The Finals is the FPS of the moment, but it just started beta and is already infested with cheaters

The Finals is the hottest new FPS in town, but cheaters are overshadowing its big moment.

If you've not yet come across it, The Finals is a free-to-play shooter where players battle it out as contestants of a virtual combat game show. Here, spectacle is almost as important as staying alive, as you'll compete for fame and sponsorship opportunities as you fight for your life.

An open beta is currently underway, and it's proven very popular with players. At the time of writing, it's at number 5 in Steam's most-played chart and has managed to rack up an impressive 267,874 concurrent players at peak on Valve's platform. Still, many have not found this FPS to be a blast, not because of its gameplay but rather the staggering number of players who refuse to play by the rules.

The Anti-Cheat Police Department, a community group that "specializes in gathering intelligence on cheats to detect and disrupt cheating vendors," posted a tweet earlier this week claiming that The Finals has "already been targeted by huge P2C vendors".

"It's not long until it's riddled with cheaters," it adds. "I hope the devs at 'The Finals' have thought about anti-cheat measures when building this game, or it's just going to be another title ruined by cheaters."

Since then, The Finals subreddit has also been awash with players reporting instances of cheating. "Yesterday I was having a blast on this beta, best fun I've had on an FPS in a long time," user roth_dog writes. "Today every other game has a blatant cheater in it, this game will die very quickly if the devs don't take this seriously."

Players allege that the cheating is linked to Chinese profiles, and many are calling on developer Embark Studios to introduce a region lock to tackle the issue. "It's to the point I quit playing entirely," user s0ciety_a5under says. "Almost half the games I went in had cheaters. It's unbearable, and we need to region lock them."

In a separate post, another player writes that the situation is "getting so annoying" and described matches as "unplayable." Another said that stopping cheaters "should be a pretty big priority" for the developer, adding, "This game does not need to have the same situation as PUBG."

The Finals' current beta runs until November 5 on PS5, Xbox Series X and PC. The game's expected to arrive before the year is out, though so far, no release date has been set.

Check out our thoughts on the slick shooter in our The Finals preview.