INTRODUCTION

For over 12 years, Arma 3 has been a major platform for mod developers and content creators, and over 160,000 mods have been uploaded to the Steam Workshop. This could be a daunting amount for our new recruits to search through - so to help, we released a series of blogposts detailing mods that we believe greatly enhance and expand the Arma 3 sandbox for limitless hours of immersive milsim action.

Written for both new and veteran players alike, these blogposts showcased not only mods that you have heard of and have used, but perhaps some hidden gems that will give you some new content to try out. This series started in April of 2024 and was expanded upon with thematic follow-up articles focusing on weapon, equipment, aircraft, land vehicle, boats and ship, faction, terrain, gameplay, and total conversion mods.

Now, to complement this Arma 3 Modding blogpost series, we are releasing some more featuring some of the best community-made scenarios and game modes. The first of these three new articles was all about community-made single-player scenarios. For this second article, you will want to assemble your friends - as we will be detailing some of the best community-made cooperative scenarios available on the Steam Workshop!

This list isn't exhaustive nor comprehensive, and we may very well have missed a favorite scenario of yours. Even still, what has been curated here will provide you with some unforgettable co-operative experiences for you and your friends to enjoy for countless hours.

ANTISTASI

The incredibly popular Antistasi is a persistent cooperative guerrilla warfare mission where you have to fight for freedom from occupying and invading forces. Designed to be an engaging long-form co-operative game mode for any size player group, you will work to build up an insurgency with your friends and disrupt the enemy with the ultimate goal of total liberation. Now packaged as a mod, Antistasi supports a vast array of official and community-made terrains, factions, and mods.

Features:

• Experience an environment at war with either one or two enemies at the same time, which might even fight each other
• Dynamic aggression system which changes enemy reactions based on your actions
• Persistent war in all aspects. Destruction stays the same way as well as your vehicles and garrisons
• Advanced AI system
• Undercover system
• Persistent Stat Save System
• AI Garrisons that use static weapons you add
• Supports up to three Headless Clients
• Difficulty and enemy behaviour is balanced based on player count
• A Setup GUI for choosing factions, parameters, selecting a game to load or creating a new one
• You can have multiple campaigns running in parallel
• Fuel economy system

DYNAMIC RECON OPS

Dynamic Recon Ops (DRO) is a scenario provides an easy to use framework to host multiplayer sessions for a small group of players. Using in-game menus at the start of a session, you can select your faction, the enemy faction, civilian faction, and a list of potential objectives. You can then choose the date, time of day, weather, and a specific or random starting location, and then let the framework procedurally generate a multi-objective mission for you and your friends to complete. The Virtual Arsenal is also available for players to customize their loadouts before deploying. Sessions might last thirty minutes, or they could take hours to complete - but no two missions are the same.

Dynamic Recon Ops features compatibility with numerous faction mods and versions of the scenario ported to a vast amount of community made terrains.

ESCAPE

You and your squad were sent out to scout the military presence on an enemy island in preparation for an invasion. During your mission, you were compromised and got captured by local loyalists, are now held in an improvised prison awaiting enemy officers to arrive for questioning. Friendly insurgents manage to hide a backpack with weapons in your improvised prison. You must then overwhelm the guards, escape the prison, find a map of the island, make contact with your HQ, and then reach the designated evacuation zone to escape the enemy island!

You can find Escape on the Steam Workshop. It is compatible with 50 different terrains, and there are variants that use popular DLC and community mod content available in a Steam Workshop collection here.

HEARTS AND MINDS

Hearts and Minds is a cooperative mission that aims to recreate a post war environment. CSAT forces have retreated from Altis, and NATO has deployed units and vehicles to help the local population. A newly formed militant group, known as "Oplitas," is against the NATO occupation and it is ready to fight back. Your main task is to defeat the Oplitas group and restore peace and order in Altis. The militia has an unknown number of members spread actross the island, and need to be neutralized.  They also have ammo caches in various locations, and if you destroy them, it will weaken them.

Be aware though - actions do have consequences and you will need to maintain your reputation. Helping the local population, fighting the Oplitas and disarming IEDs will rise your reputation. Conversely, killing civilians, losing vehicles, casualties, and respawns will decrease your reputation. At the beginning of your deplyoment, you will have a very low reputation level, so civilians won't help you or revealing important information about Oplitas, and they will likely lie instead.

You can learn more about Hearts & Minds by visiting the scenario's GitHub page. Here you can see what optional mods are available, as well as Tanoa and Livonia versions of the scenario.

Be advised - Advanced Combat Environment 3 (ACE3) is a requirement for this scenario.

KP LIBERATION

Another staple of community cooperative severs, KP Liberation is a large scale and long-form cooperative game mode that will see you conducting combined arms offensives on enemy positions or defending territory from enemy counter-attacks, with the ultimate goal of full island liberation from the enemy.

With the original version of KP Liberation, Altis has fallen, and it is up to you to take it back! Embark with your teammates on a persistent campaign that will span several weeks of real time to liberate all the major cities and settlements of Altis.

KP Liberation is available for other official and community-made terrains as well, and a Steam Workshop Collection of these versions is available here.

Features:

• Experience a massive “Capture the Island” campaign
• Cooperate with up to 34 players, including a Commanding role, two squads, a medevac and a logistical support squad, as well as AI recruits to fill any gaps
• Purchase both infantry and vehicles (both ground and air) using three different types of physical resources: supplies, ammunition, and fuel
• Build the FOB of your dreams with a custom in-game system.
• Play within an immersive engine that not only punishes you for civilian casualties but diversely reacts in turn
• Combat aggressive and cunning hostile forces who react and adapt to your actions
• Monitor and work alongside, or against, independent guerrilla forces
• Learn that every window is a threat thanks to the custom urban combat AI
• Accomplish meaningful secondary objectives that will benefit your progression
• Never lose your progress with the built-in server-side save system

You can learn more about the KP Liberation game mode and its gameplay mechanics and victory conditions by visiting the scenario's Wiki page.

MIKE FORCE

Developed by Savage Game Design as the ultimate way to experience their S.O.G. Prairie Fire Arma 3 Creator DLC, MIKE Force provides dynamic, persistent action on a massive scale, and is the perfect co-op scenario for large milsim units or community servers. Saying this, it is still a rewarding experience even for smaller player counts. The scenario is named after the real-world Mobile Strike Force Command, a US Special Forces commanded unit of indigenous soldiers that would act as quick reaction forces or as a force multiplier in operations.

Vietnam has been infiltrated by communist forces from the North! Choose one of four specialist teams, and co-operate to build bases, expand capability and find and destroy the enemy in this unique, intense, combined arms, conquest mission.

To survive in the jungle, you will need food, water and medicine, tools for building, and a lot of ammo! Earn rank points and medals completing tasks in order to unlock better equipment and support!

You can play as part of four distinct teams:

• Join the Armored Cavalry (ACAV) team to build Forward Operating Bases (FOB's) and run the gauntlet in truck convoys bringing essential supplies.
• Join the Green Hornets team to transport men and materials to remote outposts or directly into a hot LZ on the battlefield, or fly Close Air Support (CAS).
• Join Mike Force team to patrol the jungles, mountains, rivers, swamps and streets, sweeping for enemy camps and fighting positions, and garrison the FOB's when they come under relentless attack from the VC!
• Join the Spike Team to operate deep in enemy territory, evading hostile forces while locating and identifying enemy installations.

An intelligent AI commander ensures that no mission is ever the same in this persistent, challenging, dynamic and immersive Vietnam experience.

MIKE Force is available for all S.O.G. Prairie Fire and S.O.G. Nickel Steel terrains, as well as Altis. You can find all of them in a Steam Workshop Collection here.

OPEX

OPEX (Opérations Extérieures)is an immersive, realistic, and fully dynamic co-operative framework perfect for any number of players. OPEX can be played with or without mods, and will provide countless hours of coordinated milsim action.

Features:

• Designed for up to 50 players
• Select your theater of operations, your army, and your opponent
• Entirely built with random parameters for generating unpredictable situations for unlimited replayability
• Custom menu at startup to enable/disable/set main mission features
• Plenty of things to do: select a specific task (among more than 20 available):
• Patrol to find and fight the enemy
• Locate and destroy weapon caches
• Neutralize IEDs
• Search buildings and interrogate local people to gather intel
• Capture opponents
• Dynamic civilian life with custom interactions (talk, search, and arrest)
• Dynamic AI activities: patrols, ambushes, reinforcements, suicide bombers,and roadblocks
• Dynamic reputation: take care of the local population or it may rise against you
• Gather and exchange intel to recruit AI teammates and to get extra supplies, vehicles, and supports
• AI improvements: ability to assign/unassign NVG/flashlights/silencer depending on daytime and behaviour, and the ability to board into nearest static weapon
• Primary needs system: eat, drink and sleep to avoid bad effects
• Customizable MP synchronized music receiver in order to listen to music into vehicles
• Performance friendly: useless AI entities are automatically disabled/deleted to save computer/server resources
• Persistent save for both server (mission progression and global stats) and clients (loadout and personal stats)
• Compatible with many mods
• Readable content fully translated in French, English, and Spanish

While OPEX can be played without mods, it is highly recommended that you check out the OPEX Mod Collection on the Steam Workshop to expand your selection of terrains, factions, and more - adding much more variety to your experience.

VINDITCA

Vindicta is a dynamic cooperative guerrilla warfare scenario where your goal is to free territory from enemy occupation. This scenario is made for small groups of players who want a challenging and realistic guerrilla experience.

Features:

• Dynamic game world - at game start everything is relatively peaceful and not all outposts are occupied by enemy, and players can travel around without opposition
• Persistence of all units at all garrisons and locations (outposts, bases, roadblocks, and so on)
• As player activity rises in specific area, commander AI will react by deploying quick reaction forces (QRF) and patrols, occupying outposts, constructing roadblocks, and more
• Players start only with handguns and slowly build up their guerrilla movement by capturing equipment and by recruiting civilians
• Intel discovery: actions planned by the enemy commander AI can be discovered by players through intel items or radio interception. Players can use this advance knowledge to intercept supply convoys, patrols, and attacks
• Since all enemy logistics are calculated, guerrilla tactics are the most effective way to reduce enemy forces and to deplete enemy supplies.
• For instance, destroying enemy transports will force enemies to either counter-attack on foot or to send support from elsewhere, until transportation is resupplied from another outpost
• At the start of a new campaign, no enemy locations are known to players. They can be discovered by talking to civilians or by scouting.
• A multi-level AI system which controls AI behavior from commander level down to unit level
• Undercover functionality, which calculates "suspiciousness" of players based on their behavior, clothes, stance and visibility in vehicles
• Players can deploy as many camps, outposts, and roadblocks as they need if they have enough resources. The enemy can also capture those locations
• Campaign customization: you can choose factions to fight against, and the initial number of enemies

To learn more about Vindicta, you can visit the dev team's Discord server. A full player guide and is also available here.

Advanced Combat Environment 3 (ACE3) is a requirement for this scenario.

CONCLUSION

As we said in this article's introduction, this isn't an exhaustive or comprehensive list, and we may very well have missed a favorite scenario of yours. Even still, we believe that what has been curated here will keep you and your friends occupied and having fun for a long, long time.

Are there any community-made cooperative scenarios you think we missed? What would you have included in this article? Let Arma Community Manager LeClair know on X, or Discord! You can also let him know of any suggestions you have for our upcoming articles on co-operative and player vs. player scenarios!

Thank you for reading!

For more information about Arma 3, please visit www.arma3.com. To keep track of all the latest news, be sure to follow @ArmaPlatform on Facebook, X, YouTube, and Steam.