Last Flag feels like a love letter to Team Fortress 2

Most capture-the-flag objective shooters have you funnel your team down a set number of paths, smash into the opponent’s team, and repeat until one manages to break through the other’s defenses. Occasionally a single player can breakaway and make the play of the game, but it’s not really the intended experience. Last Flag, like many team shooters, is obviously inspired by the genre-defining Team Fortress 2, but completely changes the dynamics of battle with a wide open map. You’re not funneled down a set path here, and that means enemies can appear from seemingly anywhere.

Yes, Last Flag is a capture-the-flag objective shooter, but it works very differently to the competition. In the initial preparation phase, players are tasked with literally hiding their flag somewhere on your half of the map, which is split in two by a giant curtain. That means that the map can’t be linear pathways — it has to be reasonably large with caves and offshoots that you can potentially hide your flag within. Once the flag is hidden you could have your team protect it, but that just gives its location away to the competition. 

As the game begins, the curtain is lifted and you’re free to run wild. There are three towers dotted along the equator of the map, and holding these increases the rate at which you can narrow down where the flag might be located. Alternatively, you could run straight into the wilds and look for the flag manually. This means that battles erupt roughly along the equator, but in a variety of locations. The towers are obvious hotspots, but moving into enemy territory and vice versa means that skirmishes break out everywhere, and from angles you don’t expect. It encourages you to get to high ground, otherwise spotting foes before they’re on you can be rough. 

Once you’re firing, it all depends on the character you’re playing. Like TF2 and Overwatch, this is a hero shooter, and each playable character has a unique set of weapons and skills that you can upgrade over the course of the match by spending cash you earn. These upgrades carry over to other characters, if you choose to switch up who you’re playing mid-match. The characters have names and backstories, but still come with simple monikers like Soldier and Scout which, again, will be very familiar to TF2 fans.

I won’t lie, while playing Last Flag I had to quickly come to terms with the fact that I was a bit rubbish at hiding or finding the flag — maybe I just need a bit more map familiarity. One thing I loved, though, was blasting away at foes. If old games of TF2 taught me anything, it’s that a few headshots and a lot of jumping can lead you to victory, and that’s absolutely how it worked for me here, as long as I had a weapon with a reasonably wide spread.

While I’m not sure that Last Flag will overturn the shooter market, I do thing there’s an audience out there that’s eager to play something that is, ultimately, more like Team Fortress 2. There have been dozens of hero shooters since, but few capture the simplistic magic that has tens of thousands of players returning to TF2 to this day despite no real content updates for years. I think Last Flag comes really close, but I don’t know if that’s enough for players to give it a real shot.

Also, I couldn’t fit this in anywhere else, but Last Flag’s development team, Night Street Games, was founded by Dan and Mac Reynolds, best known for the band Imagine Dragons. You know, the band that did the Arcane opening theme and the other songs that won’t stop getting radio play. I think it’s cool that the duo have used their success elsewhere to help put together what is very clearly a gaming passion project.

Sometimes previewing a multiplayer game with a group of people you don’t know can feel awkward. These games are always best with friends, rarely a collection of other media types and members of the dev team. But even when I was going solo into the wilds or popping up from over the horizon to swoop in and save some team members, I was really enjoying my time with Last Flag, and when I had to log off, I was honestly eager for more. I have no idea how that experience will translate into the real world, but for now, I’m truly hoping that Last Flag is given a chance, because this has the potential to be a niche classic. It certainly left a better first impression than FBC: Firebreak.