In what has been a monster month for multiplayer FPSs, another challenger has burst onto the scene. The Finals, the destructive competitive FPS from former DICE developer Embark Studios, is currently in its first open beta.

In its first 24 hours, The Finals beta ranked in the top 10 most played games on Steam, peaking at 143,000 concurrent players. This number is still hovering around 90,000 during quiet weekday hours in the U.S., which is quite impressive considering that every major FPS has just added a new season or limited-time mode.

It pushes The Finals to be a genuinely different beast. At the heart of the objective-based mode is the destruction engine, where entire buildings come crashing down under the weight of RPG rockets and physics. Typically, destruction on this scale is not possible in multiplayer. This is because there is too much information to synchronize between each player's client.

For those who participated in previous playtests of The Finals, there are new elements that you can check out in the open beta. In particular, a casual mode called "Bank It." Similar to the cash-out mode, but instead of all teams competing for the same vault, players collect coins and bank them at various points on the map for a score.

I prefer Bank It to the sweaty cash-out mode at the moment, but the biggest hurdle for Finals right now is server stability. The explosive popularity of the open beta took Embark Studios by surprise, so much so that the studio had to issue temporary login queues to keep up with demand. Matches are being found relatively quickly, but erratic. This morning, the game crashed and the servers were inaccessible for about 30 minutes after the crash; Embark has made it clear that the purpose of the beta is to stress the system, not to promote the game as a "marketing beat."

You can try out the open beta by joining the playtest on The Finals' Steam page. If you have previously participated in a playtest, the open beta should already be in your Steam library and ready for download.