“We erased the typical gaps in a partnership like this:” How Imagine Dragons and Ukrainian Developers Created the Shooter ‘Last Flag’

On April 14 of this year, the online shooter Last Flag was released — a tactical team game about “capturing the flag” that reimagines classic console shooters of the past and childhood hide-and-seek. The game received high ratings on Steam, with users specifically praising its fresh concept, fair pricing, and player-friendly monetization. However, in the realities of today’s market, this proved insufficient—the project’s peak player count barely crossed the mark of 550 concurrent players.

The modest numbers forced the project’s founders, brothers Dan (frontman of the band Imagine Dragons) and Mac Reynolds (the band’s manager), who created Night Street Games studio for this project, to radically change their plans and hand Last Flag over to the community.

However, our interest in this story was sparked not only by the star founders but also by the fact that about half of the development team were Ukrainians. For several years, despite the full-scale war, blackouts, and missile strikes, they worked alongside their American colleagues to create a major international product.

Read about the reasons behind the commercial failure, working under crisis conditions, and the future of the game in this extensive conversation with studio co-founder Mac Reynolds and the Ukrainian team.

Part I. Night Street Games CEO Mac Reynolds—on the Idea, Critical Player Mass, and the War

— You and Dan have spent decades creating music that has become the soundtrack to massive games (from Arcane to FIFA). When the time came to build your own project, why did you choose a tactical shooter specifically, rather than something music-centric or story-driven in the vein of Brütal Legend? Wasn’t there a temptation to take the path of least resistance and leverage your primary professional resource?

We never really set out to make a shooter in the first place, to be honest. We were really intrigued by the idea of recreating the real life capture the flag experiences we had as kids — something closer to “hide and seek” than “tactical shooter.” We were approaching this as gamers thinking about what we want to play instead of “what can we leverage for the most success.” We experimented with a lot of different ways to express that idea, including top down view, isometric view, fog of war, etc. As we kept iterating with our team, it eventually became clear that this game belonged as a third person shooter. Not the easiest path for a game, but it’s what felt right for the idea. In the end, I’d like to think we still have a soundtrack that beats just about any shooter I know though =)

— You’ve mentioned that you initially planned to make the game just the two of you, and Dan even prototyped it himself in Unity. At what point did you realize that to bring your vision of the “perfect capture the flag game” to life, you needed a fully-fledged studio like Night Street Games?

Dan is a pretty decent coder and can prototype just about anything in Unity. I grew up doing 3D modeling and animating, and I think we originally felt like we could make a start of it on our own. As the game idea evolved, though, it became clear we’d need help from real professionals. But even then, we thought of this more as a small project with an outsource team rather than a full studio enterprise. That only changed as we recognized the needs of the evolving game concept.

— In 2022–2023, many Western companies and partners were terminating contracts or refusing to renew collaborations with Ukrainian outsource firms due to the high risks associated with the war. You, on the contrary, chose to partner with Ukrainians. How did you evaluate these risks from a business perspective, and what was the deciding factor for you to move forward with the Ukrainian team despite everything?

We have often felt connected to Ukraine for a variety of reasons (including my sister-in-law having served a mission there). But we chose our partner based on who we trusted and who we connected the most with. That means far more to us than the current stability in a country. Over the years this ended up being the best possible decision we could make. We watched our teammates in Ukraine work passionately and do amazing things even with incredible challenges weighing on them and their families. We think of them all as heroes.

— Was there a specific moment in this collaboration that deeply moved you or left a lasting impression? For instance, a developer from Ukraine reaching out from a bomb shelter or right after a harsh night of blackouts just to say, “The code is ready, let’s keep moving.” How did such situations impact the morale and atmosphere within the rest of the team?

I am sad to say there were many of those moments. Our tech director had his windows blown out from an explosion right across the street. Blackouts and family scares were common. We would sometimes ask our developers in these situations if they wanted to take some time off, and invariably they said they preferred to keep working and focus on building something they love. It was inspiring for the entire team.

— How did you adapt your workflows to the realities of the war in Ukraine? Did you have to rethink your approach to deadlines and the studio’s overall structure to ensure your Ukrainian colleagues could work at their own pace despite the surrounding chaos?

When we first started talking to our partners in Ukraine, the full scale invasion had not yet happened. We watched it happen in real time as we began working together. Soon after, our first game director decided to join the army and defend his country. He’s still serving on the front lines today, in fact. We stay in touch and he’s continued to be supportive, even in the middle of a war. But despite everything, our workflow if anything has gotten better over the years. We erased the typical gaps you usually see in a partnership like this, and have truly become one team, wherever people live.

— How do you evaluate the situation the game found itself in after the launch? It has great reviews, but low concurrent player numbers. In your opinion, what prevented the game from capturing the attention of a wider audience?

It’s a challenging time to launch a game, but more so for a shooter. We found ourselves competing with some of the largest games with the largest budgets in the world, and so the expectations were pretty wild for what would constitute “success”. There are undoubtedly a lot of factors that go into why we didn’t launch the way we wanted, but at the end of the day they all come down to the same thing: critical mass. Because the conversations around “live player count” are so loud online these days, live service games are not afforded much time to grow their audience. If you do not have “enough” players at launch, people are quick to call it a failure — which leads to having even less players take a chance on it.

We did have some unexpected competition around our launch, but it’s hard to say what the impact was. At the end of the day, we made a game we are very proud of and that was well reviewed by our players. We tried very hard to market it with our limited budget, but our efforts were not enough to get us the audience we needed. We are still incredibly grateful for the journey and the players who loved the game and are still playing it.

— Despite the commercial setback, the game is clearly well-made and has provided the studio with a wealth of experience. Do you plan to work on new projects in the future, or are you putting your game development activities on pause for now?

We still have some exciting things planned for Last Flag. I can’t wait for players to try our new maps, contestants, and game modes. And you never know when a feature like custom game rules will lead to a resurgence of players finding a way to experience our game that we never thought of. So that’s our first priority, along with making sure we take good care of the incredible developers we have to let go on the project. But we’re also very much looking forward to the future and the next games we make as a studio. We have some exciting plans on that front right now.

— There is a lot of talk globally about “Ukraine fatigue” right now. Yet, you and Imagine Dragons remain among the most active ambassadors for United24. Why is it personally important for you and your studio to keep speaking up for Ukraine at a time when the West’s general focus is shifting?

It’s always easy to shine a light on the latest and most talked about public issues. But it’s much more important to do it when the world has moved on to other topics. The bombs haven’t stopped dropping in Ukraine, and neither should our support. I personally believe they are fighting the front line of democracy for our world, and I’m proud to know the many heroes I’ve met who are defending freedom or supporting those who are doing so.

I had the privilege of spending time with President Zelenskyy in Kyiv last year, and my visit to the country left an impression I will never forget. We have hopes and plans to do more to help the cause in the next few months, and I hope many others will continue to stand alongside our friends in Ukraine.

Part II. The Ukrainian Team on Developing and Releasing Last Flag

At the peak of Last Flag’s development, Ukrainian developers from the outsource company Argentics.io made up more than half of the entire team. Essentially, Night Street Games operated on a continuous cycle: when the workday ended in the US, developers in Kyiv and Lviv were already jumping onto sync calls. Senior C++/UE Game & Tools Developer Bohdan Karabinskyi, along with Senior/Lead QA Engineer Mykola Andrunevchyn and QA Engineer Bohdan Yushkov, told us about how this partnership began and how the processes were built.

— How did your company connect with Night Street Games in the first place? Was there any initial skepticism that this might just be another “celebrity side-project” that would be quickly abandoned?

Mykola Andrunevchyn Senior/Lead QA Engineer

At the end of 2020, the CEO of Argentics was at a gaming conference in the US in search of interesting projects. It was there that he met Mac and Dan, who already had the idea for LastFlag and were looking for a team to develop the game. No, there was no such skepticism. Back at the beginning of the project, in 2021, we managed to talk to Mac and Dan and even play the first Unity prototype of LastFlag. Even then, it was clear that they were really involved in the process and were genuinely excited about the idea of ​​creating and releasing this game.

— How many Ukrainians in total worked on Last Flag? How long did the core development cycle last?

Bohdan Karabinskyi (Senior C++/UE Game&Tools Developer): If we don’t count the time of the prototype on Unity, but only the development on Unreal Engine, then it started in 2023, that is, 3 years of development before the release. Before that was a prototype on Unity that started in 2020/2021, but almost nothing remains of it in final game (although there is a soundtrack from that time in the official OST of the game). I probably won’t be able to give an exact amount of how many Ukrainians worked on the project, considering how many people were there over the years, but we were almost always half, if not more, of all the people on the project, so it’s about 30-40 people at peak. Now there are many fewer left.

— Did you face any difficulties due to the fact that you were based in Ukraine while the Night Street Games staff was in the US? How was the workflow organized overall?

In fact, this did not cause any difficulties. The eastern part of the team (Ukraine and Europe) had both their meetings at an earlier time (when I say early, I mean afternoon hours), and meetings with the western part of the team (USA, Canada, etc.), who woke up a little earlier for our sake. Thus, in the evening for us, and in the morning for them, we would sit down and discuss various things, and while we rested and slept, they worked, and in the morning we continued.

“So you can say that the development of the game went on 24 hours a day”

Yes, there were meetings late at night, but usually everyone was respectful of working hours in different time zones. We had employees not only from Ukraine and the USA, but also from all over Europe (from Poland to Portugal), in Brazil, Canada, and probably a few more countries. Speaking of me, I quickly got used to it, as did the whole team, because this was our working process.

— How closely were Mac and Dan from Imagine Dragons involved in the development? Did you get a chance to communicate with them directly during the project? What kind of manager is Mac?

Mac was as involved and interested in the process as possible. He is a great person who knows how to communicate with others, find an approach, and at the same time he is as honest and open as possible. He was almost always present at our playtests, and fulfilled his role as an upper management. I managed to communicate with Dan much less, although the idea of ​​the game itself is their own and the main view of the game was from the brothers.

Several times I played with and against Dan in playtests, he was also involved in the musical aspect of the game and gave his feedback on the game itself. He was always aware of the changes that were taking place, although decisions were confidently delegated to the game director and people working on the project. Everyone had their voice and we really listened to everyone on the team to make the game more interesting.

Bogdan Yushkov QA Engineer

Mac is a great leader, very responsible, good with the team, and a charismatic speaker who knows how to convey information quickly and efficiently. With his participation, the company’s processes were set up effectively.

— Let’s move on to the release. The game received good reviews, but the player count to be quite low. Do you remember how you felt when you saw the player numbers in the first few weeks after launch? How did the Ukrainian part of the team handle the release?

Bohdan Karabinskyi (Senior C++/UE Game&Tools Developer): In fact, there was a certain understanding that we were more in the expectation of a miracle than full confidence in the success of the project. Although, of course, the numbers we received were not at all what we had hoped for. Of course, this affected the morale of the team, given the time spent on development and the understanding that this, in fact, cool project, would undergo radical changes in the near future. The Ukrainian team was very concentrated on what could still be done: fixing issues, reacting to player feedback, supporting the launch, and solving problems.

“The Ukrainian team has always had an incredible ability to work under pressure”

And the fact that we can be so incredibly dedicated and professional while missiles rain down on their city is a testament to our character and professionalism. There was some hope that the planned marketing would help raise this number, as well as the free weekend, and we hoped to see a larger number of players than on the day of release. And yes, it was more, but very little and not enough for us to be able to continue full-fledged development.

We had an internal dashboard with a CCU graph that more accurately showed us the number of players from paid and free copies that we looked at all weekend, expecting some growth, which did not happen. There were peaks in prime time European and American time, but again, we can all look at the publicly available graph and understand that even adding the two graphs, there were very few players.

— How do you personally analyze this situation? Why didn’t a solid concept, fun gameplay, and even the media weight of the founders from Imagine Dragons help attract a mass audience? Is this a crisis in the session-based shooter genre, a marketing miscalculation, or simply an oversaturated market?

Speaking from my own perspective, and this is just my personal opinion, there is no single reason why this happened. Yes, we can say that the update in OW2 and the new season in Marvel Rivals on the date of our release influenced this, or that the market is oversaturated with this genre, or that the game was paid (in fact, regional prices were very democratic), or you can think of many more reasons. Even such a big and famous face as Imagine Dragons cannot independently attract thousands of players to the game if the players do not like the game for one reason or another. I think we have a lot of space and information for analysis, and we will try to figure out what went wrong.

I can’t say that the game is bad, or that it was in poor technical condition, or anything else — most likely the audience saw another “hero shooter” that wasn’t advertised to a very wide audience and didn’t have much progression at release, so people didn’t want to waste their time on this game and you can’t force people to play — they’re either interested or they’re not.

— What exactly were your responsibilities as a Senior C++/UE Game & Tools Developer, and how difficult was it to roll out hotfixes immediately after the launch?

Most of my area of ​​responsibility remains invisible to the players: developing internal tools for various teams on the project, supporting and updating engine plugins, creating and maintaining automated tests, and closer to the release I helped the gameplay team and DevOps more often. What the players really saw was our in-game bug reporting system. Initially, it was a system only for internal playtests, so that the team could more easily report bugs with full information right during playtests, but it worked so well that we left it for the players as well. Thus, over the entire time we have collected more than 6000 reports.

— In early May, when the player count dropped significantly, the studio announced that the game now “belongs to the players.” As a developer, do you believe that persistent lobbies, custom rulesets, and tools inspired by GoldenEye or Team Fortress 2 can save the project?

We have a certain player base who really likes the project and bought the game to play. So it wouldn’t be fair to take away what they liked and close the servers. Persistent lobbies and custom game rules won’t “save” the project, but they will allow players to customize their games the way they want, change the balance, etc. This will give them more fresh air and allow them to have fun longer. We hope that this will allow more organic growth and engagement. So far, I can say that it really feels interesting and multifaceted, and I hope that players will also like it and won’t let them forget the game.

— Are Ukrainian developers currently involved in the post-release work on the game? If so, in what capacity?

Yes, many Ukrainian team members are working on the post release of the game. Unfortunately, we have had to let some of our team members go.

“But about 30% of our remaining staff will be from the core group of Ukranians which has done amazing work”

— How did Mac react to the game’s low concurrent player numbers? How did he communicate this to the developers?

Mac’s reaction was honest, direct and open, however, everyone already understood what would happen. Since it was understood that the game could not be supported (marketing, console release and other updates) for a long time, and the implementation of already planned updates did not require as many people as there were, layoffs were carried out. We had a series of rallies — general and more specific, where Mac and management were as kind and understanding as possible, so even the laid-off people had good conditions and help from both Mac and upper management.

— Despite the game’s commercial failure, what has working on Last Flag given you personally in professional terms?

I would separate the commercial result from the professional value of the experience. Of course, Last Flag did not reach the audience size we had hoped for, and we understood the risks of making the game we wanted to make. But I can’t consider the experience itself a failure. We released a game that not everyone can do in the modern world. It really got good reviews, although it didn’t fully find its large audience.

This project allowed me to grow, learn more, and work with many talented professionals from different fields and different cultures. For me, this is invaluable experience — especially because working on a project with this level of international collaboration, communication, and production approach is something you do not often get in the Ukrainian game development market.

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