The Realistic Military Shooter That We'll Probably Never Play

Video games and war often go hand in hand. The first installment of the long-running Call of Duty franchise was released on Oct. 29, 2003, kicking off a tradition of CoD games rooted in specific points of American history. For a while, Call of Duty and World War 2 almost became synonymous, as the setting and plot created a rich depiction of military life during WW2. It also spawned a series of imitators.

In 2006, while CoD was still covering the World War 2 angle with Call of Duty 3, there was a studio that was ready to bring modern-day war combat to military video games. Six Days in Fallujah is an unreleased title that was ready to set players into a dramatic, hostile, and interactive military combative environment. Six Days in Fallujah was set in Iraq, and the game attempted to recreate the battle between the United States army and the Iraqi insurgency.

The game sounds intriguing on paper, but what caused Six Days in Fallujah to disappear forever?

Six Days in Fallujah was engulfed in controversy. The sting of Sept. 11, 2001 was still fresh in the minds of the American public. According to ABC News, the families of those who were killed at war protested the game out of "fear the game will trivialize the sacrifice of their loved ones." The game was criticized for being based on real current events, rather than being a fictional account.

Destineer, the developer, attempted to create a realistic gaming experience. The team had conducted numerous interviews with American military personnel to create an accurate representation of the event. The team also conducted interviews with Iraqi insurgents, which led some members of the public to question the developer's intentions. The controversy got too hot, and would-be publisher Konami withdrew from the project. The game would go on a long term hiatus. Destineer was unable to find a publisher willing to fund its endeavors, and the project went cold.

In the end, Six Days in Fallujah fell on its own sword. The title would never be released and Destineer would eventually cease operations in 2011.