More than a decade after it was announced, Six days in Fallujah will arrive on computers and consoles later this year. Highwire Games – whose developers previously worked on Destiny and Halo – relives the controversial Iraq war game as a tactical first-person.
Six days in Fallujah follows a group of marines during the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004. The game is based on true stories of dozens of people involved in the conflict. Each of the missions (including tasks aimed at unarmed Iraqi civilians) takes place from the perspective of a person immersed in the battle, and tells that person what really happened.
Shortly afterwards, Atomic Games and publisher Konami announced Six days in Fallujah in 2009, several activists, veterans and families of soldiers killed in action paralyzed the studio. Konami moved in, and Atomic Games was unable to fund money, leading to layoffs. The studio could not finish Six days in Fallujah before it closed in 2011 and its third-person version of the game never saw the light of day.
Highwire is working on reloading Six days in Fallujah for more than three years. Publisher Victura, which founded former Atomic president and former Bungie CEO Peter Tamte in 2016, will release the game. Highwire and Victura say they will donate a portion of the proceeds for it Six days in Fallujah “To organizations that support members of the coalition service who have been most affected by the war on terror.”
In a statement explaining why they decided to bring back the controversial game, Highwire and Victura write:
Throughout history, we have tried to understand our world through events that happened to someone else. Six days in Fallujah ask you to solve these real challenges yourself. We believe that trying to help something for ourselves, we can not only understand what happened, but also why it happened. Video games can connect us in a way that other media cannot.