Arma 3

Arma 3 is a military simulation from the studio Bohemia Interactive, continuing a long line of games starting with Operation Flashpoint and continuing through Arma 1 and Arma 2. The game puts the player in the role of a soldier in a fictional Mediterranean setting and offers a huge open world that can be traversed on foot, in armored vehicles, on ships, and in airplanes and helicopters. The foundation is a maximum emphasis on realism – ballistics affected by distance and wind, long-range visibility, fatigue, injuries, and tactics are much closer to military training than to an action shooter, and the player has to learn to work with a map, compass, azimuth, and radio communication between squad members.

The campaign follows a fictional conflict on the islands of Altis and Stratis, but Arma 3's greatest strength lies in its mission editor and its huge modding community, which to this day creates extensive multiplayer scenarios, new maps, vehicles, and entire game mods – the best-known derivative project is the survival game DayZ, alongside dozens of other community modes such as Zeus, King of the Hill, or extensive roleplay mods. The sound is detailed down to the last nuance, gunshots and explosions sound different depending on distance and environment, the music is rather ambient and subordinate to the atmosphere of endless fields, forests, and abandoned villages, which makes the game feel raw and believable even after hours of play.

At release, Arma 3 earned recognition as one of the most ambitious military simulations on PC and to this day remains a genre standard thanks to regular expansions, paid and community DLC, and an active player base that regularly gathers for large organized operations. For players looking for arcade action, it can be demanding and inaccessible, with a long learning curve for the basic mechanics, but for fans of realistic tactics it remains one of the deepest experiences PC has to offer, and its influence can be seen in a number of later military simulators and battle royale titles.

Why play it: For fans of realistic military tactics, Arma 3 remains one of the deepest experiences PC has to offer, even though newcomers face a steep learning curve compared to arcade shooters.