While public attention has shifted away from The Finals towards Embark’s other title, Arc Raiders, the first ever Grand Major Esports event is being hosted this Saturday for the game, and its next season will be fully revealed during it. The Grand Major will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, and feature 16 international teams battling for a prize of $100,000. And just yesterday in a news update, the theme (and name) for what will be Season 9 of the game was unveiled: Dragon Rising.

From the title and the teaser imagery, Season 9 looks like it will revolve around Chinese mythology, and perhaps also involve content surrounding the Chinese New Year. Beyond creative reasons, a possible source of inspiration for this new season is the recent launch of The Finals in China under Tencent publishing–which has some noted differences from the standard versions of the game. Apparently, the Chinese version comes with new maps, cosmetics, and game modes, all of which are exclusive to that region only.

Although currently The Finals is getting a lull in its player count–again probably due to the booming success of Arc Raiders–upon its launch in December of 2023 the game boasted over 240,000 players on Steam alone. It’s free-to-play, relying on cosmetic purchases and battlepasses as its main source of income, so if you missed out on playing it, there’s never a bad time to get in on the action. The Finals is a first-person “dynamism shooter,” as Embark lovingly refers to it, and its primary competitive game mode pits up to four teams of three against each other in fully destructible arenas, and has them reach to earn the most amount of cash to avoid getting knocked out of the running at the end of a round. Players choose from one of three archetypal classes, Light, Medium, and Heavy, and can then further specialize into specific weapons, gadgets, and abilities that class has to offer. It’s sort of like a build-your-own-hero system. Light is focused on quick movement, hit-and-run tactics, and targeted damage; Medium centers around providing team support and steady damage; and Heavy acts as a frontline fighter, soaking up damage and dishing it out to player and environment alike with, well, heavy weapons.

Besides a brand-new battlepass, it’s not consistent what ends up being added every new season of The Finals. Sometimes it’s new weapons, or new gadgets, or a new map, or any mixture of those. Beyond speculation, players won’t know what’s up next for the game until the full reveal taking place this Saturday during the Grand Major. But knowing Embark, it’s likely something good.