Are you ready for Arma 4? We spoke to Bohemia about upcoming content for Arma Reforger and the key lessons learned from ARMA 3.
Since mid-May you can take a first look at the future of the Arma series with Arma Reforger including the new engine Enfusion. The 30 euro mini-military simulation is currently also receiving a lot of criticism on Steambecause it lacks content and features that series fans actually take for granted
GlobalEsportNews spoke with Ján Dušek, the Project Lead at Bohemia Interactive for Arma Reforger, about this content and other questions regarding Arma Reforger and the subsequent Arma 4 game. On the other hand, if you want to recall the basics of the military sandbox, we recommend the extensive article on the announcement:
The first step towards Arma 4 is courageous – and extremely risky
Arma Reforger: Roadmap and new content
~: What is the biggest challenge working on Arma Reforger?
Ján Dušek: “That we’re not just working on a single experience, but a very complex platform that has to work online.”
~: Will we get any story missions or even a campaign for Arma Reforger?
Ján Dušek: “No, currently there are no plans for an official story mode. However, we hope that our great community will definitely develop story content. The game has an integrated workshop with all the tools you need to realise your own dreams. But we also plan to expand the possibilities of these tools even further. ”
~: Will the new engine actually support ray tracing?
Ján Dušek: “We are trying to find a good balance of technology, size, level of detail for our users’ hardware and ray tracing is currently not the best way to ensure that. But since the engine is based on DirectX 12, I don’t want to rule anything out for the future and we’ll keep an eye on that.”
~: Will we still be able to give commands to AI soldiers in Arma Reforger, or is that a feature that will only return in Arma 4?
Ján Dušek: “Yes, that will come with one of the later updates for Arma Reforger. ”
~: What about destructible buildings?
Ján Dušek: “That’s definitely coming, we’re going to include more destructible environments in Arma Reforger 1.0.”
~: There will be no tanks for Reforger, but you have hinted at helicopters. What about other vehicle classes?
Ján Dušek: “Apart from helicopters, we currently have no plans for major additions to the vehicle classes of Arma Reforger.”
~: Is there a roadmap for the Early Access of Arma Reforger?
Ján Dušek: “Yes, but we don’t plan to deliver big content expansions during the Early Access phase because we want to focus more on the core platform. But the game is still completely expandable via the internal workshop. ”
~: Will there be more life in the game world in the future, whether animals or civilians?
Ján Dušek: “Yes, especially in Arma 4. ”
What this means for Arma 4
~: What were the most important lessons from Arma 3 for the sequel?
Ján Dušek: “Arma 3 was the result of 20 years of development experience, together with millions of players. The first lesson learned was that there is no substitute for real players. That’s why we released Arma Reforger before turning to our true vision for Arma 4.
Another important lesson was that we need new technology to achieve our goals. The Real Virtuality Engine would not have taken us any further. And lastly, we are trying to combine complex game mechanics with much smarter controls. Developing for consoles is also an extremely good motivation. ”
~: Will there be more updates and DLCs for Arma 3?
Ján Dušek: “There will be updates for Arma 3, but we are not currently working on any further DLCs. However, we hope to release more community DLCs through our Arma 3 Creator programme. These will then be developed by third parties, mostly from the Arma community, and we will act as the publisher.”
~: Was there actually a change in your development philosophy for the new Arma games? I had the feeling that it’s more towards quality rather than quantity, especially in terms of lots of little details in the controls and vehicles, for example?
Ján Dušek: “For Arma Reforger, our goal is actually to offer less content, but to pay attention to more accuracy. For Arma 4, however, we will make everything bigger again, just as we did with the previous Arma games. As far as the development approach is concerned, with Reforger we made sure to build a stable team that is well structured and can then also implement the development of the much more complex Arma 4 very efficiently. ”
The team and the consoles
~: How many people are currently working on Reforger and how many are already working on Arma 4?
Ján Dušek: “Currently there are about 160 people working on the Enfusion Engine, on Arma 4 and on Arma Reforger. It’s not so easy to divide that up between the individual projects, but overall the most people are currently working on Arma Reforger. ”
~: Why isn’t there a PlayStation 5 version yet?
Ján Dušek: “On Xbox there is the Game Preview Programme. In addition, our game offers modding and the Xbox is currently the best opportunity to test this still relatively unexploited area on the console market. ”
~: How has developing for consoles changed the work on Arma Reforger?
Ján Dušek: “It forces us to find better design solutions, we have to optimise more. That’s why there are also a lot of playtests on consoles, where we try out prototypes and work iteratively on the controls. We also measure performance in great detail. It’s all very new and a big challenge for us, but ultimately PC players will benefit from it as well. “
