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:
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
Electronic Arts Discontinues Online Pass Program 
‘Minecraft’ Snapshot Update Brings Horses & Hardened Clay 
‘ZombiU 2′ Prototype in Development; Will the Sequel Include Co-op? 
BioWare Developers Discuss ‘Mass Effect’ Character Spinoffs & Prequel Ideas 
Loading ...
wow it would be so fricken cool to see, im stoaked for arma 3
They’ve really got to improve their animations, even looking at the video footage so far from ARMA 3 it looks like the same clunky, disjointed, and ineffective animations that the previous game had. Also…it shouldn’t take three simultaneous key-presses to get something done…so a new and redesigned control scheme better be in place.
You’re a moron Tyler…. only a softcore cod/bf nub would call it clunky…. its a far better representation of real movement… but you go jump and frag like the EA conditioned kids of your generation.
Anyone have an idea what the system requirements will be? Or at least a guess based on the pics/videos?
Hopefully I can get my new GPU before this releases.
Check out this thread on it:
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?125390-ArmA-3-Requirements-Specifics
It helps, thanks@
Wow, could it be? A game that finally pushes the limits of PC gaming???
Hey now, you’re a BF3 PC player. Frostbite does more than Real Virtuality. Big time.
Thats complete b******* and we all know it…….
OFP did it in 2001, then Armed Assault, then ArmA 2…. what are you talking about!?
@76
Dude, relax. I have been a loyal fan of the OFP series as much as anyone. Yes, I consider ArmA and ArmA II part of the OFP series and I DO NOT consider OFP: Dragon Rising or that other spin-off part of it…
But seriously, it’s not this all-mighty perfect game that you’re so convinced it is. Lay off the kool-aid. I’ve played through the campaign of the original OFP and Resistance probably 5 times each, while they offer gameplay that nobody else have been able to replicate, there have been a lot of problems along the way. Some have been fixed, others have not.
First, when the original OFP came out, there was a bug where after you kill an enemy, the dead enemy will actually report your location to other enemies. This would make it so even if you take out an enemy without anyone else seeing, they will know your location anyhow. And I know you’re going to jump in and say that this is BS and this isn’t true, well, tell that to BIS because they knew about the bug and fixed it with a patch down the road.
Second, they had a problem with the game and its accuracy model. Ever wonder how an infantry soldier with an AK47 can get a direct headshot on you through a small window while you’re inside a house from 600-1000 meters away?? I’m sure you’re going to say that this is real life and anyone who doesn’t like it has been brainwashed by EA or Activision. But no, this was actually a bug with the game, sorry all of you “everything Russian is better than everything American” people out there, the AK47 is simply NOT that accurate, and even if it was, just some infantryman would most likely not be able to make those shots consistently.
Third, the animations have been a problem. Again, you’re going to claim that they haven’t been, but unfortunately, even the developers, BIS, will confirm this. They lacked the sophisticated motion capture machines previously due to the fact that they are a small studio. If you watch these press releases about ArmA III, they even stated specifically that one main improvement over their previous games will be the animations because they finally got their hands on state-of-the-art motion capture tech. So yes, I have high-hopes for the animations in this coming sequel. But as far as OFP, ArmA, and ArmA II, sorry, they have been lacking, and that’s simply a fact. Am I knocking the game for it? Hell no, they are still awesome games that offer you something no other game can offer.
Well, actually I wasn’t a huge fan of the first ArmA. It was definitely too clunky, actually taking a step back from the first OFP. ArmA II fixed a lot of the issues I had with the first ArmA, such as your inability to move while reloading your weapon, lol. But I still have a few issues with ArmA II, and I hope these will be fixed in ArmA III. The biggest issue is the controls. While I like that they utilize the keyboard to have the most options, some buttons are just too redundant or too exclusive when they could be streamlined. Perfect example is changing your shooting position. There shouldn’t be a separate button for going prone and getting out of prone. It really should be a toggle button where pressing it once will make you go prone, pressing it again will make you get out of prone. The way it is now where one button is to kneel, another to go prone, and another yet to stand up, is simply not intuitive enough. And there are other ones where navigating the command menu or communications menu requires multiple button binds and multiple trees to get to the desired command, that really needs to be streamlined to where they are organized so important, commonly used commands are quicker to access and the ones used less frequently will be down the tree a little. The gear menu also needs to be a little more clear on the source and destination. And I’m sure there are other things that I would love to see improved (not dumbed down, just streamlined) but cannot really think of them off the top of my head…
Are the games awesome games that offer a gaming experience that cannot be matched by any of their competitors? HELL YES. Am I a OFP/ArmA fan for life? As long as they stick to their formula of realism over the “cool” factor, HELL YES I will continue to support them. But are they perfect games with no flaws and nothing that can be improved upon?? Hell no… There are always things to improve. Otherwise, there’s no purpose of having a sequel if you don’t improve on anything…
@76
And besides, I’m talking about new games pushing my current PC. Most games now are only as good as what the consoles can handle. So my PC can run most games now while it’s in sleep mode…
It will be using a modified version of Real Virtuality 3 (ArmA 2′s engine).
They should have used a modified version of RV4, I would have waited the extra dev time. I’ll be buying The War Z instead, RV4 still looks clunky and they give Rocket RV3? I mean, c’mon.