The Finals Patch 9.4 Brings First Balance Pass of 2026

The Finals Patch 9.4 is bringing in the new year with the first round of balance updates and changes. With the Season 9 patch now a week ago, this is the latest round of tweaks, and the first since Embark started back at work in 2026. The patch is also the last chance for players to play the Snowball Blitz game mode before it goes away.

Outside of the tweaks, which we’ll get to. The patch also adds a store refresh with the P1xel Reign Crew, a styleised C-Pop group that brings a set of character skins, emotes, and weapon skins. The patch is mostly bug fixes and UI, etc, though there are a number of tweaks, mostly nerfs, to a few overperforming weapons that have been noticed since the new season started.

The Finals Patch 9.4

The first major change comes in the form of a tweak to the Breach Drill Gadget, which is getting a slight buff. Changes to the CB-01 Repeater, Famas, Recurve Bow, V9S, and changes to the Cashout/Ranked Tournaments logic. You can see the full changes to guns, gamemodes, and gadgets below.

Balance Pass

Breach Drill

• Drill length changes from 83cm to 108cm

The change to the length of the drill has been added due to issues with certain map sections being too thick for the Breach Drill to penetrate

Cashout/Ranked Tournaments

• Improved the way the game decides where to place the Cashout Stations and Vaults to improve the competitive edge

CB-01 Repeater

• Aim down sight zoom has changed from 0.2 to 0.24 seconds
• Bullet dispersion when crouched is increased, making the gun less accurate when moving and shooting

The devs note the CB-01 is a little too strong, so they are making changes to bring it back in line

Famas

• Recoil now “jumps” more in the initial burst, alongside more overall recoil
• Bullet dispersion increased
• Recoil recovery time is reduced, making it easier to control post-burst

Devs are looking to keep the Famas in line with other guns, looking to hit its ability to fire too accurately for now.

Recurve Bow

• Rate of fire increased from 98RPM to 103RPB
• Maximum draw time reduced from 0.15 seconds to 0.08 seconds

The recurve bow is in a strange spot, acting as basically a sniper, though it looks like the devs want to see it used a bit more

V9S

• Damage fall-off end range changed from 25m to 20m

Sword

• A short buffer has been added to the charged lunge attack to prevent rare cases where damage would trigger, but the lunge animation and movement would not happen

The V9S has had a number of changes since the 9.0 patch, and that isn’t changing here. The V9S is still being overused, and it looks like more tweaks could still be on the way

There are also lots of bugs, animations, audio, contracts, cosmetics, and other gameplay changes in the patch, which you can view. For now, it appears that the developers are generally satisfied with the game’s balance, although it will be interesting to see what the first major update of the new year brings to the game.