Night Street Games

Night Street Games is an independent video game studio founded by brothers Dan Reynolds, vocalist of the band Imagine Dragons, and Mac Reynolds, the band's manager, who serves as CEO and co-founder while Dan serves as chief creative officer. The studio is based in Las Vegas and describes itself on Steam as an independent studio building multiplayer games. Its team includes game director Matthew Berger, previously at Blizzard on titles including Diablo 3.

The studio's first title, Last Flag, is a third-person 5v5 hero shooter built around a capture-the-flag premise, set in a 1970s game-show-inspired universe hosted by a fictional media mogul. Teams hide their own flag rather than defending a fixed position, contest three central radar towers that heal teammates and progressively scan map sections to narrow down flag locations, and must defend a captured flag for one minute to win. Matches run roughly 20 minutes or less, players are removed to a "green room" rather than eliminated, and the roster consists of nine to ten characters with distinct abilities and roles. Development began on Unity and later moved to Unreal Engine; planned NPC monsters, fog-of-war mechanics and pick-up items were cut for pacing. The soundtrack was composed by Dan Reynolds with JT Daly and Dave Lowmiller (Battlefield, Dead Space) using vintage 1970s instruments, including a track played only on the defeat screen.

Last Flag was announced at Summer Game Fest 2025, offered a public demo during Steam Next Fest in December 2025, and released on Windows via Steam on April 14, 2026, with Epic Games Store distribution and console ports previously planned. The game drew mixed critical reception (Metacritic 69/100) and fewer than 600 players at launch; in May 2026 the studio ended post-release support beyond its existing roadmap, cancelled PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S ports, and laid off approximately half its staff.

Founding story

Mac and Dan Reynolds grew up in a large family playing video games and playing capture the flag in the woods at night as Boy Scouts, an experience they considered unreplicated by capture-the-flag modes in existing games such as Halo. Mac had wanted to run a game studio since third grade and previously worked in 3D modelling and animation before managing Imagine Dragons; Dan is a coder and teased plans for a game in 2021, citing early work on voice acting and character sketches. After years of discussing the idea, the brothers founded the studio and built a first prototype of Last Flag, then recruited a development team including game director Matthew Berger, who joined after being shown the prototype.

Business model

The studio develops and self-publishes its own multiplayer game titles, selling Last Flag directly to players through PC storefronts including Steam and the Epic Games Store, with post-launch content updates planned as part of a roadmap. Coverage of the studio's downsizing indicates it secured funding for initial development and relied on post-launch revenue to sustain operations.

Paid PC game sales through digital storefronts, with post-launch revenue expected to support continuing operations.

Traction

Last Flag launched on April 14, 2026 and attracted fewer than 600 concurrent players at launch, with the count declining afterwards; it holds a Metacritic aggregate score of 69/100 and a 6/10 from Shacknews. The studio's Steam Curator page lists 782 followers.

Latest developments

In May 2026, two weeks after the launch of Last Flag, Night Street Games announced it would end post-release support beyond its existing roadmap and abandon planned PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S ports, with CEO Mac Reynolds saying the game was unable to find the audience needed; the studio also expressed a desire to give the game to the community. Days after publicly assuring players it was not "going anywhere," the studio confirmed a workforce reduction attributed to the title's failure to reach anticipated financial results, cutting roughly half of its staff to about 13 employees. No new projects or revised roadmap have been announced.