More than 14 years after it was first revealed, the extremely controversial military shooter Six Days in Fallujah is actually going to come out. The project will get an early access launch on June 22 for PC.
Six Days in Fallujah started out as a project developed by Atomic Games and published by Konami. It was announced in 2009 and intended to depict the experience of being part of the U.S. Marines during the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004. The game quickly became quite controversial because of how it was depicting a very recent, very real event, and Konami pulled out of publishing the game. After that, the project was eventually put on hold, and Atomic Games shuttered, so it seemed like Six Days in Fallujah would never actually release.
In 2021, though, developer Highwire Games and publisher Victura announced that they were reviving the concept. Six Days in Fallujah was just as controversial in 2021 as it was in 2009. Statements from the developers claiming that the game was “not trying to make a political commentary” and that it would feature procedurally generated environments were widely criticized at the time. Many argued that the game was disrespectful to those impacted by the Second Battle of Fallujah and ignorant of the wider effects of the Iraq War. Detractors argued that it would reinforce anti-Muslim sentiment, idolize American military intervention, and gamify a very real, deadly conflict.
After that revival, Six Days in Fallujah went pretty dark once again until today. Now, we’ve learned that Six Days in Fallujah will release for PC on June 22, although it’ll be as an early access title on Steam. The developers say the early access release will be “a robust and compelling co-op experience right now, with four missions that can be played by up to four human players and are set in urban maps that are generated procedurally each time the game is played.”
For the most part, it seems like little about the concept has changed since its 2021 announcement. Little mention is made of any of the controversies, other than the developers doubling down that the story of its eventual campaign will be based on real accounts from American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. In fact, Highwire Games and Victura even say on the Steam page that they want this to be the start of “a very long-lasting, real-world tactical shooter franchise.”
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