
The surrender of 1954
It was France's "dirty war", an unpopular struggle in Vietnam against the French authority governing the colonies of French Indochina.
The eight-year First Indochina War ended in 1954 with the historic battle of Dien Bien Phu, a fight that some historians say marks one of the first times a colonial independence movement managed to grow from resistance fighters to organized army, rising up to defeat a major world power.
And now that battle has sparked another historic moment: The first major video game created in Vietnam for a worldwide audience. Think of it as Vietnam's Call of Duty.
In 7554 players will take on the role of a member of the Viet Minh communist revolutionaries in their battle against the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps. The name of the $12 PC game comes from the day the French army surrendered to the Vietnam People's Army, May 7, 1954, Huy Nguyen Tuan, director of developer Emobi Games, tells Kotaku.
"We wanted to create a game worthy of the current generation," Tuan said. "At this time, no one in our country has created a current generation title. It was a little bit daunting and also very exciting to be breaking new ground. And when we decide to do it, we choose context that we are proud of. We set out to create a game that pays homage to those who stood up and protected our country. We wanted to a game about one of our greatest battles, 'Die Bien Phu.'"
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