, Training Quarters, Guest House, Entrance and Villa Compound to account for vegetation optimizations and readability improvements

• Simplified basement layout of the Entrance building

• Adjusted the map border in the Villa Compound (TDM) so it no longer cuts through a jump pad

• Brightened materials for better lighting and optimized the bamboo backdrop for improved visual clarity

• Cleaned up a small fence near the new central jump pads

• Fixed incorrect wallpaper material in the entrance house

• Fixed missing collision on the lake beneath the bridge in the Villa Compound area

Fangwai City

• Added Fangwai City to the map rotation for Cashout, Ranked Cashout, Quick Cash, Head 2 Head and Team Deathmatch 

Fortune Stadium

• Fixed incorrect materials on some building modules

SysHorizon

• Fixed a spot where players could become stuck on a campus rooftop

Performance

General

• Instant Replays now use an updated download system that improves performance during playback

• Improved performance by reducing redundant shader and state work during matches

Kyoto

• Optimized physics to improve performance

• Reworked vegetation around the Villa Compound storehouse to improve performance and readability

• Reworked bamboo forest around the Entrance, Guest House and Hillside to improve performance
  

Rendering 

• Reduced flickering artifacts of ambient lighting, especially in movement on vegetation

• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused textures and meshes to flicker between higher and lower quality states

• Adjusted streaming budgets on Xbox Series S, resulting in fewer blurry textures and low-poly models visible
  

Social

• Added expanded privacy settings in Social options, including muting individual notification types or muting all notifications

• Removed redundant “Join Their Party” option in the Social menu when already in a party

• Fixed an issue where using a controller to report a player from the Blocked tab in the Social menu could prevent the Send Report button from being selected after entering text

• Fixed an issue where accepting a Discord party invite on an unlinked account would not place you in the party

• Console text chat: The virtual keyboard now stays open during HUD transitions and respawns, preventing messages from being cleared

• Added the ability to invite Club members to your party directly from the Clubs screen, including a quick invite option

• Fixed an issue where the quick invite button could reappear on Player Cards before an invite expired

• Fixed an issue that prevented party voice chat from working and sometimes failed to show the voice chat icon next to teammates

• Blocked players are now clearly marked in Clubs, and Invite to Party is no longer available for them in Clubs or the Player Info panel

• Fixed an issue where Private Match could appear locked for parties of 4 or 5, preventing lobby creation in World Tour

Specializations

Dematerializer

• Fixed an issue where the wall preview would appear before the Dematerializer could actually be activated, causing some button presses to be ignored 

Winch Claw

• Fixed an issue where a player could be winched after teleporting with via the Gateway

• Fixed an issue where, in certain scenarios, the Winch could pull players through walls, by reducing pull speed and making the Claw release the target if they become stuck

• Reduced cases where the hook could connect to opponents behind cover by requiring recent line-of-sight to attach to targets

Spectator

• Fixed a bug that prevented Spectators from switching between Contestants in Private Matches using Prev/Next inputs
  

Stability

• Improved late-join behavior so map destruction is correctly synchronized when entering an ongoing match
  

UI

• Fixed the new item marker for Appearance cosmetics to they now appear on the Appearance tab and clear correctly when inspected

• Added team icons and a dedicated icon for team wipes in the elimination feed, visible to both players and spectators

• Added a Specialization icon to player health bars and a setting to show or hide it

• Added support for friendly opacity when the Enemy Color option is enabled, improving clarity of teammates on screen

• Fixed Weapon and Gadget previews appearing offset in the Customization tab 

• Added a Favorites filter to customization items to make browsing favorited cosmetics easier

• Reworked Motion Blur settings: added a new “Weapon Only” mode that applies blur only to the first-person weapon and hands, and a slider to adjust motion blur intensity

• Updated tooltip descriptions for the Effects and Overall quality settings in Video Options

• Fixed a rare issue where certain in-game HUD elements could disappear when skipping replays

• Fixed an issue where SR-84 ADS did not appear in spectator view and Instant Replays

• Fixed an issue where store tiles could display the wrong video or thumbnail after scrolling

• Fixed a missing reload input hint for the Minigun when input hints are enabled

• Fixed an issue where Contestant tiles could briefly appear as black on the pack selection screen at match start

• Fixed an issue with controller where you could lose focus on the Loadout selection overlay when pressing the ping button 

• Fixed an issue where skipping an Instant  Replay could leave the screen red until respawn

• Fixed an issue where player and enemy outlines could display in red instead of the correct squad color

• Fixed an issue where Player Card backgrounds could reset when navigating back in the customization screen

• Added quality settings to the RTXGI editor menu, including an option to toggle software global illumination

• Fixed the APS Turret health bar not updating when shot and lingering briefly after the Turret was destroyed

VFX

• Fixed an issue where destruction debris on Monaco could fall out of bounds when landing on indestructible ground

Weapons

Melee Weapons

Fixed an issue that allowed melee attacks to be animation-cancelled to attack faster than intended

Known Issues 

Battle Pass 

• When purchasing the Premium+ and Ultimate Battle Pass, you may need to refresh by exiting and re-entering the Battle Pass Screen in order to see your 20 unlocked tiers

Players who want a reminder of how the game has changed across seasons can read about the Season 6 update for context on earlier mode and fix rollouts.

Readers are invited to share reactions and tips about The Finals Season 9 in the comments and follow ongoing coverage on X, Bluesky, and YouTube for more on Dragon Rising.