Controversial Six Days in Fallujah gets surprise early access launch

Six days in Fallujahthe controversial tactical shooter video game set in one of the bloodiest operations of the Iraq War nearly 20 years ago, got a surprise launch date on Wednesday — June 22. It is an early access release for Windows PC via Steam.

Launching on June 22, there will be four four-player cooperative missions. “These missions take place on city maps that are procedurally generated each time the game is played, to replicate the uncertainty of combat, along with unlimited replayability,” developer Highwire Games and publisher Victura said in a statement.

A trailer released Wednesday illustrated Six days in Fallujah‘s gameplay with voiceovers from US military personnel who saw combat there. The trailer notes that the operation it represents – the Second Battle of Fallujahin November 2004 – was “the largest urban attack since 1968”, meaning the Tet Offensive begun that year by the North Vietnamese Army.

Players can “play cooperatively as special operations or Iraqi soldiers fighting alongside coalition forces, and players will encounter civilians as the battle progresses,” Victura said in the statement. Additional co-op missions are planned for the early access period, including “story campaign missions that recreate real-life stories from the Second Battle of Fallujah from the perspectives of both Coalition forces and Iraqi civilians.”

It is clear that not only many Iraqi civilians were killed in the house-to-house fighting (the International Red Cross counted 800), the operation still traumatizes many of the American soldiers and marines who survived. Six days in Fallujah was first introduced in 2009 as a collaboration between Atomic Games and Konami; it was immediately and sharply criticized in mainstream media, causing Konami to pull out of the project. Atomic Games went bankrupt two years later.

Highwire Games picked up the project in 2021. The studio was founded by Jaime Griesemer, game designer for the Halo and Infamous franchises; Highwire’s developers also include Jared Noftle, ​​co-founder of Airtight Games (Murdered: soul suspect, Dark emptiness); Marty O’Donnell, audio director and composer for the Halo and Destiny franchise; as well as several former Bungie design director, character, vehicle and weapon artists.

Victura was founded by Peter Tamte, a former Vice President of Bungie Studios who was also involved in the original version of Six days in Fallujah.