The Finals kills its most hated event because it “punishes melee users too much,” but the devs want to bring it back after a “re-work”

A new update for The Finals disables the infamous Dead Go Boom event, but likely only for as long as it takes for the developers to come up with a re-worked version that isn’t so brutal for melee players.

For some context, The Finals players have largely been pretty unhappy with the Dead Go Boom modifier since the game launched, mostly because it’s way too hard for melee and close-quarters combat. As you might’ve guessed from the title, the event makes it so that players’ bodies explode when they’re killed, damaging anyone nearby. While there’s definitely the potential for some intense situations there, it does seem inherently unbalanced in favor of long-range weapons. Not only that, but many feel that it discourages and penalizes scoring kills, which is counterintuitive to overall success.

“We feel this event punishes melee users too much at present, so we’re disabling it for now,” reads a line from the latest patch notes. “We’re hoping to return it to the game, after a re-work, at some point in the future.”

Elsewhere in the new update, there are some sweeping buffs to XP gains that should make it a little easier to plow your way through the battle pass and Career ranks. 

Specifically, the amount of XP earned from Weekly Contracts was increased from 2500 to 4500, the amount of XP for Weekly Goals increased from 4000 to 9000, and the amount of Weekly Contracts it takes to get the Weekly Goal was reduced from eight to six.

There’s also a pretty hefty list of general XP buffs too:

XP from opening a vault increased from 100 to 200XP for starting a cashout increased from 100 to 300XP for completing a cashout increased from 200 to 400XP for stealing a cashout increased from 100 to 300XP given per coin delivered in Bank It mode increased from 50 to 80XP for finishing in 4th place in a round increased from 100 to 200XP given for finishing in 3rd place in a round increased from 200 to 400XP given for finishing in 2nd place in a round increased from 400 to 600XP given for finishing in 1st place in a round increased from 600 to 800

The removal of Dead Go Boom and the XP buffs are definitely the highlights of Update 1.7.0, but there are a few other changes of note. There’s a new ‘play again’ button that’ll appear at the end of rounds, which will allow you to quickly jump into the next match. Finally, default VoIP settings have been reset so that PC players will automatically have push-to-talk as the default option and console players will have Voice Activated set as the default communication method. You can of course change this in the settings, but Embark Studios says, “we want to encourage more teamplay in matches, and enabling VoIP for all players is part of that effort.”

Here are the best The Finals settings for FPS, quality, and more.