The Finals Season 9 is here with a whole host of new content for our beloved contestants. This season owes much of its inspiration to China’s deep and longstanding history, though that should be pretty obvious. The name of this season is Dragon Rising, and the design of the season banner is a Chinese dragon, after all.
The Finals Season 9 arrived for our contestants on December 10, 2025, with the aforementioned host of content. This season brings a new map, game mode, progression system, and an overwhelming amount of fixes and adjustments. So, let’s get into the specifics and see how these new additions change The Finals and its gameplay.
The Major Additions Of The Finals Season 9
The Chinese inspirations for The Finals Season 9 don’t stop at the title or the cover’s design either. These Chinese inspirations have influenced many new cosmetics, and the new map, Fangwai City. Fangwai City is a Chinese megacity that combines influences from across the country into one place.
Towering skyscrapers, riverfront vistas, lush temples, and fertile gardens fill the entire map of Fangwai City. And with the design of Fangwai, you can expect intense combat through various levels of verticality from the skyscrapers. And when you get knocked out, you can admire the beauty of the city as a spectator for a moment before spawning back in.
The Finals Season 9 also introduces a game mode for our contestants to participate in. The new game mode, Point Break, puts you into a team of eight attackers or defenders. Attackers must destroy nine Grand Vaults before running out of respawn tokens, while Defenders must do the opposite.
Defenders must deplete the attacking team’s tokens to win, but attackers gain tokens with each completed phase. Many players might recognize the gameplay formula of Point Break, and they’d be right. Game modes similar to Point Break exist in several games, but that doesn’t make it any less fun.
The Finals Season 9 also reworks World Tour into World Tour 2.0, which changes how it works entirely. World Tour 2.0 is now a progression system that tracks everything you do in The Finals. Contestants can contribute to their seasonal progress in all game modes, so you no longer have to worry about what you play to progress.
The Minor Additions Of The Finals Season 9
The Finals Season 9 also changes how season rewards work and how contestants can earn them. Instead of pre-determined rewards, contestants now earn reward tokens based on their Ranked and World Tour progress. Contestants can also swap out their sponsors whenever they’d like, giving contestants more freedom in their choice.
Of course, The Finals Season 9 comes with the usual bug fixes, balancing changes, and optimization. One of the more notable optimizations is the improvements to the physics system in The Finals. Embark has made the physics system require much less memory while looking and working better than ever.
Now get out there, contestant, and show your sponsors what you’re made of!
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