Why should you care about ArmA III?
It's a good question, many of you non sim-freaks dislike ArmA 2, and for some pretty valid reasons.
But ArmA III will be better.
Why? You may ask, well, that's what this thread's all about.
ArmA III is going to be awesome.
Here's a list of the points that people made about ArmA 2 in a negative light.
- Not very optimised
- LOLOL BAD GFX
- Poor animations.
- No PhysX
- Don't like the play style.
- Boring Campaign
Well, most of those are being fixed.
ArmA III is looking gorgeous, the graphics can look pretty lifelike in some of the screenshots, for example these screenies below show off how amazing this game will look:
(That's a Merkava, if you're wondering)
Character customisation (I'll get onto this soon)
The new and improved engine will be much more optimised, this is one of the things that Bohemia Interactive have been focusing on as it was such a problem with the initial ArmA 2 release, however the minimum specs are set to this years latest equipment, which next year won't be a problem, but right now it's looking a little expensive.
There's a whole new animation rendering engine! BIS have re-written the animation system from scratch so the animations will now not only look smooth and natural, but will be pretty kick-ass and easier for modders to incorporate into designs.
On the end of the animations, the 5 death animations I know off by heart (and can re-enact) are being removed and replaced with PhysX.
That's right, PhysX, Bohemia have given in and have included PhysX support in ArmA 3, which a lot of us ArmA players have never thought they would do; this will not affect the bullet physics and the hard-coded core mechanics, but will add an astonishing range of new features that ArmA 3 may have in there (flags etc.being the most basic of those)
The new campaign follows on the back of the old campaign, however you probably don't need to know any of the plot details to get stuck in on the story, which is looking like it could be quite good.
UNDERWATER STUFF. OH MY GOD!
Some screenies hint towards NAVY SEAL water babies being in-game, which will open up an entire new aspect of warfare, UNDERWATER WARFARE. - Not sure how this will go, could be amazing, could be fairly shocking, I don't know, and neither do you.
Gun customisation; A lot of the ArmA vets have expressed concerns over the gun customisation turning ArmA into a new CoD, putting AWS scopes on an MP5, for example; however I think it'll open up a whole new area of gameplay, customising weaponary mid-mission will be a massive tactical input, too many times have I lead a squad of full EOTec M4 rigged guys into an area of operation on a bright sunny day, for it to cloud over and kill all form of visibility, being able to strap an AWS onto a gun would severely reduce the logistical cockups that are abundant in operations.
Character customisation, same as above really, people are a little worried that people like me will dress in bright pink cammies before jumping into a helo. And they'd be right to think that, as that's what I'm going to do.
In all seriousness, though, this could be a nice touch as being able to recognise people will be the final aspect of squad dynamics this game needs, as we already have an ACRE (Advanced Combat Radio Environment) mod which makes full 3D radio and speech transmissions (including terrain blocking radio signals!), and ShackTek's Squad HUD, which has a small HUD showing where everyone in your squad is on the map, which would be a natural instinct on a real battlefield.
Only a few people in my Platoon are instantly recognisable, Indie's old man face, Secluded's ginger hair and Wilson's Blue and White Braveheart face camo.
Having fully customised uniforms could well be a great addition.
A little geekyness for you graphics nerds, but render-to-texture is now being fully supported in ArmA 3, which opens up a whole new way of looking at things, render-to-texture allows objects in game (such as a scope) to see what's in front of it in a realistic way, for example looking through an ACOG scope, you can still see around the scope normally, but the scope itself is zoomed in, most games just have it as a separate graphic that activates while you're scoped, however render-to-texture, as its name suggests, will render the scope's view onto the player-side of the scope.
The game is set in the near future, on an alternate time-line, which allows for things such as the COMANCHE (cancelled in the 90s) to be around, as well as the MERKAVA, a cancelled tank which did look like it was going to be one of the best tanks in the world, this'll open up a whole new dynamic of the game, as the future-tech will be very foreign to even old-school OFP guys.
And if some of you think that ArmA can't really be that tactical, that's what a squad-commander has to think about at every single move or attack, it really is a realistic war sim every pace of the way.
There was more, but this is getting a little tl;dr, and in that case here's the obligatory....
.... tl;dr - Look forward to ArmA 3, even if you don't like ArmA 2, it's going to be pretty bloody good.
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