Imagine Dragons brothers announce Night Street Games’ first title “Last Flag”

Night Street Games, a new game studio co-founded by Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds and manager Mac Reynolds, announced its first title, Last Flag, during Summer Game Fest on Friday in Los Angeles.

“We’ve talked about it for years, and it wasn’t until a few years ago that it registered in our heads that if we’re going to do this, this is probably our time,” Mac Reynolds said. “So, we’ve been quietly, with our heads down, building this studio since then and building the first game. It’s pretty exciting that we finally get a chance to peel back the curtain.”

“Last Flag” will launch in 2026 on PC on Steam and the Epic Games Store with console versions in development for a future release.

‘It’s got to be fun’

While going from a rock band to a game studio may seem an unlikely path, the Reynolds brothers’ connections to the gaming industry run deep.

Imagine Dragons has collaborated on songs for numerous gaming franchises, including the song “Children of the Sky” for Starfield and the theme for “Arcane,” a show based in the League of Legends universe. The band has also performed during the Game Awards, most recently in 2021.

Night Street Games’ first title is an ambitious one. Last Flag targets the multiplayer market — a genre that has seen both incredible successes and high-profile failures.

The studio hopes gamers will find Last Flag to be a special entry built around an idea and gameplay hooks that haven’t been seen before.

“We have this mentality of fun first, competitive second,” Mac Reynolds said. “And so, everything you do, every time you hit a button, anytime you hear a sound, it’s got to be fun.”

In Last Flag, gamers will form opposing teams to play what Reynolds hopes is a distinctive take on a classic game mode.

“We used to play capture the flag in the woods at night,” he said. “And so, for us, we reflected back on that experience of what it felt like. There’s been a lot of capture the flag game modes over the years that have been a lot of fun, but none of them really scratch that edge of what it meant to hide and to seek and the thrill of nature and being a hero.”

Less egos, more sharing

In many modern capture the flag modes, there are predictable base locations, Reynolds said. Night Street Games wanted to do something different.

“We started from this place of, ‘How do we recapture that magic?’ ” he said. “ ‘How do we make a pure, ultimate, real capture the flag game?’ ”

That feeling includes letting players hide flags themselves anywhere on the map, and a memorable atmosphere that gives a glimpse of something sinister going on in the larger game universe.

“We had an opportunity to make a shooter that was unusually immersive,” Reynolds said. “The music is all ’70s. (The game) takes place in the ’70s. It’s a game show created by this guy who is a media mogul. It’s very Portal tongue-in-cheek with a little dark side. Omega Mart was a very big inspiration for us: Shiny on the surface with something a little ‘Stepford Wives’ happening below the surface.”

The process of getting to this point has been a long one. Dan Reynolds would sit down and code for hours even after playing a live show, Mac Reynolds said.

The result is a game that the brothers hope connects in a big way with audiences.

“It’s all about connecting people through something exciting,” he said. “There’s storytelling, there’s visual arts and animation, there’s sound, there’s music, and on top of all this, it’s interactive. You get to go interact with that art. … Oftentimes in music, it’s about the artist. And in gaming, by necessity, it has to always be about the art because it’s such a collaborative process. So there’s less egos and a lot more sharing.”