Logo for Six Days in Fallujah
Six Days in Fallujah (SDiF) is an unreleased historical third-person shooter video game that was developed and left unreleased by Atomic Games. It's said that it was going to be the first game to focus directly on the Iraq War (which was still ongoing at the time). Konami was going to be the original distributor.
Plot/Goal[]
The player gets to play an American infantry soldier to fight off terrorists during the infamous Battle of Fallujah.
Why it was Cancelled (or put on hiatus)[]
After the game was announced, it was met with criticism from British war veterans and from Stop the War Coalition, a British anti-war organization.
Reg Keys, who lost his son, Thomas Keys issued a statement that “Considering the enormous loss of life in the Iraq War, glorifying it in a video game demonstrates very poor judgement and bad taste... These horrific events should be confined to the annals of history, not trivialized and rendered for thrill seekers to play out... It's entirely possible that Muslim families will buy the game, and for them it may prove particularly harrowing. Even worse, it could end up in the hands of a fanatical young Muslim and incite him to consider some form of retaliation or retribution.”
Things got even worse after Atomic Games revealed that they also managed to get some interviews from Iraqi Insurgents about the evenets in Fallujah, so they could look at the situation from all sides of the conflict, which caused a lot of people in America (especially Republicans and Republican media) to bash them and the game. Opinions of American veterans were also divided in the situation. Some (including those who have been in Fallujah) were actually quite enthusiastic about the game or even assisted Atomic Games in making of the game, some were skeptical and the others joined the bashing (some even accused Atomic Games of treachery).
Result[]
In response to the controversy, Konami decided to not be involved in the project, resulting in the game being put on a long-time hiatus. According to developers, the game is actually finished, but due to troubles with finding a publisher and requiring a lot of money to polish the game for today's market the game remains unreleased to this day.
Videos[]
Six Days in Fallujah - All gameplay footage -Cancelled Game-
Rare gameplay footage.