reported by Bohemia Interactive on January 5, 2024

2024 is here! With a new year upon us, we would like to take a moment and look back on some of Arma 3's highlights in 2023.

We celebrated Arma 3’s 10th anniversary, released several platform updates, a new Creator DLC, as well as some updates to existing ones – plus we welcomed over a million new recruits to our ranks!

Meanwhile, the community has been as active as ever - playing the game, sharing screenshots, making videos, forming units, and posting tens of thousands of new items to the Steam Workshop.

Let's briefly recap the many highlights of 2023.

2023 IN NUMBERS

Here are some of this year’s key accomplishments summarized in an infographic:

LIVE OPS

10th Anniversary Celebrations

2023 marked 10 years of Arma 3. Throughout the year both Bohemia Interactive and the community marked the occasion on social media - reminiscing about all that has happened over that decade. Our Anniversary Live Stream series, featuring Arma Community Manager Nillers interviewing key individuals responsible for the game's development, is currently available on YouTube. This series includes episodes on Arma 3's background, history, and setting; audio design, sound engine, and soundtrack; and the game's Zeus Game Master and Eden Editor.

Our celebrations culminated with a live stream event on Arma 3's release anniversary. This retrospective included a panel of special guests and a series of community shoutouts - and ended with cake!

Continued Platform Development

We also celebrated a decade of Arma 3 with the release of Arma 3 Update 2.14. This free platform update featured a number of fixes and improvements, as well as new game assets. Along with new “extreme” graphics preset options and two new Steam Achievements, Update 2.14 introduced the T-100X “Futura“ Railgun Tank to the front lines, a Battlefield Memorial prop, and a number of clothing items and props from Bohemia Incubator title Project Argo.

The experimental client for Mac is current to Arma 3 2.14. This port supports Apple silicon (M1/M2) and Intel chips, ensuring improved performance and better compatibility. This Mac version is cross-play compatible with the Windows version. Now you can enjoy the same official DLC content as your friends playing on Windows! We want to thank our Virtual Programming partners for their valuable work. Their expertise has helped us to offer better options for players on Mac systems.

Veterans Day Initiative

On November 1st, we released an Arma 3 Czech Veterans Pack, in collaboration with Civilisté děkují za službu to honor those who have served or are currently serving in the military. We invited our community to create screenshots using this pack of in-game assets alongside other mods, like the unofficial ACR_A3 - Army of the Czech Republic mod, which brings various Czech vehicles, uniforms, and other assets to Arma 3. You can read more about this initiative here.

CREATOR DLC

On July 25th, Operation Cobra was a go with the launch of Arma 3 Creator DLC: Spearhead 1944. Developed by third-party studio Heavy Ordnance Works, this CDLC transports players to the bocage of Normandy, where they can participate in the Allied invasion of northern France during the Summer of 1944. Featuring a massive 150 km² terrain and a co-operative campaign for up to 24 players based on real world events. This new addition also offers 90+ weapons and vehicles (including variants), 400+ clothing and gear variants, 6 multiplayer scenarios, new playable factions, immersive audio design and music, and much more. You can learn more about Spearhead 1944 here, and about developer Heavy Ordnance Works with their Report In! here.

2023 was also a year in which two of our other external third-party development partners released content updates for their Arma 3 Creator DLCs.

Vertexmacht released the fifth major content update for Arma 3 Creator DLC: Global Mobilization - Cold War Germany. Update 1.5 delivered four free new vehicles/vehicle variants, a new multiplayer scenario and game mode, and together with a general overhaul to much of the content in the DLC. You can learn more here.

Update 1.3 was also released for S.O.G. Prairie Fire by Savage Game Design. This major content update saw the addition of 10 new vehicles and static weapons with 36 variants as well as 18 new weapons, with detailed animations, sounds, attachments and melee features. Update 1.3 also introduced five new factions to the CDLC. Each faction is equipped with their own weapons, equipment, and vehicles relevant to a number of timeframes featured in the DLC.

This update makes S.O.G. Prairie Fire that much more the definitive video game Vietnam War experience. You can learn more about the content update here.

You can enjoy a Developer Play Session Live Stream featuring Arma Community Manager LeClair playing the ever popular MIKE Force with Savage Game Design team members and the Arma community here.

Savage Game Design also announced their S.O.G. Nickel Steel project in 2023. You can learn more about this Steam Workshop content pack, as well as other initiatives, here on the S.O.G. Prairie Fire Discord.

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

Throughout 2023, the creativity of the Arma community was on full display, and with our Community Spotlights and Community Radars, we've highlighted numerous new artworks, videos, events, and mods. As with our previous Years in Review articles, it is difficult to select only a few of our favorites. Below you'll see a sample of 2023's community content, but you can find many other community-made works re-shared on our various social media channels.

Artworks

We've seen a range of community artists share their talents every day throughout 2023. Even a decade later, there doesn't appear to be any lack of creativity!

Videos

Whether it's gameplay, machinima, or tutorials, the community continues to be passionate about creating videos! Here are but a few of a number of video made about Arma 3 this past year:

Mods & Addons

We owe the modding community a significant amount of gratitude for their steady production of high quality modifications to Arma 3. We still see amazing creations - both big and small - that continue to push the limitations of the game!

Community Profiles

We featured a few community members in a resurrection of the Community Profile blog series. These mini-interviews with some of our amazing community members aim to give you a personal insight into their backgrounds, why they got into Arma, and how they typically experience the game.

Community Play Session Livestreams

Throughout the year, Arma Community Manager LeClair hosted a number of Community Play Session Live streams with some groups and personalities of the Arma Community. These play sessions included infantry action with 3 Commando Brigade Realism Unit, a combat air patrol with Viper1Zero, and Operation Bluecoat with DigbyTW. You can check out the full YouTube playlist of 2023's Live Streams to experience the action yourself!

2024

So, what is the plan as Arma 3 enters its 11th year? Even with Arma Reforger, reaching its 1.0 milestone this past November, and with development of Arma 4 underway, we still have some plans for Arma 3!

We will continue our maintenance and support of the game in a similar way as last year. We expect to publish more updates for existing third-party Creator DLC, and potentially some entirely new Creator DLC projects. This cannot be confirmed, however, until such time as these projects near their final milestones, so stay tuned for more information.

We can look forward to plenty of community activity in 2024 and beyond. Of course we’ll continue to showcase your efforts via our Community Radar, Facebook Page, and X (Formerly Known as Twitter) account. If you are looking to contribute yourself, the BI Forums, Arma Discord, and Arma Subreddit are great places to participate and share your works! The Community and Developer Play Session Live Stream series will continue, and we plan to expand our streaming program to potentially include interviews and creative sessions with content creators and modders.

We can't wait to see what 2024 has in store for the Arma Platform as a whole!

VERIFY YOUR AGE

SORRY, YOU MAY NOT ACCESS THIS CONTENT