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Because the advance on Fallujah was a multi-pronged attack involving the entire city, we chose to focus on one specific area - the Marines' push into the Jolan neighborhood. We used a very detailed satellite image to recreate the area, including the train station just outside it.

The simultaneous nature of our build and this real world event gave us access to a tremendous amount of daily information and imagery from which to work. It also intensified a challenge we usually face. How accurate is the information coming out of Iraq? Details change all the time, so when we work on something so quickly, we have to keep on top of the details and make adjustments when necessary. In this case, when we knew the Fallujah assault was imminent, we started to prepare. Having already tackled Fallujah three times before, we had an idea of where we needed to go and were ready to adjust the terrain and the objectives as events unfolded.

From a design standpoint, we have added some new elements. The trainyard is new and provides an arena for close quarter combat. We follow this up with you having to cross an open field. This means the player goes from fighting snipers in the distance to close quarter combat to a shootout in open terrain to protecting civilians from collateral fire. It's a great example of how terrain and environment dictate combat tactics and require the soldier to make split-second decisions and turn on a dime.

Finally, we combined some elements from previous missions to create a scenario where the player must protect innocents - not just from small arms fire but also from a possible gas station explosion. This gives the player a greater sense of what it means to avoid civilian casualties in urban combat.