Six Days In Fallujah is a first-person tactical shooter with a focus on realism and developed based on the true stories of more than 100 soldiers who served in the Second Battle Of Fallujah. For context, in the spring of 2004, Al Qaeda seized control of the city of Fallujah in Iraq, using it as a base to brutalize local residents and launch terrorist attacks across the region.

Several months later, Iraq’s prime minister ordered civilians to leave the city, so Iraqi, American, and British forces could retake Fallujah together. In just six days, the Second Battle of Fallujah became known as one of the world’s bloodiest modern battles.

How does the game stack up? Does it deserve the controversy? Is it even a full-fledged title that depicts war in a respectable non-bravado-filled light?

War Crime Simulator

Six Days in Fallujah begins Early Access with a uniquely tactical all-human four-player fireteam experience. The developer even advises to play with friends or matchmake to find teammates. The reason for that is if you want to play single-player or solo right now, technically you can, but with a catch, you’ll be alone, which makes it virtually impossible to win matches.

At the time of writing, Six Days In Fallujah doesn’t offer any single-player story campaign missions, and no AI teammates when you do play solo. Why then, did the developers even provide a solo option when there aren’t even any AI teammates? The developer does promise to add them sometime in the future.

The good thing about Six Days In Fallujah is that it puts you right into the thick of the action. However, there are pros and cons to that. Missions usually have a time of about 15 minutes, so you have to move fast. At the same time, moving too fast and not being methodical or tactical will usually mean getting killed by enemies.

It’s also very easy to randomly die due to enemy mortar fire or ridiculously-accurate sniper shots by enemies (but it’s cool how getting sniped will immediately have the screen cut to black, as if you really got sniped for real, so points for realism there). You have to stay tight with your team and move carefully. Things can quickly get intense when breaching into houses and rooms, where enemies might be lying in wait.

You don’t really get the time to prepare and you can’t change weapons. You can’t customize your loadout so you have to make do with what you get, which is random (right now you can’t choose what role/loadout you get in each mission). You also can’t choose which mission you get each time, which is also random right now. There are currently no civilians (but they promise to add them sometime in the future), so the game feels emptier, but overall, the visuals in the game look pretty decent.

The highlights of my gameplay sessions were usually when my team and I had to breach rooms in houses and buildings one-by-one. Each room is dark, and enemies can wait at any corner, which results in tense moments. Funnily enough, these are usually when I die as well; it’s very easy to get ambushed and killed if you’re too reckless and just barge in guns blazing. This is where the realism of the game actually feels fun to experience.

The content in Six Days In Fallujah is currently sorely lacking in Early Access. There are only around four or so different missions or scenarios right now, with different objectives such as clearing out an apartment complex or rescuing some wounded soldiers.

It’s weird that the developers are promoting so much about how this game is based on the “true stories” of veterans who fought in the actual conflict, but then there are no actual story campaigns at launch. The game’s focus on realism is ultimately a double-edged sword because of the extremely high difficulty.

In the years since Six Days In Fallujah was announced, the game has been controversial since Day One. In hindsight, perhaps all of that might have been an overreaction. From this writer’s perspective, there’s nothing overtly offensive about the game right now with what little content it has (the only thing I’m offended by is how little content there is in the game), but that might change when the developers eventually add the story campaign sometime in the future.

Personally, I didn’t notice anything Islamophobic, like the enemies screaming “Allahuakbar!” in my face or something. If you’re looking for a game that fairly represents both sides of the conflict (Americans and Iraqis), all I see here is from the American perspective. However the case, I don’t how “true” the stories in this game will be.

Barebones

RM88 for the current state of Six Days In Fallujah might be too steep for what content it currently offers. That could change in the near future when more content, especially the story campaign (which was previously heavily promoted to be one of the core attractions of the game), is eventually added.

According to the Early Access roadmap, AI teammates will only be added later this year (October to December 2023) and the first story campaign mission will only get added in early 2024, which is still over half a year away at this point in time.

PROS

• Focus on realism and fast-paced intense action keeps you on your toes, especially when entering dark rooms in houses and buildings.

CONS

• Sorely lacking in content right now (no AI teammates during solo play, no mission or weapons loadout selection, no single-player story campaign, etc.), so the only option right now is to play online missions with friends or other players.
• A game based on “true stories” of true events doesn’t have story campaigns.
• Too difficult, no difficulty options.

Six Days In Fallujah was played on PC based on a copy provided by the publisher. It is now available in Early Access on PC via Steam.