Controversial shooter Six Days in Fallujah hits Steam Early Access in June

The controversial war game Six Days in Fallujah will be released via Steam Early Access on June 22, 2023.

The long-in-development game aims to tell the story of the Second Battle of Fallujah, which took place in 2004, from various perspectives, including American troops fighting the Iraqi insurgents, as well as members of the city’s civilian population.

Priced at $39.99, it will launch in Early Access with four co-operative four-player missions set in urban maps that are procedurally generated each time the game is played, according to publisher Victura. These missions will focus on the experiences of US Marine fireteams on the first day of the battle.

Later in Early Access, players will also be able to play co-operatively as special operations or Iraqi soldiers fighting alongside coalition forces.

Victura said it plans to release campaign missions recreating real stories from the battle too, with the finished product expected to be available for both consoles and PC in 2024.

Six Days in Fallujah was originally scheduled to be published by Konami over a decade ago, but the publisher pulled out in 2009 due to the controversial nature of the game, which attracted criticism from several quarters including military veterans and anti-war groups.

The project restarted in 2017 when Victura – a publisher formed by the CEO of original developer Atomic Games – announced that it was back in development at Highwire Games, the studio co-founded by Bungie veterans Jaimie Griesemer and Marty O’Donnell.

Victure attracted criticism in February 2021 after its CEO Peter Tamte claimed in an interview that it was “not trying to make a political commentary about whether or not the war itself was a good or a bad idea”.

The publisher u-turned the following month, releasing a statement acknowledging that the events of Six Days in Fallujah are “inseparable from politics” and explaining how it is attempting to tell the game’s story from multiple points of view.