More than a decade after the announcement, Six days in Fallujah will arrive on PC and consoles later this year. Highwire Games – whose developers previously worked on Destiny and Halo – is reliving the controversial Iraq War game as a tactical first-person shooter.
Six days in Fallujah follows a group of marines during the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004. The game is based on real stories from dozens of people who were involved in the conflict. Each of the missions (including those aimed at unarmed Iraqi civilians) takes place from the perspective of a person who was immersed in the battle and that person tells what really happened.
Soon after Atomic Games and Konami publisher announced Six days in Fallujah in 2009, some activists, veterans and families of soldiers killed in combat attacked the studio. Konami withdrew and Atomic Games was unable to secure the funding, leading to layoffs. The studio failed to finish Six days in Fallujah before it ended in 2011 and its third-person version of the game has never seen the light of day.
Highwire has been working on the redesign Six days in Fallujah for more than three years. Victura publisher, which former Atomic president and former Bungie executive Peter Tamte founded in 2016, will launch the game. Highwire and Victura say they will donate part of the profits from Six days in Fallujah “For organizations that support coalition service members who have been most affected by the war on terrorism.”
In a statement explaining why they decided to bring the controversial game back, Highwire and Victura wrote:
Throughout history, we have tried to understand our world through events that happened to someone else. Six days in Fallujah asks you to solve these real-life challenges yourself. We believe that trying to do something for ourselves can help us understand not only what happened, but why it happened that way. Video games can connect us in ways that other media cannot.