Last Flag, the multiplayer shooter from the Imagine Dragons guy, is free to play for every weekend until its first update comes out

Last Flag, the new multiplayer shooter from the studio founded by Imagine Dragons singer Dan Reynolds, released onto Steam earlier this month. While it's hard to glean precisely from the outside, the response to it seems to have been muted, despite developer Night Street games doing everything they could to raise its profile. The studio premiered Last Flag at Summer Game Fest, used Imagine Dragons' social channels to market it, and released it at a very reasonable price ($15/£12).

It shows yet again how hard it is to stand out in Steam's crowded market. But Night Street isn't throwing in the towel yet. From now until the game's first update coming in the summer, Last Flag can be played for free all weekend, every weekend.

"Did you know that new content is coming soon to Last Flag, like our new Twin Temples map and our new rollergirl contestant?" wrote Night Street in a Steam post. "The team is working hard to bring these updates to the game as soon as possible, but until then, we wanted to give everyone who hasn't had a chance to check out Last Flag the opportunity to play for free!"

The free weekends can be accessed via Last Flag's Steam demo, with free players able to join from Friday 10am pacific until Monday 10am pacific. "Demo" here is somewhat misleading too, with Night Street stressing that you'll get access to the full game, and will play on the same servers as non-demo players.

While I haven't had a chance to check out Last Flag for myself, it is by all accounts a great little multiplayer shooter. Tyler Wilde got hands on with it at various points through its development, and found it to be a fun mashup of capture the flag and hide and seek. "At first I thought there was no reason to hide your flag anywhere except at the very back of your zone," he wrote earlier this month. "But the flipside is that your opponents are probably going to search those areas first."

The Steam reviews, meanwhile, stand at 73% 'Mostly Positive'. But even the negative reviews generally praise the game's fundamentals. Complaints mainly revolve around a lack of regional servers or matches being heavily populated by bots. That's a problem that will likely be solved if more players jump on board, which the free weekend will hopefully encourage. It seems like a smart move from Night Street, and I hope that shooter fans take Last Flag up on its offer.