Imagine Dragons frontman chases childhood video game dream

Singer Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons performs during the Rock in Rio music festival in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Paris, France — A childhood dream of making video games is becoming a reality this week for Imagine Dragons’ singer Dan Reynolds, as his company’s debut title “Last Flag” is released Tuesday.

Games had been a passion of Reynolds and his brother and band manager Mac long before the group became a global name.

Now the pair have used some time away from music to build a team-based shooter inspired by the games of Capture the Flag they played in the woods as young Boy Scouts.

“Last Flag” is “not a passion project, (we’ve) been working on it now for five-plus years,” Reynolds told journalists during a virtual news conference.

Their roughly 30-strong studio, Night Street Games, has been working on “Last Flag” since its 2020 founding.

The game sorts players into two teams of five who can battle online, competing to hide their own flag and snatch the opposing team’s banner.

“I grew up in a family of eight boys and one girl, and we were all nerdy kids,” 38-year-old Dan Reynolds remembered.

Creating their own game had been “this dream that we talked about all the time” as they learned skills such as programming and 3D modelling.

But when Imagine Dragons “just blew up” while they were at university, Dan, a fan of “Starcraft” and “League of Legends”, went with the flow, enlisting Mac along the way as manager.

Tracks such as “Believer”, “Thunder” and “Radioactive” have made the band one of the most popular pop rock groups worldwide.

It has sold 74 million albums and racked up 160 billion streams, according to record label Warner Music Group.

The band’s ride has been “just incredible”, Dan said.

“But we talked all the time during that about ‘what if?’” the brothers had gone through with their gaming dream, he added.

When the time finally came, they devised a brightly coloured world filled with seventies stylings.

“Last Flag” bears visual similarities to the genre juggernaut “Fortnite”, but the Reynolds say their title stands out from the pack with a focus on playing the objective -- not simply eliminating opponents.

Several high-value productions in the team shooter genre have fallen flat in recent years, with titles such as “Concord” or “Highguard” quickly taken offline after failing to win a loyal player base.

“Even though there’s a ton of competition, I think we’ve seen even recently that a new game... can break through if it provides something different,” Mac Reynolds said.

AFP