THE FINALS Makes Buildings Bend, Swing and Fight Back in Its Biggest Destruction Upgrade Yet

Destroying a building in THE FINALS is about to become much less binary. PRIME TIME launches on October 20 with what Embark Studios calls the biggest destruction overhaul since the game’s release, introducing gradual structural failure, hinging pieces of architecture, swinging suspended structures, blast waves, dynamic debris and smoke and gas that physically respond to the changing Arena. The new Dynamism Upgrade goes considerably deeper than simply adding better collapse animations. Embark has inserted an entirely new simulation layer between an intact building and a pile of disconnected rubble, allowing fights to continue inside structures that are actively bending, sagging and tearing themselves apart.

Gameplay programmer Roman Smirnov and senior game designer Tim Overvliet use the latest PRIME TIME developer showcase to explain what is changing beneath the rubble. Their goal is to make destruction more physically expressive without sacrificing the predictability required by a competitive shooter. A floor should be capable of partially collapsing into the room beneath it, but players should also be able to understand that collapse, react before it finishes and potentially use the resulting geometry as a new route. That combination of simulation and readability is becoming one of the central ideas behind THE FINALS’ October transformation.

Destruction currently has two very different states

Embark’s explanation begins with the architecture already powering THE FINALS. The current destruction system effectively works through two layers. One is Strain, responsible for evaluating the structural integrity of buildings and determining when a section can no longer remain supported. The other is the broader physics simulation that takes control once an object has broken free, allowing debris to fall, collide and interact with the Arena.

That system is responsible for much of what has made THE FINALS distinctive since 2023, but it creates a relatively sharp transition. A piece of architecture is broadly either attached and structurally stable or disconnected and subject to normal physics. Once Strain decides that a floor, wall or other element has failed, that object can transition quickly into falling debris rather than remaining in a damaged intermediate state. PRIME TIME adds a new layer specifically to occupy the enormous range of possibilities between those two conditions.

Embark calls it gradual destruction. Instead of every failed section immediately separating completely, broken elements can remain weakly connected to one another. Those connections continue reacting to physics, which means walls can lean, floors can sag, corridors can twist and pieces of architecture can bend or rotate while remaining attached to the larger structure.

A building can now remain playable while it is collapsing

The immediate consequence is that structural failure stops being only an endpoint and becomes a temporary gameplay state. A damaged floor might buckle downward without completely disappearing, creating a slope between two levels. A room may partially deform while players are still fighting inside it, while sections of wall can remain hanging at unstable angles instead of instantly converting into debris. Suspended structures are also being brought into the same system, allowing them to swing, twist and potentially crash through neighboring architecture.

That could substantially change how players respond to explosives. Under the current system, destroying the floor beneath a Cashout Station frequently means creating a hole and dropping the objective to another level. Under gradual destruction, the same attack can potentially produce a tilted surface, partial opening or improvised ramp before the structure fails completely. An RPG, Charge 'N' Slam, C4 placement or grenade launcher shot therefore has more possible consequences than simply deciding whether a surface continues to exist. That interpretation follows directly from Embark’s stated goal of generating new playable spaces as structures deform.

The resulting Arena should also evolve more organically over the course of a match. A heavily contested building might begin as a familiar piece of level design, spend several minutes developing warped floors and unstable walls and eventually finish the match as a navigable mass of collapsed geometry. In THE FINALS, where the same building can contain several consecutive Cashout fights, those intermediate states could make the second engagement fundamentally different from the first even before the structure is completely demolished.

Debris is becoming terrain rather than visual aftermath

Embark has been moving toward this idea for several seasons. Earlier Smooth Destruction upgrades allowed collapsing buildings to damage neighboring structures, created stronger chain reactions and redesigned debris so players could climb through ruined environments more reliably. Kyoto was one of the major testing grounds, with connected pieces of rubble intentionally forming traversable spaces after buildings came down. PRIME TIME expands that philosophy into a much broader systemic upgrade.

The official roadmap now specifically lists dynamic debris piles as one of the October features. Instead of rubble primarily marking where a playable structure used to exist, those remains can become part of the new battlefield. Embark wants large collapses to leave surfaces that players can move across and fight on, effectively allowing destruction to construct new geometry at the same time that it removes the original level.

That distinction is important for the tactical identity of THE FINALS. A conventional destructible environment generally becomes emptier as the match progresses. Walls disappear, cover is removed and buildings lose complexity. Embark’s updated system tries to make destruction transformational rather than purely subtractive. Blowing apart the original route can create another one from the rubble left behind.

Suspended structures can become giant moving weapons

One of the more dramatic additions involves hinging and swinging structures. PRIME TIME allows partially connected pieces of architecture to continue moving while attached, creating large suspended objects that can swing into nearby surfaces or eventually tear loose completely.

THE FINALS has experimented with this concept before. Season 8’s Smooth Destruction update gave suspended structures and cranes proper impact damage so that bringing one down could damage another building and create a chain reaction. Season 9 continued expanding those systems, while later updates rolled improved destruction into more Arenas. PRIME TIME appears to turn what was previously a carefully applied feature into a more fundamental part of the simulation.

The tactical possibilities are obvious. Destroying a structural support may no longer produce an immediate collapse directly downward. The resulting section might remain attached, swing through another portion of the building and cause secondary damage before eventually falling. That means the useful part of an explosion can continue developing after the initial blast, giving players more opportunities to engineer chain reactions rather than merely opening holes.

It also makes the Arena itself more dangerous. A contestant fighting beside an unstable wall is no longer necessarily standing beside static damaged geometry. The structure can continue changing after the initial destruction event, making awareness of what remains connected almost as important as knowing which walls have already disappeared.

Explosions gain blast waves that deform the environment

PRIME TIME is also adding blast waves to the destruction ecosystem. The new showcase demonstrates explosive force affecting surrounding structures more aggressively, including bending ceilings and walls and potentially tearing sections of roofs away.

That broadens the effect of explosive weapons beyond the exact surface receiving damage. THE FINALS has always allowed players to use explosives architecturally, but the upgraded system makes the surrounding physical response more visible. An explosion is not simply subtracting hit points from one environmental object; the force itself can contribute to how the nearby structure deforms.

The difference becomes especially important in combination with gradual destruction. Once several surfaces are already weakly connected or partially detached, another blast can push those unstable elements into further movement. A damaged room can therefore behave differently from an intact one when subjected to the same explosive force, producing the kind of cascading interaction Embark has been pursuing through its earlier Smooth Destruction work.

Chain reactions become a core tactical system

Embark explicitly says it is strengthening knock-on effects, allowing one environmental event to trigger another more reliably. Large pieces of debris can damage structures they collide with, partially attached sections can destabilize neighboring geometry and explosions can initiate sequences that continue after the player who started them has moved elsewhere.

This is arguably where THE FINALS separates itself most clearly from shooters with conventional destructible cover. The most interesting outcome is not necessarily that a player can destroy Wall A. It is that destroying Wall A changes the forces acting on Floor B, which falls against Structure C and ultimately opens a path that did not exist when the first explosive was fired.

Embark has already spent multiple updates improving exactly this behavior. Skyway Stadium structures gained the ability to damage one another as they collapsed, Kyoto’s Pagoda was adjusted to crumble more naturally under its own weight and later updates extended impact damage and Smooth Destruction to additional structures. PRIME TIME consolidates those experiments into the largest systemic revision so far rather than treating them as exceptions applied map by map.

Smoke will finally understand that walls exist

The Dynamism Upgrade is not limited to solid objects. Smoke and toxic gas are being rebuilt so their clouds react to the actual state of the Arena, including walls and newly created openings. One particularly important consequence confirmed in the developer showcase is that gas should no longer affect players through intact walls.

That addresses one of the less intuitive interactions created by the current environmental systems. If a gas cloud exists on one side of a wall, the visual geometry implies protection even when the effect can currently extend through that surface. With the upgraded simulation, the cloud is supposed to respect the physical environment instead, making the visible state of the Arena a more reliable guide to what can actually reach the player.

The same principle becomes much more interesting once destruction starts changing those boundaries. A gas cloud contained inside a room can behave differently after somebody destroys one of its walls. Smoke deployed to block a corridor can adapt when the corridor itself becomes exposed to another room or the exterior. Destruction therefore changes not only movement routes and lines of fire but also the volumes through which area-denial effects can spread.

Explosions can temporarily punch holes through smoke

Smoke itself now responds to physical force. Explosions can temporarily disperse sections of a smoke or gas cloud, opening brief windows through an obscured area before the effect closes again.

This is potentially one of the most tactically significant additions because it creates direct counterplay using equipment that was not designed specifically as an anti-smoke gadget. If a team has covered an approach with smoke, an opponent may be able to detonate an explosive and momentarily expose what lies behind it. Conversely, players occupying the smoke need to consider that their concealment is no longer guaranteed to remain visually uniform once a firefight begins.

It also fits Embark’s broader use of the word dynamism. The studio has repeatedly argued that dynamism is larger than destruction alone. Its ambition is an Arena where physics, materials and forces interact consistently, so a blast should logically influence gases and smoke just as it influences weakened architecture. PRIME TIME is the first update where that philosophy is being expressed so explicitly across both solid geometry and environmental effects.

The chaos has to remain readable

Adding more possible states to every building introduces an obvious competitive problem. If a floor can be intact, cracked, sagging, partially detached, swinging or completely destroyed, players need enough information to distinguish those conditions quickly while somebody is shooting at them.

Embark says it has therefore spent substantial effort improving visual cues and consistency, ensuring players can understand what is happening, anticipate structural failure and receive enough warning to react. The studio does not want gradual destruction to make the simulation arbitrary. The entire system depends on players eventually learning that certain types of damage and structural conditions produce understandable consequences.

This work actually began earlier. Season 7 introduced progressive cracks on walls, floors, ceilings and pillars, with the intensity of those cracks corresponding to the environmental object’s remaining health. Other updates reduced and refined damaged-edge visuals so players could more accurately judge where destruction had occurred. PRIME TIME extends that same readability problem to substantially more complicated physics.

The ideal outcome is controlled unpredictability. Players should not know the exact final shape of every collapsing building, because that would undermine the emergent quality Embark is pursuing. They should, however, understand why the building is behaving the way it is and have enough information to make decisions while it happens.

Collapses are also being rebuilt to sound heavier

The new destruction system has an audio component as well. Embark says it has rebuilt a substantial amount of what destruction is made from so collapses carry more weight and noise, complementing the physical complexity with stronger feedback when large structures begin failing.

That becomes more important when collapse itself takes longer. Under a binary destruction model, one loud event can communicate that a structure has broken. Gradual failure introduces a sequence of unstable states, so sound has the potential to help players recognize that something above or beside them is still moving even when they cannot see it directly.

PRIME TIME separately includes a footstep audio rework, according to Embark’s official roadmap, suggesting October’s wider audio work is also focused on making information clearer during matches. With buildings producing more complicated geometry, smoke changing sightlines and debris creating additional traversal surfaces, reliable audio cues become increasingly important rather than simply another presentation upgrade.

Embark has spent years building toward this system

Calling PRIME TIME the largest destruction update since launch does not mean THE FINALS has left the technology untouched for three years. Embark has been incrementally rebuilding it across numerous seasons. Kyoto received a major destruction overhaul that made buildings collapse more granularly and turned debris into terrain. Smooth Destruction introduced structural impact damage and chain reactions. Later seasons added connected chunks, stronger environmental interactions, better visual damage effects and performance optimizations designed specifically for large destruction events.

PRIME TIME appears to be the point where those separate experiments converge. Rather than continuing to improve specific buildings individually, Embark has changed the underlying relationship between structural integrity and normal physics by introducing an intermediate simulation state.

That required more development time than the studio’s normal seasonal cadence could comfortably provide. Executive Producer Christian Aarsrud explained in September that Embark deliberately treated 2026 as one larger development effort rather than three isolated seasonal projects, giving systems such as destruction, Arena reworks, performance and presentation enough time to develop across the year.

This upgrade also explains why classic Arenas are being rebuilt now

The destruction overhaul arrives simultaneously with major reworks of THE FINALS’ oldest Arenas. Monaco, Seoul and Skyway Stadium are being reconsidered using almost three years of player behavior, while lighting, materials, textures, routes and sponsor identities are also being updated.

Those two initiatives complement each other. The original Arenas were created for an earlier version of Embark’s destruction technology, meaning their geometry could not be designed around gradual failure, swinging structures and dynamic debris in the same way that future maps can. PRIME TIME allows the studio to revisit familiar spaces while simultaneously giving those spaces new physical possibilities.

A veteran player may therefore recognize the broad layout of Monaco while discovering that the building they have destroyed hundreds of times no longer collapses into exactly the same kind of battlefield. Familiar map knowledge still matters, but the physical consequences of attacking the environment become harder to reduce to one memorized result.

Performance remains one of the biggest technical questions

All of this simulation creates an obvious concern for a multiplayer shooter that already synchronizes large-scale destruction between multiple clients. Embark has repeatedly optimized environmental updates, physics, collision and CPU performance over previous seasons, including changes specifically aimed at reducing stutter when large structures break apart. PRIME TIME’s official roadmap again lists performance improvements alongside the Dynamism Upgrade rather than treating them as a separate long-term concern.

The destruction itself is server-simulated, according to Smirnov’s explanation of the underlying architecture. That is essential because every contestant needs to agree on the state of a building for its geometry to function competitively, but it also makes the technical achievement substantially more demanding than a purely local physics spectacle.

Embark has not yet published the complete October performance breakdown or final technical requirements associated specifically with gradual destruction. Those details will matter once PRIME TIME reaches live servers, particularly when several teams begin deliberately stress-testing the system by demolishing as much of an Arena as possible.

PRIME TIME is turning destruction from an event into a process

That may be the most meaningful change in the entire showcase. THE FINALS has always allowed buildings to collapse, but a collapse has generally represented the conclusion of a structural interaction. A wall is destroyed. A floor falls. A building comes down.

PRIME TIME turns that transition itself into gameplay.

A floor can begin failing while contestants continue fighting across it. A wall can remain attached while leaning into a room. A suspended structure can swing before it falls, strike something else and begin another chain reaction. Debris can create the path used to escape the collapse that produced it. Smoke can move around those changing surfaces, while an explosion can briefly carve visibility through the cloud covering them.

That is a much more ambitious definition of destruction than simply increasing the number of breakable objects. Embark is effectively adding more time and more physical states between cause and effect, giving players additional moments in which they can react to, exploit or worsen the disaster unfolding around them.

THE FINALS already built its identity around the idea that the Arena should never remain intact.

On October 20, PRIME TIME is making sure it does not even have to finish collapsing before the next fight begins.