ArmA 3 alpha to kick off next week: feast your eyes on these delicious new screens
By Tim Colwill on February 27, 2013 at 1:00 am
Bohemia have revealed that a private alpha for their upcoming ArmA III will be launching very soon on Tuesday, March 5. The alpha will continue right up until game launch, and is expected to regularly updated with the latest builds of the game for you to enjoy and provide feedback on.
The Alpha will feature four showcase missions (Infantry, Vehicles, SCUBA and Helicopter), as well as limited subset of weapons and vehicles, two multiplayer scenarios, and even modding support through the scenario editor. Stratis, the smaller island from the game, will be the stage for alpha gameplay.
Purchasing Arma III on Steam will give instant alpha access, with purchasing discounted for pre-purchasers prior to release. Getting access to the alpha will also give you some passes you can hand out to the ‘Alpha Lite’ for your friends. The Alpha Lite will be different in that it only includes single-player gameplay and no modding support, as well as starting one week later (March 14) and ending earlier (June 15). An interesting approach, and a good chance to see how the game will look on your system. Time to schmooze up to your friends?
To celebrate, Bohemia have sent us through just now four new screens from the latest build of this very excellent-looking game. Click to ‘embiggenate, naturally.
ArmA 3 will begin beta testing at the end of June
Is your body ready?
“Accessible, but not dumbed down”: hands-on with the ARMA 3 beta
Bohemia tells us that ArmA 2 was a missed opportunity to show players more.
ArmA 3 rolls out sniper package, get your rifle and ghillie suit
Two new high-powered sniper-rifles added to the mix in latest patch.
You can use the following bbCode
[i], [b], [img], [quote], [url href="http://www.google.com/"]Google[/url]
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
facebook
twitter
google+
rss
Tim, you just made my day :)
Wonderful news.
$32 AUD – March 5th. NEAT
Woohoo, can’t wait
Looks amazing as usual. Hopefully it’s not as janky as the previous games.
I’m betting it will be…..
Am I the only one that can’t find ARMA 3 on the Steam store? O.o
edit: Nevermind, it’s not available on Steam yet, duh.
1. What is that car? They’ve always stuck to real world vehicles in ArmA games. so what’s that?
2. That helicopter looks way too glossy.
3. I hope to god they’ve fixed the driver animations for vehicles.
4. Hopefully they haven’t made the animations too clean to appease the Day Z boarders seeing as the game’s never been about twitch shooting, and always given a weight to it.
The vehicles look great but that terrain needs some bump mapping, I’m hoping it’s not final.
I’m very disappointed at the Steam exclusivity.
The game is set “in the near-future, during the mid-2030s”.
TBH, I think the lack of a simulative setting and Steam exclusivity are indicative of BIS appealing to mainstream gamers. At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if ArmA IV was a multiplatform release with killstreaks and achievements.
It’s really the first step towards selling out as Crytek did.
R.I.P. Simulators/Serious Games/Thinking Man’s Shooters/Independent Game Design/…
</melodrama>
Hopefully there’s still a niche market for one developer to support the aforementioned genres persistently in the future.
Bump mapping?!.. what is this 1998? Pretty sure you mean Parallax Mapping (or rather Tessellation since its nicer than Parallax maps).
anyways.. $32… hell yes.
I mean any one of the bump mapping techniques. There doesn’t seem to be any at all.
Why does everybody keep saying $32 dammit, i’m throwing that exact amount at the screen but nothing is happening
Well they’ve really embraced the contemporary marketing scheme here:
http://www.arma3.com/buy
With the “Digital Deluxe Edition” at 15 Euros over the nominal license you get:
* Digital Soundtrack — Presumably a collation of the tracks already installed.
* Digital Maps — Will certainly be available online as original works and probably with improved details.
* Digital Tactical Guide — A digital version of the booklet which you look at once and then store back in the box.
* ArmA: Cold War Assault — The rebadged version of the 12 year old Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. A great (old) game but it’s already available as a free download if you own the original title.
These inclusions might warrant the 15 Euro premium in hard copy but they’re almost worthless in soft copy.
Having said that, the nominal license is bloody cheap. :D
@ J-Me
selling out “like crysis did”. Rofl. Really?
HOW DARE an independant developer who is wholly and solely responsible for paying the wages of everyone working there even THINK of opening themselves up to a bigger audience.
HOW DARE that same independant developer even ever THINK of making gameplay changes that might ensure a greater number of sales.
HOW DARE ANY developer deliver fully moddable games that ensure thousands of hours of content for its very satisfied community.
To continue in your own melodramatic vein, you are everything that is wrong with gamers today.
Basically everything ‘DarkMellie’ said.
Please continue i’d like to hear more of what you have to say.
LOL! I am “everything that is wrong with gamers today”? The accusation implies that today’s gamers are wrong relative to gamers from an era gone by. The accusation cannot be true since I am clearly a gamer from an era gone by and not a gamer of today.
“solely responsible for paying the wages of everyone working there”
You’re arguing my point for me. I wouldn’t even be so extreme. I would think most developers have at least some interest in developing quality games they can be proud of.
“making gameplay changes that might ensure a greater number of sales”
Now I’m not averse to that at all.. Only when it comes at the expense of originality.
“fully moddable games”
Uuhh not sure why you think I’m averse to that. Straw man?
I’d love to, but I think we’d stray too far from the original topic.
Murray Hibble,
You know they also sold ArmA 1/2 as a similar engine of VBS?
I haven’t exactly heard anything about the new VBS though.
That’s fine, but don’t expect series fans to buy it when the core game is overhauled so completely (or at least, they are giving the impression it has). They’ll get greater sales though I’m sure; the series has always been moddable anyway so I don’t understand what your point is there; even since OFP.
When I say that you represent today’s gamer, j-Me, I’m referring to the behaviour of gamers today, not necessarily someone who has only recently become a gamer (I too have been playing for many decades).
Forumrabbit, what evidence do you have that the core game has been overhauled so severely that core fans (of which I am definitely one) wouldn’t like it? To me, it looks like the same game as before with a few extra… extras it desperately needs to be less like a mannequin show and more like a game that represents fluid human movement.
Back to J-Me, how does the bit about pay make your point? I think this makes MY point, too many gamers ignore fiscal reality for developers in an intensely competitive and cutthroat industry. Money is going to inform the games we play in a myriad of ways… and I’ll suggest that very few developers are going to keep churning out the same core experience because they simply can’t afford to rely solely on their core fan-group. They’re going to try new things, open up new audiences (also called revenue streams) so they can stay in business. Hate that fact all you like, but you can either get angry which is ultimately futile, or you can get on-board and learn to love the new changes they introduce.
Once enough changes are introduced that you don’t like the game anymore, you stop buying their product. If enough people stop buying their products, the developer will have a fiscal reason to reassess. But if only a handful of hardcore stop, but a big number of new players discover it… hey presto, free market wins again.
Track record would indicate that it’s a graphically upgraded clone of previous games with slight fixes.
Personally I think if “selling out” stops them from releasing some of the shittiest, most bug filled pieces of crap on the market (like with their last games) then good on them for doing it. The Flashpoint/ARMA games have always had the potential to be hella popular but have been held back by some of the worst animations and testing in he industry.
Bohemia should stand as an example for all of how NOT to release a game, hopefully they’ve kicked that.