BlackSite: Area 51

BlackSite: Area 51 features first-person shooter gameplay. It uses a regenerating health system; additionally the player's character can absorb relatively large amounts of gunfire before dying. The game features six different weapons, though only two can be carried at the same time. The game also features the ability to use grenades and melee attacks. The game's main weapon, the M4 carbine, has a holographic sight that can be aimed through for zooming in on distant targets.

One of the main features of the game is squad tactics. I. controlled squadmates accompanying them. Squadmates can be ordered to move on a location, concentrate their fire on a specific enemy, man a mounted turret, or set explosive charges on certain items.

Captain Aeran Pierce and the rest of his Delta Force Echo Squad are sent to investigate a supposed weapons bunker in Iraq in 2003. They are accompanied by the head of an elite science team, Doctor Noa Weis. After battling through the Iraqi Army, they find the bunker is infested with mutated humans and wildlife (referred to collectively as Xenos) created by an alien crystal found in the bunker. This crystal incapacitates Pierce and forces the squad to retreat. One member of the squad, Lieutenant Logan Somers, is left behind during the retreat.

Three years later, a heavily armed militia has taken control of Area 51 and the surrounding area, accompanied by an outbreak of alien creatures identical to those encountered in Iraq. Echo Squad and Doctor Weis have been chosen to reclaim the base. They begin with the nearby town of Rachel, where they discover that the "militia" are actually cybernetically enhanced American soldiers known as Reborn. Echo Squad finds survivors in Rachel, but as they rescue the survivors, they find Lieutenant Somers, now a Reborn.

The game uses Midway's modified Unreal Engine 3. This allows for more realistic graphics and effects, such as having rain bounce off the player's weapon. Many destructible objects are featured, but most of the environment is not alterable. On May 11, 2007, a demo for the Xbox 360 was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

A second demo was released onto Xbox Live Marketplace, a week after the game's release. The game was in development for two years.

The game received mixed or average reviews on all platforms according to video game review aggregator website Metacritic.

On November 29, 2007, Harvey Smith, the game's designer, came out publicly to announce how ruined the game's development schedule was. He claimed the schedule caused the low reviews due to the fact they were not able to test the game properly. He lost his job at Midway soon after making this comment.