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. while the second article featured some unforgettable cooperative scenarios.

For this final article, you will need to prepare yourself to enter combat against other community members, as we are looking at some of the best player vs. player 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 excellent player vs. player experiences for you to enjoy.

CLASHPOINT

ClashPoint is an instant action game mode for Arma 3 that gets you right into the fight! This is one of the most straightforward and easy to set up community-made PvP scenarios on the Steam Workshop, and will produce action-packed gameplay sessions of varying length - depending on the skill and tactics of you or your enemy.

Features:

• Tthe mission automatically adapts to the numbers of players on each side
• Dynamically generated firefights providing unlimited gameplay situations
• 50 different locations on Altis with 300 different match setups
• Ground vehicles and air support
• Modified version of Farooq's revive script
• Allows the use of modded factions
• Works on both local and dedicated servers

Rules:

• Each side starts the round with a ten minute timer
• Holding the ClashPoint makes this timer tick down
• When it reaches zero, the side holding the flag wins. The game is not over until the clock reaches zero for one of the teams
• There are unlimited respawns, and spawn camping is made impossible by a spawn protection around each base

Versions of the scenario exist for Altis, Tanoa, and even the community terrain Kunduz. If you search the Steam Workshop, though, you will find other variants inspired by the original that are made for different mods and terrains by other authors.

EPOCH

Epoch is a popular survival sandbox mod set two years after a massive world-wide extinction. Its exact cause is unknown and the only people left are clones with no memory of the past. Those that remain are left with remnants of a once technological society that may or may not have orchestrated their on downfall in the name of progress.

Players must try to survive, build, and explore their way through a harsh dynamic environment, either together or as adversaries.

Features:

• A powerful persistence framework for Arma 3 with native Windows and Linux dedicated server support
• Base building with upgradeable locking doors, persistent secure and insecure storage devices, and more
• A barter based economy and trading system backed by a single digital crypto currency called "Krypto"
• Hostile environment with several different types of antagonists, air and water temperature extremes, and earthquakes
• Explore, hunt animals, fish, and tame dogs 
• Loot wrecked ships, abandoned vehicles, and buildings
• Perform task based missions

You can learn all about Epoch's narrative, gameplay mechanics, and features by visiting the mod's website and wiki.

EXILE

Exile is another popular survival sandbox mod, and it celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.

The year is 2039, and a major conflict in Greece has left European continent suffering from a major resource crisis and economic crash. This leads crime rates to an all-time high as nations reach a point of near-anarchy. Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Security Council are forced to react, and a desperate alternative to overcrowded and prohibitive prisons has been decided. Offenders are now being sent to the Mediterranean island of Altis.

You have been sent to Altis, and must find a way to survive - either by forming uneasy alliances with others, or through cunning and guile as a lone wolf. Either way, staying alive will not be easy in this cruel, dystopian future.

The mod's original wiki is no longer fully-functional or updated, but you can find out more about Exile by visiting the mod's Discord server and subreddit.

GET WRECKED

Sil's Get Wrecked multiplayer scenario challenges players to create, customize, drive, survive, and destroy. It’s a vehicle combat sandbox that’s designed for small games of up to 16 players. The scenario was jointly awarded third place alongside the co-op scenario Twilight Onslaught in the Multiplayer Game Mode category of Make Arma Not War 2015.

Build a 6-tonne monster, or perhaps a speedy attack quad; the only limit is your creativity. Junk piles offer common loot, while specialist items can be bought from the race sponsors. Once you’ve built your creation, it’s possible to both save and load it next time you play. A range of custom textures is available to put the bling in your ride. For the competitive - weapons and tactical items can have custom keybinds, specific to each vehicle. Once you’ve got your wheels, it’s time to let rubber hit the road.

There are five custom race zones - Swamp, Downtown, Airfield, Wasteland, and Salt Flat. Each zone favors different vehicle types and rewards experience, skilled driving, and strategy. At hand is a huge arsenal of weapons and an assortment of tactical devices to make no game the same. Successful kills reward money equal to the value of the destroyed vehicle, and the longer you stay alive, your value accumulates. Once you’ve got the cash, head back to the workshop. Aside from upgrades, it's possible to purchase new vehicles from the terminal and more exotic weapons from the sponsor shops.

KING OF THE HILL

Seize, control, defend! The extremely popular King of the Hill game mode is a player vs. player sector control mission featuring three teams for Arma 3. As you play you will gain experience, which will in turn unlock new gear and vehicles to aid your team's efforts to control the zone.

To learn more about KotH, you can visit the mod's Discord server and their official website, which features a full wiki as well as a stat page where you can look up your username and see persistent stats across KotH servers.

PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLE ROYALE

Inspired by the Japanese novel of the same name, PLAYERUNKNOWN'S Battle Royale provides a now-familiar gameplay experience that is intense and always changing for the player featuring a fast paced, last man standing wins match.

The rules are simple. There can be only one winner. Everyone else must die!

A variant of PLAYERUNKNOWN'S Battle Royale mission, Ghost Hotel, won second place in the Make Arma Not War 2015 competition's Multiplayer Game Mode category. The mission was expanded upon over time, and eventually released as the massively successful standalone game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG). Much like DayZ before it, PUBG has its origins as an Arma series mod, and went on to kickstart a whole genre that has massively transformed the gaming industry.

Released in 2015, the scenario is available on the Steam Workshop, and continues to receive updates, even a decade later and after the success of PUBG!

RANDOM INFANTRY SKIRMISH

With this game mode, you can immediately jump into a random infantry skirmish on random place on the map. You can choose any faction, any weapon and any vehicles and just start fighting the enemy!

Multiple variations Random Infantry Skirmish are available on the Steam Workshop for 80 different official and community-made terrains. A module version of RIS is also available, and can be used to play the game mode on any terrain of your choice.

Features:

• Fast paced, dynamically generated firefights with infantry and vehicles
• Compatible with any faction mod that has proper units definitions
• Fully customizable - set your own rules, select your gear, pick a location, and pick factions
• Supports single-player, co-op, and PvP (with up to eight players per side)

Game modes:

• Push - attack and capture a sequence of points, one after another while defenders put up a fierce resistance
• King of the Hill - the team that has more units in specified area gets points over time, and the team that reaches point limit first wins
• Team Deathmatch - get points for killing enemy units and reach the point limit to win
• Arena Team Deathmatch - fight in a smaller arena to get points for killing enemy units and reach the point limit to win
• Arena Gun Game - starts with a predefined list of weapons, with everybody starting with the same first weapon, weapons upgrading after every two kills
• Defense - defend an area against increasingly more difficult waves of enemies

WARMACHINE

WARMACHINE is a Conquest-style game mode for Arma 3, with replayable, dynamically generated missions inspired by the Battlefield series for up to 48 players.

Your main task is to fight alongside your team for victory. Choose your favorite weapon or vehicle and fight in epic battles and intense firefights.

Your team has three primary tasks:

• Capture and hold anti-air, artillery, and CAS tower positions 
• Locate and capture enemy bases
• Protect your own bases

Both teams fight for seven objectives a session. Holding a majority of these objectives reduces opponents respawn tickets. Your team wins if enemy respawn tickets are depleted, or if your team captures and holds all seven objectives simultaneously. 

Every WARMACHINE session is unique. In the mission generator, you can select any place on the map, set up mission parameters to your liking, or leave it completely randomized. You can easily create missions from small scale infantry combat to full combined arms combat with vehicles, artillery, and close air support. Autonomous AI is designed to populate the battlefield if there are a low number of players. AI units will join the battle and attack objectives, as well as call artillery, and close air support on their own. AI units respawn on the best position to get into the fight. Players can also be revived by AI teammates.

Over 50 versions of WARMACHINE are available on the Steam Workshop, and feature both official and community-made terrains, with some versions even designed for popular faction and total conversion mods as well as Creator DLCs.

You can learn more about WARMACHINE by visiting their DIscord server.

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 in the player vs. player fight for some time.

Are there any community-made player vs. player scenarios you think we missed? What would you have included in this article? Let Arma Community Manager LeClair know on X, or Discord!

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.