A few days ago, we attended the Last Flag presentation, attended now, ’cause I accidentally missed the meeting with them at Gamescom. What a shame that was, but blame the packed schedule, not me. This presentation wasn’t an intro to what Last Flag is, since there’ve already been a few tests over the past couple months, more like an update on where things stand, and also to let us who hadn’t had a chance yet get familiar with it. So now that we’re acquainted with the Last Flag title, we can introduce it to you too.
Let’s start with the first thing you ask when meeting someone: who do you belong to? Last Flag comes from High Street Games studio. And okay, another indie studio with a killer idea, but if you look closer at who’s behind it, you’ll be surprised, unexpectedly but positively. The studio’s led by Dan Reynolds, frontman of Imagine Dragons (you’ve definitely heard of them), and his brother, who’s also Imagine Dragons’ manager, Mac Reynolds. Then there’s Matthew Berger as Game Director, bringing experience from Blizzard and Relic Entertainment. And alongside him, Art Director Brian Thompson, with background from Big Fish Games and Amazon Games. Dan and Mac put together a pretty solid band for this game, and it shows, both visually and, more importantly, in the mechanics and overall execution.
Picture of Nathan Reinds
Now let’s get to what Last Flag actually is: a third-person shooter with Capture The Flag mechanics and a Hide & Seek twist, or tag, if you will. The inspiration doesn’t come from popular games like Team Fortress (though there are art design similarities), but from one of the core team’s favorite childhood games: hide the flag in the woods and let the enemy team hunt for it. Honestly, I don’t remember playing a game with mechanics like that. Sure, there are similar ones, but none that takes such an original idea for a title. And the best part? It all works really damn well.
The setup for Last Flag is simple at first. You have teams of five players on each side. Matches happen on slightly larger maps, where each team has its base, and in the middle there are radar towers. In the prep phase before the match starts, each team has a few minutes to hide their flag, and that’s where we get to the first really great thing about this title.
Each team can hide their flag on their half of the map, but that doesn’t mean plopping it somewhere obvious. No, you gotta find a really tucked-away spot where no one’ll see it. Map design helps with that, the maps aren’t totally flat; they’ve got cave-like areas, elevations, little houses where you can stash it, and so on. All to find the best hiding spot for the flag. After prep, the match kicks off, and back to the radar towers. They’re a huge deal in this game, when you capture one, it scans the enemy side in front of it. Over time, it eliminates spots where the flag isn’t hidden. There’s three in the middle, so if you hold all three, you’ll uncover the flag faster. But that’s super hard with just five players per side, you can’t effectively hold all radars. So by design, each team gets a bit of radar control time, meaning scanning the enemy half. Towers are captured like in any capture-the-point game: stay next to it to claim it. Cool thing is they also act as healing points, which comes in handy when defending them.
That said, you don’t have to control towers to find the flag, you can just search blindly. Run around the enemy half hunting for it, but like I said, even though the map looks simple at first, it’s pretty complex, so that won’t be easy. I mean searching blind for the flag. Matches last 15 minutes, so you gotta watch the clock too. If no one finds the flag in 15 minutes, overtime kicks in where you score via kills and radar holds. And if someone finds it in that 5-minute overtime and brings it back to base, instant win.
If the flag gets found in those 15 minutes and returned to base, then they have to defend it for a set time against the enemy team. Or rather, defend so it doesn’t get taken back. There are some really nice mechanics here, might sound complicated, but after the first match, you totally get it. Interestingly, when you grab the flag, there’s no “drop and dash” to speed things up. No, once you pick it up, you’re stuck with it, you can only drop it if someone kills you, of course.
Now onto the characters. All the ones you pick are hero-shooter style. Each has special powers, different weapons, designs, strengths, and of course weaknesses. Some are tanky anchors to hold radars and repel attacks, others are damage dealers focused on mowing down the enemy team, while some are covert ops that slip behind lines, go invisible to snag the flag without the enemy noticing. I didn’t get to play every hero (call ’em what you want), but balance feels solid so far. Last Flag is a game where teamplay matters more than individual skill, though if someone’s quick and clever, nothing stops them from grabbing the flag while their team distracts.
But none of that would be as fun without solid gameplay mechanics. Lucky for Last Flag, shooting feels great, movement’s smooth, and the weapons, clunky at first but awesome once you get used to ’em. Tons of heroes so everyone finds a playstyle that fits, what a win. Though it’s a third-person shooter at heart, the shooting, jumping, running is nailed. When you kill someone, they ragdoll like in battle royales, if you don’t finish ’em, a teammate can revive and they’re back in the fight. So when pushing to wipe a team, you gotta do it right, all the way. Respawn’s about 10 seconds, not too punishing, but gives the enemy a moment to capitalize on those precious seconds with a lighter map.
Oh yeah, almost forgot the maybe best thing in this title: the art design and music. The whole game has this 70s vibe, through character designs, maps, weapons, voices, and of course the soundtrack. Everything’s done incredibly well and with quality. Don’t know why, but the whole aesthetic reminded me of No One Lives Forever, though obviously not first-person shooting here. But everything’s so stylish it’s impossible not to love the presentation. Imagine Dragons as a band and Mac as their manager already have experience with big games and collabs, and you can see that music world expertise shining through, positively, of course.
Last Flag, still in testing, feels like a title with huge promise, great for casual fun or serious squad matches. Honestly didn’t expect much, but when I first saw and heard about it, it intrigued me, and after trying it, it totally hooked me. In a time when we’re getting the same games rehashed by different studios, something with a fresh, original idea that draws from tons of inspirations but carves its own identity is a real rarity. So wishlist it on Steam and try the demo, it’s available during Steam Next Fest.
