reported by Bohemia Interactive on January 13, 2025

2025 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 2024.

We celebrated Arma 3’s 11th anniversary, released several platform updates, two new Creator DLC, as well as some updates to existing ones - plus we welcomed over a million new recruits to our ranks!

2024 IN NUMBERS

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

LIVE OPS

One of the biggest milestones of last year was when we welcomed nearly 700,000 new recruits to Arma 3 community during the Steam Summer Sale 2024! Close to 100,000 joined us during the sale's first day - the highest number of copies sold in a single day dating all the way back to the initial Arma 3 Alpha release in March 2013!

Throughout the year, we released a series of blogposts to support both these new players and our veterans alike:

Finding an Arma unit to join and play with can be something that greatly enhances your experience. Public servers playing official game modes only scratches the surface of the potential of Arma 3's cooperative and team vs. team multiplayer scene - something that community-organized units and events can provide in full. Even after 11 years of operations, the Arma 3 multiplayer community is still incredibly active, with tens of thousands of people playing daily. To help you find a place to call home, we released a guide on how to find an Arma 3 unit in 2024. The advice within still applies in 2025 if you are someone looking for a unit this year!

Arma 3 has been a major platform for mod developers and content creators. 150,000+ mods are currently available to the public on the Arma 3 Steam Workshop - an absolutely impressive amount of free additional content.

For new players looking to step into modded gameplay for the first time, we published an article that lists some mods that are core staples of many community veterans and units. We believe these mods provide a significant amount of content and expanded game mechanics that will enhance your Arma 3 experience and give you countless hours of immersive milsim gameplay.

We expanded upon this initial article throughout 2024 with a full series. Each one focused on a different mod theme - weapons, equipment, aircraft, vehicles, boats and ships, factions, and terrains. We plan to round off the series this year with two more articles, one featuring gameplay mods, and the other total conversion mods.

Continued Platform Development

2024 saw the release of Arma3 Game Update 2.18, along with along with three hotfixes / mini-updates. These updates brought along many fixes and improvements for players and community content creators. Notable additions to the game included visual haze overrides, ultrawide monitor setting improvements, changes for grenades vs glass and water, and character damage consistency changes.

The experimental client for Mac is current to Arma 3 2.16 This port supports Apple silicon (M1/M2) and Intel chips, ensuring improved performance and better compatibility. 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. They are currently hard at work getting this Mac port current to 2.18 and beyond. Once that update is released, it will once again bring cross-play compatibility with the Windows version.

CREATOR DLC

On March 26th, third-party studio Rotators Collective released their second Creator DLC - Reaction Forces! In this new CDLC, fast decisions with small squads are key. Reaction Forces offers new weapons, vehicles, gear, and more to rapidly react to a multitude of situations in new single and multiplayer scenarios, and to enhance your overall experience in the Arma 3 sandbox. Fight fires from above in the Cougar medium-utility helicopter or swerve from the beaten track in the MOOSE pickup truck to take on operations with new weapons and equipment, from rifles and pistols to remote-controlled mortars and micro-drones.

You can learn more about Reaction Forces here, and about developer Rotators Collective with their Report In! here.

On November 26th, the Marines landed with the release of Arma 3 Creator DLC: Expeditionary Forces! Developed by Tiny Gecko Studios, this CDLC allows you to explore new warfare capabilities in Arma 3. Prepare your Marines for action on the Amphibious Warfare Ship, assault enemy shores with AAV-9 Mack IFVs and Combat Boats, bring supplies ashore with the LCC-1 Landing Craft, perform raids behind enemy lines with new Hunter Reconnaissance Vehicles, and take part in the invasion of Altis from a new perspective.

You can learn more about Expeditionary Forces here, and about developer Tiny Gecko Studios with their Report In! here.

2024 was also a year in which our external third-party development partners released content updates for their Arma 3 Creator DLCs.

Spearhead 1944 by Heavy Ordnance Works received a major content update this past Summer. Update 1.1 deploys players to Mortain during Operation Lüttich (August 7-13, 1944), a major German counterattack during the Battle of Normandy. This new 64 km² terrain features new unique objects and iconic landmarks such as the Mortain Church, Cambremont mine, and L'Abbaye Blanche. Here, players can take part in two new cooperative scenarios designed for up to 6 players. This update includes new weapons and vehicles (including variants), clothing and gear variants, playable factions, immersive German and French radio protocols, and much more.

You can learn more here.

Update 1.3.1 was also released for S.O.G. Prairie Fire by Savage Game Design. This update sees a significant focus on quality-of-life improvements across various game elements and introduces refined mechanics, enhanced sound effects, and bug fixes, all aimed at elevating the player experience.

Notably, 20 vehicles, 15 weapons, and multiple terrain assets have undergone improvements, including adjustments to vehicle handling, weapon dexterity, and performance optimizations. These changes are driven by community feedback and our commitment to historical authenticity and gameplay fluidity.

You can learn more about the content update here.

Savage Game Designhas also continued to support their S.O.G. Nickel Steel project in 2024 with some significant content updates. You can learn more about this Steam Workshop content pack, as well as other initiatives, on the S.O.G. Prairie Fire Discord.

Finally, Rotators Collective released small updates for both of their Creator DLCs. Reaction Forces Update 1.0.2 and Western Sahara Update 1.1.4 added new assets and variants of existing ones, as well as Various fixes and quality-of-life improvements. You can learn more about these updates here.

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

Throughout 2024, 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 2024'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 2024. Even over 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 five more amazing community members in our Community Profile blog series. These mini-interviews aim to give you personal insight into their backgrounds, why they got into Arma, and how they typically experience the game.

Community Play Session Live Streams

We had quite a busy streaming schedule last year, with over fifteen different Arma 3 live streams in 2024! Some major highlights include sessions with Rotators Collective, 6th Airborne Realism Unit, Savage Game Design, DigbyTW, MrJayDarlington, Heavy Ordnance Works, 101st Airborne Division (WW2) Milsim Unit, 3/5 Marines Realism Unit, and Tiny Gecko Studios.

You can view the full playlist of 2024 Arma 3 Live Streams here on YouTube.

2025

Arma Reforger, which will soon receive its 1.3 Update, is now available on PS5, and is achieving significant sales and player count milestones to start the New Year.

Development of Arma 4 is underway for release in 2027.

Where does that leave Arma 3 as it enters its 12th year?

We will continue our maintenance and support of the game as we have in previous years. You can expect 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 look forward to plenty of community activity in 2025 and beyond. Of course we’ll continue to showcase your efforts via our Community Radar, Facebook Page, X account, and other social media platforms. 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.

2025 has big things in store for the Arma Platform!

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