War crime simulator restarted Six days in Fallujah had its official gameplay revealed yesterday in a new trailer that seems to confirm some people’s criticism of the game as a one-sided propaganda for the US war machine. The trailer has been released exclusively by IGN, the same site that just days ago published a detailed report on the problems surrounding the game and the apparent one-sidedness with which it would make a “playable documentary”From one of the deadliest sieges in the US invasion of Iraq.
“United States military veteran sergeant. Jason Kyle and the developers of Victura and Highwire Games show the first video game of Six days in Fallujah, the tactical first-person shooter with mission spaces generated by procedures based on real-life events from the Second Battle of Fallujah in the Iraq War in 2004 ”, IGNThe description of free advertising is read.
The video focuses on the squad tactics you will use to break into people’s homes and “rid” them of “enemies”. It highlights how the layouts constantly change to capture the feeling of not knowing what you will encounter whenever you enter a new room. The gameplay ends with the player invading a room where a family of four hides in a corner hoping not to be murdered. The video then cuts to a real-life documentary when a resident of Fallujah explains that his father refused to leave the city during the attack.
What it does not mention is that many people were forcibly prevented from leaving the city.
“How [the U.S. military] believes that many of the men in Fallujah are guerrillas, he instructed US troops to repel all men between the ages of 15 and 55 ”, the Associated Press reported in 2004.
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The trailer does not mention reports of indiscriminate shots by the US military, or that supposedly used white phosphorus in attack, a chemical that literally melts through the body. The total number of deaths since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq is disputed, but the Iraq Body Count project Currently, an estimated 288,000 people have died, mostly civilians. And reporters who covered the war documented the litany of apologies from the US government defending these deaths as anything but war crimes.
It is this side of the story that IGN investigated last week in an important news article entitled “Six days in Fallujah are complicated and painful for those who are connected to real events. ”The article interviews several people – Alex, an Arab-Lebanese game developer; Yifat Shaik, a Jewish-Iraqi game developer; and a Muslim developer who wanted to remain anonymous – about his concerns and skepticism about another sniper who glorifies the sacrifices of the US military.
“Basically, when we look at a media, we have to ask ourselves: what is it trying to tell us? Who are you serving? Who will have the most to gain from the acceptance of this media is the truth? … I would say it’s not Iraqi civilians, ”said Shaik IGN.
As a six-minute commercial for the game, this is not the kind of question that concerns the most recent trailer. When Peter Tamte, the head of the original studio behind the game and its current publisher, was pressured into these issues in another interview, this time on last episode of IGN’s Unfiltered, he had no real answer. Iraqi stories and testimonies were obtained for the game, but they will form a much smaller part of the game than the first-person tactics employed by the US Marines. He described the invasion of Iraq not as a serious injustice with an impressive death toll, but as “controversial”.
“It really bothers me that here we have this battle that is one of the most significant battles in the Western world in almost half a century, but Hollywood is afraid to tell these stories. Just because the war in Iraq was controversial doesn’t mean it isn’t filled with stories of sacrifice, ”said Tamte IGNit’s Ryan McCaffrey.
Whose sacrifices are high and publicized, however, that is precisely the question.
“Very few people are curious about what it’s like to be an Iraqi civilian,” Tamte said in a previous interview with Gamesindustry.biz. “Nobody’s going to play that game. But people are curious about what it’s like to be in combat. It is the same reason that people play survival horror games – being in a situation that is beyond what we have in our normal lives. Ultimately, the reason people are going to play this game is because they want a more realistic combat experience. Above all, it is the experience that we must offer. “
Six days in Fallujah it can end up being a critical look at the countless ways in which people suffered during the battle – and in whose hands – but repeatedly the shooting game marketing was against that possibility. Everyone can and should ask how the game is shown, whether it should exist and what it ends up being. What you don’t have to do is host and elevate a trailer that turns a shameful moment in history into a tactical simulation.
Six days in Fallujah he’s a sniper because that’s what he sells. But no one else needs to help them do that.
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