Tough sell
Six Days in Fallujah is apparently finished. This is news not because anyone was anticipating the game’s release, but because precisely no one was anticipating its release. The title by Atomic Games, which attempts to be something of a historically accurate recreation of the 2006 mission in Fallujah by U.S. troops, was presumed to be a dead project after it was dropped by publisher Konami last year in the wake of a negative public reaction.
Today Michael Abbott at the Brainy Gamer makes a very strong argument for why the game should be picked up by an enterprising publisher that values the merits of the medium as much as its quarterly balance sheet. It’s a passionate pitch and I urge you read it.
It’s a tough sell, though. I don’t foresee any publisher picking this one up in today’s tough economy and retail landscape. And I fear for the game itself. As I wrote last year, it was irritating and disconcerting to see Konami backpedal and refer to the project as “just a game.” How much of that mentality seeped into the core design of SDIF? How much of the original vision remains after the busted deal with Konami forced layoffs at Atomic Games? Will it even be any good, as a game, at all?
I’d like to find out. But I doubt the game will ever see the light of day. If it does, I hope the finished product is at least better off for being severed from corporate influences.
