SIX DAYS IN FALLUJAH

The once controversial milisim is finally out in Early Access

- Morgan Park

What I love about milsims like Squad, Hell Let Loose and Foxhole is becoming a small cog in a massive cooperative effort. I love the difficult guns, overwhelming audio, the high stakes of catching even a single bullet and the intensity of teammates who are buying into the roleplay as much as I am.

Sometimes I notice a disconnect between me and my milsim teammates when it becomes clear (typically over voice chat while riding in the back of an APC) that one or two of them aren't just fans of close-knit tactics, they're devoted lovers of military culture who believe US forces can do no wrong.

There is perhaps no game that better represents that disconnect than Six Days in Fallujah, a milsim FPS that depicts the second battle of Fallujah between American Marines (and US coalition forces that included the Iraqi army) and the Iraqi insurgency, a real and devastating battle that took place over six weeks beginning in November 2004.

During that battle, it is estimated that up to 2,000 Iraqi insurgency fighters were killed, along with 107 coalition forces and up to 800 civilians, too. The battle resulted in the American-led coalition taking control of the area, as well as also capturing 1,500 insurgent fighters. Following the Iraq War, the battle was described as "some of the heaviest urban combat US military have been involved in".

This is actually the second attempt at making Six Days - the original project collapsed in 2009 after its controversial setting attracted negative attention, and Konami decided not to publish it. A decade later, the man behind the first attempt, Bungie vet Peter Tamte, decided to try again under his own publishing label with developer Highwire Games.

A HIGHWIRE ACT