Arma 3 Playable Alpha Coming Post E3

Just like they did with Take On Helicopters, Bohemia Interactive are going to crowd-source a portion of Arma 3's bug-testing to the community, as well as just letting everyone have a poke around, with a playable alpha release sometime after E3. Their military sim series has always suffered brutally buggy launches, but with plenty of players poking at it in the months before release, things should run a lot smoother. And by that, I mean a LOT smoother. Gamers will be able to start planning mods ahead of the full launch, and you'll also totally be able to put 'Game Q&A Tester' on your CV.

The blog post points out how they're striving for useability, a welcome addition to the clunky finger-curling series. I understand why they feel the need for the reams and reams of menus, but I don't think it's particularly well done. Here's hoping they'll achieve a balance of complexity and accessibility. A difficult thing when your game has 900 square kilometers of land filled with dynamic AI and missions, and hundreds of accurately modeled military toys, but at least they're asking for input.

It does amount to a delay, as the full game was expected in summer, but quell that rising anger with a few new screenshots. They're pretty.