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From Scout Camp to indie hit? 5v5 CTF game Last Flag from Night Street Games aims to take the Helldivers II route.
Imagine Dragons’ song “Birds” starts with “two Hearts, one Valve” – seems on-brand, since the first game from the studio of lead singer turned video game developer Dan Reynolds will not only be released on Valve’s PC platform Steam, but also on the Epic Games Store. The open beta is currently underway. Dan and his brother Mac founded Night Street Games – currently employing around 30 developers – in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2020. Their debut game was announced during the Summer Game Fest last June and initially caused some confusion as to what kind of game it actually was, since the first trailer showed little of the actual gameplay loop. The Reynolds brothers and Game Director Matthew Berger addressed this in an exclusive presentation of the game to the gaming press, stating that they had learned from their mistakes and corrected the situation with the “Gameplay Reveal” in August at Gamescom and the PSA “This is not a battle royale game!”, even if that trailer was “less entertaining.”
In his youth, Dan enjoyed playing Capture the Flag at Scout Camp, and another source of inspiration for Last Flag was Valve’s Team Fortress 2 – a fast-paced multiplayer title with iconic characters, easy-to-learn, and boasting an addictive gameplay loop. Last Flag takes place in a fictional game show set in the 1970s. Lumberjack – inspired by Dan’s best friend and coach –, Scout – a falconer who casually hangs onto the powerful legs of his loyal companion and carries the Ukrainian flag in recognition of the country’s developers’ contributions – and the other seven characters are transported via tubes directly to one of two expansive maps available at launch. Additional levels are planned, and work is already underway on a fourth map.
In the initial phase, a player-selected or game-assigned carrier hides each team’s flag, ideally utilizing the numerous hiding places within the intricate maps. Meanwhile, the remaining team members can hunt down up to ten cashbots to collect money and later upgrade their abilities. After that, things get serious: you have to locate the enemy flag and hold it for one minute in order to win. No match should last longer than 20 minutes, and we can confirm this from our test session.
To speed up the search for the enemy flag, you can capture various radar towers. These scan different quadrants of the map and visualize the best search location for you on the mini map. The more towers you capture and the longer you hold them, the faster you’ll find the flag. Each character has a different set of weapons and abilities. Lumberjack, naturally, uses his axe in close combat, Roadie can use a special grenade to pull his opponents to a specific point and then bombard them with a grenade launcher, Skyfire incinerates everything in a very limited area with his flamethrower, and Arsenal uses a plasma rifle, when she’s not busy deploying miniguns. Another ability forces all enemies within a certain radius to dance, thus immobilizing them – absurd and brilliant. Power-ups let you deal double damage, and jump pads open up new areas. Due to the expansive maps and the limited number of players, Last Flag plays far less chaotically than you might expect. Traversing across the map can be skipped by using the radar towers your team has conquered as spawn points – they also let you heal yourself. Roles within a match shift dynamically – from protecting the flag carrier, capturing towers to prevent the other team from finding yours to destroying cashbots to collect money.
Last Flag’s 70s charm doesn’t stop at character and world design. The soundtrack, created by Dan Reynolds, JT Daly (nominated for two Grammys in 2018 for Best Rock Song for K. Flay’s “Blood in the Cut” and Best Album Mix for “Every Where Is Some Where”), and David Lowmiller (responsible for sound design in several Battlefield and Dead Space games), was recorded using period instruments. Turn up the speakers and you’ll truly feel like you’ve landed in a 60s or 70s spy thriller like Danger Man or The Prisoner – the mysterious island of the latter cult series starring Patrick McGoohan would certainly make an interesting backdrop.
Night Street Games CEO Mac Reynolds believes that while releasing a successful debut game as an indie studio is a challenge in the current era, the success of recent examples in the shooter genre—likely a reference to the surprise hit Helldivers II by Arrowhead Game Studios—shows a viable path to success, and Last Flag’s focus on a singular fleshed out Capture the Flag mode makes it stand out. Game Director Matthew Berger doesn’t rule out additional modes, but emphasizes that they won’t be adding a simple deathmatch mode; instead, they’ll put their own stamp on any additional game modes. Players will only have to pay for Last Flag once. There will be no in-game transactions—all items and upgrades will be unlockable through gameplay. While there’s currently no concrete release date, we expect an announcement of such soon. Console versions are expected release later this year as well.
Final thoughts
Last Flag is an accessible, fast-paced capture-the-flag game with a low entry barrier and interesting abilities. Each match plays out slightly differently thanks to the different characters, and the 70s charm is definitely a unique selling point in this genre. Whether Last Flag will be a success or not depends not only on the as-yet-unknown price but also on how much content the game will offer at launch. The two meticulously designed maps already look impressive, but will they still hold up after several weeks? It’s good to know Night Street Games is already working on more content. Those interested in Last Flag can currently download the open beta for free and play until March 2nd on Steam and the Epic Games Store (labelled as a demo in both stores).
Night Street Games provided us with access to a preview build of Last Flag.
