UPDATE: It’s now official, I’ve added a fact sheet and quotes from BIS below.
Well, “announced” would usually imply us getting a barrel full of emails from BIS themselves, but it looks like their website update came before the press releases this time. I’ve been bombarded with links to this, and yes, it’s Arma III. It sounds fairly epic: “After years of intense warfare against Eastern armies, Europe has become the last stand for the battered NATO forces. On the verge of being driven into the sea, NATO command embarks upon a most desperate measure. In the hope of seizing what seems to be a well-guarded military secret, Operation Magnitude is launched. A small group of Special Forces and Researchers are sent to a Mediterranean island deep behind enemy lines.” No tech details as such, but there’s some minimum specs: Intel Core i5 or AMD Athlon Phenom X4 or faster, Shader 3 graphics card, DX10 support minimum.
Goodness! It’s also due “2012”. More information on this when we get it, and I’ve posted the “fact sheet” below.
Bohemia Interactive´s CEO, Marek Spanel, explains: ”We’re happy to bring the next generation of the Real Virtuality engine to life. The increased potential of the engine should allow Arma 3 to become our best-looking, most detailed and innovative military simulation game to date.”
Ivan Buchta, Creative Director of Arma 3, adds: ”Our ambition is not only to deliver the next generation of Arma with the improved engine, but also to fully exploit the potential of our new technology in the gameplay. You can look forward to the unique experience of blending sandbox-style combat with a rich story.”
INTRODUCTION
Arma 3, the latest installment of the tactical military simulation game from independent developers Bohemia Interactive, creators of the award-winning mil-sim series Arma.
STORYLINE
SURVIVE, ADAPT, WIN
After years of intense warfare against Eastern armies, Europe has become the last stand for the battered NATO forces. On the verge of being driven into the sea, NATO command embarks upon a most desperate measure. In the hope of seizing what seems to be a well-guarded military secret, Operation Magnitude is launched. A small group of Special Forces and Researchers are sent to a Mediterranean island deep behind enemy lines. However, the mission is compromised and the task force destroyed, leaving Cpt. Scott Miller washed ashore upon the hostile island. In his effort to carry out the mission, he will face the dangers of modern warfare, an unforgiving environment, and the consequences of his own decisions…SURVIVE in the rich & authentic environment
ADAPT to the unsurpassed experience of modern ground combat
WIN the open-ended & story-driven campaignCombining the strength of its predecessors with radical engine improvements, Arma 3 provides a unique experience of sandbox-oriented combat gameplay in the most detailed environment of the series.
KEY FEATURES
Single-Player Campaign – Evolve from a lone prey into a military commander in the open-ended & story-driven campaign.
Vehicles & Weapons – Control a multitude of aircraft, vehicles and ships with accurate simulation; shoot anything from pistols to sophisticated weapon platforms.
Physical Simulation & Improved Animations – Take advantage of PhysX™ supported vehicle simulation, in-game interactions and the revamped animation system.
Rich & Authentic Environment – Explore an unsurpassed military combat experience set on an authentic Mediterranean island modelled from real geographic data.
Multiplayer Gameplay – Experience both cooperative & competitive scenarios with the full support of dedicated servers for both Windows and Linux.
Completely Extensible & Moddable – Design & create countless customizable scenarios using the intuitive & easy-to-use mission editor.
Customizable Soldier Load – Choose your uniform; assemble your weapon kit; change your load-out; get loaded up.PRODUCT INFO
Title – Arma 3
Developer – Bohemia Interactive
Target platform/Platform – PC
Publisher – Bohemia Interactive
Release date – Summer 2012
Website – www.arma3.com
19/05/2011 at 15:17 Harlander says:
Huh. I guess my next PC upgrade has been scheduled for me. 2012 it is, apocalypse notwithstanding.
19/05/2011 at 15:19 nuttyjawa says:
I was just thinking the same :)
19/05/2011 at 15:54 Andrei Sebastian says:
I just barely got Arma II to work.
The fact is, if you don’t max it out, it looks horrible.
P.S.
Superb game anyway, addicted to it (and I didn’t even start to get into the editor).
19/05/2011 at 18:00 Drakon says:
@Andrei Sebastian: Lol, Unt, tu eşti?
19/05/2011 at 23:36 Andrei Sebastian says:
@Drakon
Lol, Sherlock Holmes, tu esti? :)
20/05/2011 at 00:10 Drakon says:
Elementary, my dear Butter.
20/05/2011 at 06:08 Corrupt_Tiki says:
Agreed. I am hopelessly in love with the ArmA series.. Just got hold of “Reinforcements”, and upgraded my computer so it runs perfect ;P. I will still upgrade my computer to run ArmA 3 though.
Very excited! So many good games, so little time .. =/
19/05/2011 at 15:20 tomeoftom says:
No! Not the East!
19/05/2011 at 15:59 Commisar says:
just how far East are we talking, Russia East or China east?
19/05/2011 at 16:59 Mr Bismarck says:
Essex.
19/05/2011 at 15:21 El_MUERkO says:
:SPOOOOOOGE:
19/05/2011 at 15:23 squirrel says:
I wonder, isnt Czech itself an Eastern country?
Oh, I forgot, Czech is now a member of NATO.
19/05/2011 at 15:21 ZIGS says:
I really hope this time they make a new engine from scratch, the current one is completely outdated, it just has a very pretty coat of paint
19/05/2011 at 15:57 Robin says:
“from scratch”
Looking at the screenshot it seems an updated version of arma2 engine. And looking at the screenshot I’m frightened at the hardware it might need to run smoothly.
We’ll see.
19/05/2011 at 16:03 mlaskus says:
I really hope this time it will work on my computer, any of my computers. I’ve so far been unable to play anything post Operation Flashpoint from those guys.
19/05/2011 at 15:21 Jimbo says:
“Customizable Soldier Load – choose your uniform, assemble your weapon kit, change your loadout, get encumbered.”
Haha.
19/05/2011 at 15:24 Jim Rossignol says:
Arf.
19/05/2011 at 16:14 Vorrin says:
Well, is it just me, or physix aside, all the key features are the same exact ones of arma 2?
Also I wonder if :
“Multiplayer Gameplay – Experience both cooperative & competitive scenarios with the full support of dedicated servers for both Windows and Linux”
Is a nice way to say they’ll make the netcode half decent this time around :D
19/05/2011 at 16:39 skurmedel says:
They are. I love ArmA, but I would like to see them fix some of the issues left from the ArmA 1 days. Also I hope it runs better this time on release.
AI smarter than a debilitated crab would be swell.
19/05/2011 at 15:23 Keilnoth says:
Is that some kind of a yoga simulation ?
link to bistudio.com
19/05/2011 at 15:34 Harlander says:
They really should have done a shot of a bunch of soldiers worshipping the one true god of ArmA, the mighty ammo crate.
19/05/2011 at 17:20 Unaco says:
you mean, Like this?
20/05/2011 at 07:54 Harlander says:
Yes, exactly like that.
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY CRATE
19/05/2011 at 15:24 El_MUERkO says:
The official website is now online: link to arma3.com
19/05/2011 at 15:25 Daniel Rivas says:
This all sounds a bit Modern Warfare-ish to me.
19/05/2011 at 15:27 Joseph-Sulphur says:
Well, Russia doesn’t seem to have magically been able to perform Market Garden II all over the USA’s western seaboard, so it isn’t as implausible as Modern Warfare 2 was.
19/05/2011 at 15:31 Unaco says:
“This all sounds a bit Modern Warfare-ish to me.”
Why? Because it has men with guns, shooting other men with guns? Because it features some warfare, and it’s set around the modern period? Have you played a BIS game before?
19/05/2011 at 15:35 Daniel Rivas says:
Because Arma 2 was about the US quietly putting down a petty dictatorship and getting into a rumble with Russia near the end, and this one appears to be about world war 3. Similar transition from MW1 to MW2, no?
And partly because I wanted to get that reaction out of you, of course.
19/05/2011 at 15:44 heretic says:
urgh… a mwfag, getouttahere
19/05/2011 at 19:13 pepper says:
I think they have done this just so that they can move the theatre west, they have done eastern europe and the middle east.
20/05/2011 at 06:12 Corrupt_Tiki says:
I agree with Heretic and Pepper on this one. Shouldn’t you be trying to get 10th prestige in BLOPS or something?
20/05/2011 at 09:37 Daniel Rivas says:
Love you all.
19/05/2011 at 15:26 Joseph-Sulphur says:
I’m buying a new PC then. Also, the Mediterranean setting sounds awesome, like Sahrani but with a bit more flavour.
19/05/2011 at 15:27 squirrel says:
“Evolve from a lone prey into a military commander in the open-ended & story-driven campaign”
Exactly what I’ve been waiting for. Cant wait to see how they implement this concept. In Brothers-In-Arms I didnt have much of a feeling of commanding friendly AIs. Hope BIS would do a better job to present it.
I guess this game may make Battlefield series obsolete, huh?
19/05/2011 at 15:31 cqdemal says:
Not really. Battlefield is still something the average player can easily get into. ARMA 2 has a much, much steeper learning curve and I expect this to be the same.
That said, finally some physics!
19/05/2011 at 15:33 Harlander says:
ARMA is to Battlefield as Gunship 2000 is to Choplifter.
We reserve the right to replace this with a better comparison if one should become available.
19/05/2011 at 17:15 Jad says:
iRacing is to Burnout Paradise?
19/05/2011 at 20:44 Sigh says:
“We reserve the right to replace this with a better comparison if one should become available.”
Poor netcode to Poor netcode.
19/05/2011 at 15:28 Nighthood says:
PhysX support and improved animations sound wonderful. They were the only things holding ArmA2 back.
19/05/2011 at 15:49 Dana says:
Too bad PhysX is rubbish. Havok ftw.
19/05/2011 at 15:57 Andrei Sebastian says:
Agreed.
PhysX – epic fail.
19/05/2011 at 16:25 Nighthood says:
I’d take PhysX over Havok any day. Havok is really dodgy.
19/05/2011 at 15:30 spongthe1st says:
Exciting stuff. I don’t think the engine is that bad but they’d do well to make it a bit more fluid and connected so you don’t feel like a tiny Men In Black alien piloting a giant man-suit from behind the eyes with levers.
Also, I haven’t played the ARMA2 standalone expansions yet to know if this was updated but they really need to put dragging injured comrades into multiplayer, and deployable heavy weapon emplacements – machine guns, mortars, grenade launchers, field guns – that sort of thing. Oh and helicopter rapelling.
Basically anything which has had to be re-modded into every single game since OpFlash 1, anything covered by the ACE mods, they should just put it in as a feature from the start and save us the bother of having to download them as mods.
19/05/2011 at 15:53 Joshua says:
Deployable weapons and dragging wounded comrades are already in multiplayer.
19/05/2011 at 17:08 spongthe1st says:
Exerent! Which expansion added them? Operation Arrowhead or the newer one? Cos they certainly weren’t in vanilla Arma 2 without the use of mods.
19/05/2011 at 19:38 Phried says:
Dragging comrades was definitely in Arma 2 Vanilla (You had to use one of the official scripts in the editor) however, I don’t think deploy-able weapons were.
19/05/2011 at 15:33 McDan says:
Now to finally get a properly good pc I suppose, goodbye money, nice knowing you,
19/05/2011 at 15:33 Vexing Vision says:
So… how’s the AI?
19/05/2011 at 16:20 Keilnoth says:
They will start coding it 2 weeks before release…
19/05/2011 at 19:13 sinister agent says:
Finally, some sense.
Wooo! more details! Prettierness! All for nothing if the AI can be outwitted by a tetris block.
Just when I’ve got a PC that can run Arma 2. Bloody typical.
20/05/2011 at 06:15 Corrupt_Tiki says:
They seem to be quite good at evicting my brains onto the grass in front of me…
But I admit I really am quite rubbish at this game, I still love it though!
19/05/2011 at 15:38 heretic says:
Bleh… I’m going to upgrade the PC this summer to be able to play the Witcher 2 and Deus Ex HR at good settings, and this comes up?!
My PC is always good enough to run the previous generation Arma… right now it can run Arma 2 but not at a nice enough detail/frame rate to make it really nice, so I guess it can only run Arma 1 reasonably. By the time this comes out my “new” PC will be able to run Arma 2…
Well I guess I can hope it gets delayed into 2013 anyway…
19/05/2011 at 16:00 Andrei Sebastian says:
Hey developers, seriously, don’t be afraid to delay the game.
We want quality.
Ffs don’t rush it.
19/05/2011 at 15:49 ShowMeTheMonkey says:
Physics! All I want them to improve is this.
ArmA II pisses me off when I drive over a small shrub in a tank. The result? Bouncing in mid-air…
19/05/2011 at 15:52 Njordsk says:
my 580 exploded just looking at the screenshots.
Curse you BI, curse you !
19/05/2011 at 15:53 Joshua says:
Single-Player Campaign – Evolve from a lone prey into a military commander in the open-ended & story-driven campaign.
You know, Arma 2 did that too. I never liked that single player campaign… (Operation Arrowhead was better).
19/05/2011 at 16:05 MajorManiac says:
Woot!
Portal 2, The Witcher 2, Deus Ex 3, Skyrim and now ARMA 3. I haven’t been this excited about pc gaming since Bioshock.
19/05/2011 at 16:29 Teddy Leach says:
You poor sod.
20/05/2011 at 11:46 MajorManiac says:
*blows raspberry*
19/05/2011 at 16:12 caljohnston says:
Shouldn’t they bring ArmA 1 and ArmA 2 out of their pre-alpha state first?
20/05/2011 at 01:17 HeavyHarris says:
Zing!
19/05/2011 at 16:20 Real Horrorshow says:
Awesome news.
It’d be even awesomer news if we got proof that it has a less complex interface than actual military gear, has settings that mean what they say (higher shadow settings running better than lower ones), voice overs THAT – DON’T – SOUND LIKE – MAN – DEAD – SINCE – 1 O’CLOCK…
you get the idea.
19/05/2011 at 17:11 Flaringo says:
“It’d be even awesomer news if we got proof that it has a less complex interface than actual military gear …”
I’d certainly hope not, it is a military simulator after all!
19/05/2011 at 16:24 Sinkoristo says:
i5 as a minimum?
Jesus..
19/05/2011 at 16:30 Teddy Leach says:
I’m half tempted to buy it and run it on my single-core, just to see what happens.
19/05/2011 at 17:08 Dom says:
Jim says those specs are minimum but the BIS site says they’re recommended.
Who says what is the truth, I wonder.
20/05/2011 at 08:38 Corrupt_Tiki says:
I bought a copy of ArmA 2 for my mates little brother (It was only 20$ on sale, and I don’t mind supporting games I like!) He had a pentium 4, and an atrocious vga card, and erm, the installer chernobyl’d his computer, and when it didn’t lock up, it just flat out refused to load.
So I am selling him my old core 2 duo and accs.. for like 50$ or something haha.
19/05/2011 at 16:27 MajorStoffer says:
I sincerely hope they improve upon Arma’s godawful control scheme and interface.
The one reason I never got into the series, despite enjoying milisims, liking the punishing realism, is the fact that I had to wade through unintuitive menus to do anything. That, and the “army command” mechanics were absolutely terrible, in particular the matter of “building” troops and bases.
It’s probably the only game I’ve ever played where were it not for the interface and controls, I’d play it until the apocolypse.
19/05/2011 at 16:33 Holysheep says:
Blah blah blah Physx
Goodbye Arma !
19/05/2011 at 16:33 Redcoat-Mic says:
Okay okay I’m excited.
BUT!
I’m bloody sick of games where there’s a HUGE FUCK OFF war to fight in but you’re part of a small team behind enemy lines.
Fuck that, send me with the grunts fighting World War 3, I don’t bloody care for me and my 4-5 man team loitering around in the enemies secret bunkers.
19/05/2011 at 16:42 Teddy Leach says:
There’s a fair few games with enormous battle sequences, where there are respawning allies and enemies and objectives to complete to progress.
In these situations, I never complete the objectives, I just take part in the battle.
I would love the soul out of a game that is focussed around this.
19/05/2011 at 17:12 trooperdx3117 says:
What i5 processors! Minimum! Christ so basically no one in the world will be able to play this game above minimum then when it comes out
19/05/2011 at 17:13 Ergates_Antius says:
So we can expect a new fully working ARMA game sometime in 2013 then.
19/05/2011 at 17:17 westyfield says:
Please, please, oh please be set on Malta, Gozo and Comino. Only this morning I was thinking about how awesome a mil-sim set on Malta would be, and now ArmA3 teases me with that very possibility!
19/05/2011 at 17:28 Ertard says:
Wow, okay, sounds like it will be exactly as unoptimized as the last one then. Hopefully they at least try to scale down this time and apply some amount of polish.
I loved OFP to absolute death despite the jank and bugs, but I found ARMA and ARMA 2 quite unplayable. Incredibly broken and crazy unoptimized. Would appreciate some bit of streamlining in the general game (especially the dreadful menus/control thing) as well – please don’t shoot me, hardcore ARMA fans.
19/05/2011 at 17:29 Khann says:
I do believe we are again seeing the rise of the PC. I expect it to be the dominant platform throughout 2013, until devs shift to the new consoles in 2014.
No idea how this is really relevant to anything, just wanted to get it off my chest.
19/05/2011 at 17:48 Gunrun says:
When asked “how much are nvidia paying you guys” when I found out its using physx a Bohemia Interactive employee said this – ” no omment”
I’m going to assume he meant “No Comment” which is PReese for “A whole bunch” in this context.
19/05/2011 at 23:50 Andrei Sebastian says:
lol
P.S.
Quick, he actually meant to say “no omment”. IT’S AN ARG!
20/05/2011 at 08:09 sidhellfire says:
Well this question is a bit silly, because they were using PhysX in their non-commercial product (Virtual Battlespace).
19/05/2011 at 17:55 SprintJack says:
RL comparison
Google Earth: link to i222.photobucket.com
(39° 53’57.80″N, 25° 4’16.28″E)
Game: link to i.imgur.com
It’s greek island called Lemnos (477km sq)
More info in there:
link to forums.bistudio.com
Looks great!
19/05/2011 at 18:06 Cugel says:
I’ve been an Ofp/Arma fan since the beginning, and I will definately buy this one too. That being said;
“After years of intense warfare against Eastern armies, Europe has become the last stand for the battered NATO forces. On the verge of being driven into the sea, NATO command embarks upon a most desperate measure.”
“Eastern Armies”? Really? What is this 19th century Yellow Peril bullshit?
20/05/2011 at 11:15 Ed123 says:
Really, Cugel? You’re a Flash/ARMA fan but you’ve never seen the OpFor referred to as “East” until now?
21/05/2011 at 11:17 Cugel says:
I think it’s the plural in combination with the “NATO backed against the wall” stuff. It’s got this whole eastern horde of savages against the valiant white man vibe going.
19/05/2011 at 18:41 Hensler says:
Was planning on upgrading my system around the release date of Battlefield 3… but I might wait a while longer to make sure I’m at the bleeding edge for ARMA 3.
19/05/2011 at 19:00 Kevin says:
Bohemia, I think I speak for all gamers when I say this:
If you’ve got some leftover budget to spitshine the game engine, for god’s sake, don’t spend it on modeling the effects the backwash from the wings of a fly will have on ballistics, make sure the goddamn fucking game is OPTIMIZED!
If ArmA II was anything to go by, the i5 will struggle to get 20 FPS for ArmAIII, and considering that that’s a really respectable CPU by today’s standards, not enough people who have that are going to want to get an i7 or whatever CPUs Intel and AMD are going to come out next come ArmAIII
19/05/2011 at 19:08 Kevin says:
Oh, yeah, and the voice acting….
You don’t have to record only single words for that text-to-speech radio chatter system. For a game that’s as realistic as the OFP and ArmA games, it ruins the immersion when a ransom note starts yelling at me. I’m just saying that games like Jane’s F/A-18, Silent Hunter, and Digital Combat Simulator have a similar “Mad Libs” type system, but they have it so that it doesn’t sound as jarring (for example: in Jane’s F/A-18, they have parts of a sentence recorded as: “Case three recovery, marshal on the…” as one mp3 file, rather than every single word as separate sound files)
19/05/2011 at 19:16 pepper says:
Operation Arrowhead released a bunch of updates that improved the engines performance a lot. I think they are getting better and better at this.
20/05/2011 at 08:28 sidhellfire says:
Well, texture makers and modellers are getting salary as the programmers do. I see no point being them idle while others being praised.
19/05/2011 at 19:21 Rii says:
@pepper
It would be kinda funny if they skipped the whole ‘content’ charade next time around and simply charged for improved performance. It could be an entirely new business strategy for the industry. 10 FPS as the new Free2Play.
EDIT: Goddamn it.
19/05/2011 at 20:47 Cugel says:
That’s actually a good idea! I love Bohemia’s games, yet I don’t think I’ve managed to bother with more than two or three of the stock missions in any of them.
A good canon set of units and vehicles would still be nice though, to ensure multiplayer compatibility across the board.
19/05/2011 at 21:05 Sangman says:
Screenshots look good. Maybe the campaign won’t be a broken, buggy mess this time around! Seriously the engine used in the ARMA games is fantastic but engine alone doesn’t make a game… for a guy like me who plays games for the SP campaigns, ARMA2 was terrible.
19/05/2011 at 21:10 The_Great_Skratsby says:
Oh my.
Popped a minor boner.
On release purchase from myself, happy to support Bohemia since OFP.
I trust them to do a good job, but chaps, please work on improving the age old interface and command system, as well as the engine quirks and bugs.
Then I’ll shed manly tears of joy – while lying face down in the dirt as tracers fly about like it’s 2001.
Though I am surprised they can financially support a new title, I didn’t think Bohemia was in terribly good shape post ArmA then ArmA II? Digital saved the day?
19/05/2011 at 21:25 The Dude says:
Absolutely no word on the editor? The editor is what makes the ArmA games!
19/05/2011 at 23:17 bascule42 says:
/Quote Completely extensible & moddable – design & create countless customizable scenarios using the intuitive & easy-to-use mission editor. /Unquote
19/05/2011 at 22:18 Hunam says:
I bet it will still have that eery head turn animation that’ll quickly spin to who they’re talking to and slowly and mechanically swivel back to straight ahead.
19/05/2011 at 23:16 bascule42 says:
BI & the Arma series. Where you wont see the phrases; “Appealing to a wider audience”, or ” a streamlined gaming experience”. Fuck yeah….
19/05/2011 at 23:53 Deuteronomy says:
I love how RPS completely ignored the ARG leading up to this announcement. The mere hint from Valve that they were doing an ARG made RPS shamefully shat itself.
20/05/2011 at 00:46 Rii says:
Sounds like they’re learning.
20/05/2011 at 09:37 rei says:
Going down a bare hill like that seems pretty amateurish, and they actually expect there to be enemies at the bottom since the third guy is looking down his sights. This game is unrealistic!
20/05/2011 at 09:46 TeraTelnet says:
Er, I’d rather have Carrier Command: Gaea Mission sometime before the Apocalypse, please.