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Reviewed and published by trentmaziarz, March 20, 2026. Discovered and drafted by our automated research pipeline.

The Finals uses a skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) system that algorithmically evaluates player skill to create balanced matches, with independent skill ratings per game mode.

Details

Embark confirmed SBMM in The Finals and adjusted it as early as December 2023 (hotfix 1.2.3) "to ensure better-quality games." Each game mode maintains an independent skill rating. Developers described it as "relatively relaxed SBMM" compared to games like Counter-Strike, likening it more to Overwatch or battle royale matchmaking. The specific algorithms are not publicly disclosed, and it is unclear whether the system uses traditional Elo/Glicko-style ratings or ML-based approaches. Some community members have speculated about Engagement Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM), but this is unconfirmed player speculation. Embark also contributed to the open-source Quilkin (UDP proxy for game servers, built with Google Cloud) and referenced Open Match (Google's open-source matchmaking framework) in their GitHub repos, suggesting their matchmaking infrastructure leverages these tools.

Products affected

The Finals

Sources & Evidence

News Article

SBMM in The Finals? This is what the developers say

Mein-MMO·Dec 2023

https://mein-mmo.de/en/sbmm-in-the-finals-this-is-what-the-developers-say,1067973/

News Article

After just 6 days, hot new FPS The Finals is changing its skill-based matchmaking for "better quality games"

GamesRadar+·Dec 2023

https://www.gamesradar.com/after-just-6-days-hot-new-fps-the-finals-is-changing-its-skill-based-matchmaking-for-better-quality-games/

Other practices by Embark Studios

Creative GenEmbark developed and open-sourced a texture synthesis tool in Rust that generates new textures from example images using a multiresolution stochastic algorithm, enabling artists to create variations from a single source texture.ModerationEmbark integrates with WebPurify, a third-party AI-powered content moderation service, for filtering user-generated text content in their games, as evidenced by their open-source API client library.OtherThe Finals integrates NVIDIA's DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) technology, which uses AI neural networks to upscale lower-resolution frames in real-time, boosting performance by approximately 2x at 4K with ray tracing enabled.

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