Bohemia Interactive's 2009 military sim shooter ARMA 2 has been given a second life thanks to the community embracing a user-made mod for the title, called DayZ. The mod itself has over a million players, many of which went out to buy ARMA 2 just to get in on the zombie-infested action.

The popularity of the mod has had DayZ earning more media attention and buzz than Bohemia's own next shooter, ARMA 3, but with DayZ now in development as a standalone game by Bohemia, they can benefit each other.

DayZ creator Dean "Rocket" Hall promised that as they develop DayZ as a standalone game - that could launch in beta as early as this fall - they will continue to update and support the mod version that requires ARMA 2. Part of what he promised to include in a standalone DayZ title is improved physics, buildable bases and other features, many of which that ARMA 3 will have built-in. Let's take a look at the latest ARMA 3 screenshots from Gamescom 2012:

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The screenshots hold true to the words shared by Bohemia creative director Ivan Buchta who mentioned during E3 that "improved graphics and related features contributing to the visual impression (e.g. animations or physics) were identified as priorities."

ARMA 3 makes uses of the latest variant Bohemia's own Real Virtuality, and engine that's been vastly improved over its predecessor. Most importantly, it has a lot of what DayZ arguably needs:

  • Ragdoll physics
  • Physics for vehicles and environmental objects
  • Underwater environments
  • On-the-fly weapon customization
  • Uniform customization
  • Destructible environments
  • And much, much more

Wouldn't it be wonderful if they used their latest and greatest engine to develop DayZ from the ground up with new features, while at the same time hopefully hammering out the bugs of the mod - and those ARMA 2 was notorious for at launch? While DayZ ironically won't launch with mod support, ARMA 3 will and we can't wait for to see the creativity of the community once again.

"The success of DayZ certainly proves that modification support is the right thing which may prove the game’s true value. DayZ’s popularity is exceptional because it reaches out of the milsim niche, but to us, every mod is important because it means someone had fun modifying our game, and brought something interesting to some more Bohemia customers."

As for what DayZ will be built on, Hall said this on Reddit:

"It will be using its own branch of the Real Virtuality engine incorporating the best elements of all products - that's the awesome thing about the BIS flagship engine."

Excited?

ARMA 3 releases sometime in 2013 for the PC.

Sources: Bohemia, Rock Paper Shotgun, Reddit