Six Days in Fallujah Studio Wants to Show the Consequences of War

When Six Days in Fallujah revived from the development graveyard in 2021, the word "controversial" stuck with it. Today, Victura CEO Peter Tamte hopes for another word to describe the game: "Compelling."

"I think a lot of flak that we got when we announced the game were people expecting this to be Call of Duty in Fallujah. And it's not," he told me at PAX West 2024. "We're trying to present this in a much more realistic way."

Tamte walked me through a hands-off preview of Six Days in Fallujah's next big update, called "Command and Control." On November 7, it'll bring lots of new features, but the two that stood out the most to me are the innovative Fireteam AI system and the first of its promised story missions.

On top of seeing the Fireteam AI in action, I had a long chat with Tamte about what Six Days in Fallujah is really about. His team wants to make "the most accurate, realistic simulation of war possible," and with that comes the burden of depicting the real cost of war—if that's even possible.

The New Fireteam AI in Six Days in Fallujah

Since its early access release, Six Days in Fallujah has primarily been a co-operative, squad-based game. "Procedural" missions have been the primary mode of gameplay, where players are given an objective on a map with shifting rooms and enemy spawns.

This procedural architecture makes every closed door a potential "fatal funnel," as the Marines call it, and every unchecked corner could be your last. With the heightened difficulty, it's nearly impossible to be a solo action hero because "that's just not how it works in real life," Tamte said.

However, with the "Command and Control" update, players will be able to tackle these missions alone with a squad of "advanced" AI. I watched him narrate as his team member Anthony walked through a mission with the Fireteam AI, and it was impressive how robust it was, especially for being mapped to one "Go! Command" button.

It's contextual, so for example, if you aim down sights and press it, your squad will lay down suppressing fire. Pointing at a door makes your squad stack up on it, while holding it down makes them form up around you.

Anthony made it look easy, but that likely comes from all the experience he's had with the game. Even with the AI, Tamte stressed that Six Days in Fallujah is difficult, because real-life combat isn't easy either.

Six Days in Fallujah Is Getting Two Story Missions

This Fireteam AI is vital to Six Days in Fallujah's story missions. These documentary-style missions can only be played alone so players can fully immerse themselves into the history, context, and weight of the missions, which will largely be based off actual testimonials from Marines, Iraqi soldiers, and Iraqi civilians.

"We're blending these recreations of actual events with documentary video filled with stories from people who were there, both Iraqis and Americans," Tamte said. "We believe, through their experiences combined with their words, that players will understand how what happened in Fallujah set the world down a path from which we have not yet returned."

I got to see one of these videos, and it definitely made an impact. "Documentary" describes its style pretty well, though it also turns up the tension with menacing music that I found a little too on the nose, personally.

The footage featured brutally honest testimonials from people who were involved. They described scenes of bodies being dumped in the trash and families being tortured. Some of those people identified by callsigns or aliases to protect their identities, understandably.

I didn't get to see either of the actual campaign missions in action, but Tamte explained that they will feature less procedural generation to have more control over the story. These first two missions will give players more historical context and understanding of military tactics, setting them up for success with future story missions down the line.

"If people describe Six Days in Fallujah as compelling, I don't need them to use any other words." —Peter Tamte, Victura CEO

The Realities of War

Inevitably, these missions will feature specific people who had to make real, difficult choices. This ideally gives players more insight into the realities of war. It's not just watching someone make a hard choice; I, the player, have to internalize and stand by a hard choice.

"I think all of us understand war is bad. War is difficult. We understand it intellectually, but yet, when bad, when big things happen, we still demand vengeance," Tamte said, particularly in reference to the four U.S. contractors who were murdered and mutilated by Iraqi insurgents on March 31, 2004.

"It happens over and over and over again, and that's because most of us don't have that personal experience with war to understand how there are inevitable consequences for war."

He told me stories about some of the people the team has talked to. Most of them were American soldiers, and he shared this story about a Marine who was saved by an Iraqi soldier, only to later hold that same soldier's dying body in his arms.

His team also spoke to more than two dozen Iraqi civilians and soldiers, many of whom lived in Fallujah at the time. He claims that "the impact on civilians is a part of our story," citing an Iraqi father who tried to get his family out of the warzone.

These are deeply personal stories, and I could see the burden on Tamte's brow as we talked about how he would try to do these stories justice in Six Days in Fallujah.

"Marine after Marine after Marine in our conversations with them say, 'You need to talk about the Iraqis I fought with. I want people to know their stories, too,'" he said. "We have an opportunity here to help people understand how Americans and Iraqis worked together in a common battle against extremists. That's something I think most people don't fully understand about what happened in that battle."

But Aren't Video Games Supposed to Be "Fun"?

Needless to say, this is a heavy subject matter. When I normally think of video games, "fun" is probably in the list of top five words I'd use to describe them. I asked Tamte if that's a word he'd want associated with Six Days in Fallujah.

"Is Black Hawk Down a fun movie to watch? Not really," he replied. "Movies like Black Hawk Down, 1917, All Quiet on the Western Front—I saw those movies, and I got something important from those movies. At the same time, I'll watch Pearl Harbor too, right?

"If people describe Six Days in Fallujah as compelling, I don't need them to use any other words," he said. "Although, of course, I'd be happy with meaningful, illuminating, insightful, these sorts of things."

In that respect, I can't help but go back to what the gameplay is like. It's stressful, uncertain, unpredictable, and intense. It probably doesn't capture a fraction of the real trauma that actual Marines experienced, but it's also not "fun" in the way Call of Duty or Battlefield are.

"There are people who have told us, 'I appreciate what you're doing, but I can't handle it,' and I'm OK with that," Tamte said. "To me, that's an indication that we're being successful in being realistic."

On the flip side however, the game also attracts kindred spirits. Some players found out they served in Iraq at the same time but different places. Friendships were forged in these online lobbies, according to Tamte, which warmed his heart. 

"I heard many, many stories of friends of mine in missions in Six Days. And somebody would observe, 'Hey, I noticed how you moved through the door... Did you serve?'" Tamte said. "And the answer is, 'Yeah, actually, I did.'"

Like with most controversial topics, no single piece of media can capture the full historical context of any event.

What Are the Real Consequences of War?

Six Days in Fallujah is clearly a game on a mission, but I found the goal of that mission to be a bit murky. If it accurately simulates the trauma of being the boots on the ground, that seems like an anti-war message. Yet, the gameplay loop encourages you to re-run these missions in a way that gamifies intense combat.

I wondered where Tamte stood on the game, in terms of its commentary on war.

"I would not use the word anti or pro," he said. "Because there are times when people have to go to war—ask the Ukrainians."

Instead, his primary goal is simply educating people on the costs of war on individual soldiers.

"Democracies cannot sustain war without support from the people, but those people need to be educated on what the actual cost of that is going to be so that decision can be an informed decision," Tamte said. "Our goal is to not, say, make a commentary about how all war is evil or all war's necessary. I just want people to see, if you go to war, these things will happen. So make sure you understand that cost before you decide whether or not it's going to be worth it."

It's worth noting, this game is primarily based on the Second Battle of Fallujah. It's one that comes with a lot of baggage. Of course, the overall invasion of Iraq comes with its own cargo fleet of baggage, but this one specifically is infamous for America's use of white phosphorous. You might remember that chemical weapon as "the line" in Spec Ops: The Line.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz in 2021, Tamte said players won't use it in Six Days in Fallujah. Based on my time chatting with him, it's clear that the big focus of the game is the personal stories of the soldiers and some civilians who were there, not so much the heinous war crimes. This choice definitely resulted in a lot of controversy and skepticism regarding how the game will fairly portray real-world events.

I'm not bringing this up to minimize the personal sacrifices that soldiers had made on the ground, but it's important context nonetheless. The atrocious use of white phosphorus on civilians and the trauma inflicted upon soldiers are both real consequences of war (though one is far worse, obviously).

Six Days in Fallujah seems more focused on those personal stories, arguably making it an incomplete picture of all the consequences of this battle and war in general.

Historical Realism Isn't Easy

Just my two cents: Like with most controversial topics, no single piece of media can capture the full historical context of any event. Everything has a bias and only captures a certain scope of the situation.

Six Days in Fallujah 1.0 could eventually be an excellent resource for understanding what some Marines went through. After all, when you talk to more than 100 U.S. soldiers and only a couple dozen Iraqis, there will undoubtedly be a bias toward portraying the Marines in a sympathetic way.

However, it likely won't be a one-stop resource for understanding the full scope of what really happened in Fallujah, just like how Black Hawk Down shouldn't be the only source of truth for the Battle of Mogadishu.

The main impression I walked away with is that Tamte and the team at Victura are building Six Days in Fallujah in good faith. There's a responsibility and obligation they feel to honoring the words of the people they've spoken with, whose stories matter to them.

"We're going to tackle a difficult subject, but we are going to do it in a very serious way, and with the hope that others might be able to tackle difficult subject, and video games can be thought of as capable of dealing with difficult subjects," Tamte said.