A new in-development mod for Arma 3 called 2017 looks like an altogether grim take on the future of humanity. Planned as a full-conversion of Arma 3 and its giant Altis map, 2017 has a new teaser trailer this week that gives us some good insight into the mod's post-apocalyptic atmosphere.

Although it shares part of its name with an older Arma 2 mod called DayZ 2017, the design team maintains in the project's announcement that 2017 for Arma 3 represents a "unique experience," totally separate from the DayZ Mod. There are no zombies planned for the mod, but rather humans infected with an "unknown mutagen," according to the development team. One prominent source of inspiration the designers have mentioned already is Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road, which also has a less than cheery vision of what's in store for the human race.

In terms of gameplay goals for the mod, they include some that we've heard of before and others that seem intriguingly fresh and new. Single-player and co-op missions are on the list of planned features for the mod, which the designers see as having some sort of effect on the multiplayer universe. And one area where the team seems determined to stake its own claim in the survival-horror genre is the role of loot in the mod.

"You will be able to search everywhere in the world to find various items/tools/equipment/ weapons etc. at a very rare chance, since this IS based in the future," report the designers. " will NOT be a main focus as we want to treat this as only an 'element' of the gameplay. We do not want to distract you from the survival horror aspect with the mundane task of loot farming."

In line with the mod team's stated emphasis on the horror and "psychology" of the world, the designers mentioned in a video update last month a game mechanic called a "sanity system" that will affect player interaction. All in all it sounds, in the most exciting way, incredibly ambitious. As it's still in development, a public beta isn't in the cards at the moment. The teaser trailer is below and you can check out a lengthy video dev-blog here.

A second hot chunk of military digicode should now be running through your interpipes. No, not the file the Pentagon uploaded the other week, which... What's that? You mean you weren't aware of the Pentagon's secret plan? Oh well, never mind. It'll not spoil the surprise. And anyway, I'm talking about Arma 3's second campaign episode, which has now been released as a free download to owners of the game.



That brief and inconsequential teaser aside, a press release issued by Bohemia provides some details of this second episode.

"In the new episode, titled Adapt , players take on the role of Ben Kerry, a soldier trapped on the island of Altis following a Mediterranean flashpoint.

"While the first part of the campaign introduced players to Arma 3's basic infantry combat and story, episode two opens up the military sandbox further, challenging players to adopt guerrilla tactics in the face of against a stronger, better-equipped enemy."

The download will be provided as an automagic update through the Steam client.

The first episode, Survive, was released last October. The third, called Win, is due out in March. Although admittedly that's after the Pentagon activate... well, you'll see.

A lighting strike. A fiery tank in the distance. That's some of what Arma 3 developer Bohemia Interactive has left us to work with after teasing a new multiplayer project on Tuesday. More details on the new content will be uncovered in Februrary, according to the team's latest update, and according to the tease, the new content's scope is grand.

Bohemia designer Karel Mo ick has taken to Twitter recently to release the image above and ask players to raise their expectations about what the new multiplayer content might be. "Expecting conquest mode or coop campaign?" Mo ick writes. "Dream a little bigger."

The developer update also delves into some of the work being undertaken to improve the game's optimization. Bohemia is testing a new post-processing effect with the potential to boost the visuals while also smoothing out performance on some machines. A new multiplayer build is also being put together:

"There finally is some solid movement on the multiplayer optimization front," Bohemia reports. "Over the past weeks our programmers, David 'Dwarden' Foltyn, and several community admins tested the new build quite a bit. They are already reporting significant performance increases, as well as better load-balancing on CPU cores."

If you're itching to see something new before February, the second of three announced additions to Arma 3's campaign Adapt arrives January 21. It brings with it new scenarios, some new vehicles, as well as infra-red grenades. Curious why IR grenades might get fans of the military sim excited? Check out why we called Arma 3 was our Simulation of the Year for 2013.

 

Welcome to the PC Gamer Game of the Year Awards 2013. For an explanation of how the awards were decided, a round-up of all the awards and the list of judges, check here.

A good sim pursues the lofty, unreachable goal of total realism. They shun accessibility in favour of complexity, but in doing so allow devoted and patient players to access marvellously detailed facsimiles of reality, which can inspire great gaming stories and player-driven drama. In the case of our simulation of 2013, it's a beautiful, sprawling and customisable depiction of modern military conflict, Arma 3.

EVAN It isn t any one piece of Arma s fidelity the ballistics modelling, the variegated island, the intricate military gear that wows us. It s how the sum of those replicates the experience of being a soldier something very distinct from being an avatar who happens to fire guns. You ve got to know how to read a topographical map. You ve got to know how to communicate with brevity and clarity while being shot at.

You have to think critically about stuff like encumbrance. When I m gearing up for a mission, throwing a satchel charge in my backpack may help me knock out a hard target, but the extra weight will tire me out more quickly when I sprint. So maybe I ll have a teammate taxi me across the map on an ATV. But wait the sun is setting, so we ll probably have to drive with the headlights on and risk detection, since we don t have nightvision goggles. Unless we find and kill an enemy who does. Again: it s not the individual realisms but how they knit into each other and prompt thoughtful decisions.

CORY I scoffed when Evan offered to teach me the ropes in Arma 3. Nothing sounds more boring to me than yelling out bearings and scrambling to find 7mm ammo instead of 6mm ammo. The UI is intimidating and the level of detail is daunting. I play games to escape from realism, not embrace it.

Evan s enthusiasm won me over, however, and he finally convinced me to join him on a mission. With a little bit of guidance, I was leaning around cover and marking coordinates on the map like well, not a pro, but like someone who might actually survive a mission. I marvelled at how seriously Arma takes its systems. Evan showed me how to move through all nine of Arma s infantry stances, when I was perfectly comfortable with crouching the entire game. And after he showed me how to use Alt to move just my soldier s head while moving forward, it became a feature I want in every FPS.

Eventually, we had to defend a compound from nondescript soldiers driving camouflaged, armoured jeeps with heavy machineguns (or so Evan tells me). Evan was pinned down in a far-off area (or maybe he just wanted me to feel useful), so he had me take over a downed jeep and use its HMG to hold off troops and vehicles at a distance. A quick keypress activated thermal vision, and I spent 15 minutes picking off enemies at range. It was glorious.

I was sceptical, but now I m a believer. Arma 3 is not only an impressive simulation of battle, but it s an incredibly compelling co-op sandbox. I ve played some janky Steam Workshop content that was still fun because of the group I played it with. I ll probably never play Arma alone, but I ll always jump in with some friends.

EVAN Even if you don t set out to roleplay, you inevitably end up doing something military like reciting compass directions as individual numbers (like bearing one-eight-zero to indicate south), or acronyming everything, or freely yelling phrases like suppressive fire! Because it feels like the appropriate thing to do. It s wonderful that something centred on realism can stimulate such playfulness.

Beyond all that, Arma 3 s Altis map was the most detailed world in a videogame this year a slab of Mediterrania jigsawed with salt flats, jungle shrubs, solar power plants and postcard-worthy beach resorts.

Before running away for a few days of competitive eating and cooperative gaming, Evan, Cory, and Tyler gathered to reflect on the most memorable victories, losses, and stories they virtually experienced in 2013. Watch the whole five-video series on the PC Gamer YouTube channel, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more regular content, gameplay footage, and conversations.

PC Gamer editors are prohibited from celebrating Christmas. For the team, the end of the year is marked by an event known as GOTY Sleepover, a time where we somewhat-voluntarily sequester ourselves away from our families and loved ones in the interest of a greater good: selecting the best PC games of the year. We gather in a room with a very heavy door and very little ventilation and stay there until we ve reached a unanimous decision on every award category. It s a lot like the Papal conclave, but with more Cheetos.

So far, this is what we ve got. These are games nominated for awards in general, not just our single Game of the Year. Consider this a short-list of the games our team loved in 2013, one we ll whittle down into proper, named awards in the coming days.


Dota 2
Arma 3
Spelunky
Battlefield 4
Gone Home
Tomb Raider
Rising Storm
Saints Row IV
Papers, Please
BioShock Infinite
Total War: Rome II
The Stanley Parable
XCOM: Enemy Within

Check in each day over the holiday break to see who's victorious. In the meantime, here's our 2012 winners and some lively year-end video conversations about our best PC gaming experiences in 2013.

Arma has always been quite moddable. Every piece of Bohemia Interactive s military sim has been renovated or replaced hundreds of times over by the game s prolific community--its missions, islands, audio, weapons, and vehicles. Today Bohemia makes a major effort to support that culture of community content creation as it begins a more than year-long competition called Make Arma Not War.

A total of a half-million Euros (about $680,000 USD) will be be awarded to modders in 2015, with the winners in four categories selected by a panel of about a dozen game industry professionals, community members like Dslyecxi, and Bohemia developers. Having a competition like this is giving the people something back, essentially. Giving them more serious reasons to show off, to make something out of their hobby, says Ivan Buchta, Creative Director at Bohemia.

One of the many subcategories of missions that have emerged for Arma 3 is racing. We're not very good at them.

CEO Marek Spanel underlines that the competition is Bohemia s way of supporting a fundamental part of its franchise. Ever since Arma: Cold War Assault, we ve made it a priority to support our community with tools, documentation, and sample models, and Arma 3 is no different. With the integration of Steam Workshop, a refreshed tool suite, updated user licenses, and of course the Make Arma Not War contest, we re hoping to push things further. It s clear that, with our open architecture and creative community, much more extra content can be produced. Correspondingly, we ve seen this affect the longevity of our games: each Arma installment is played actively for years and years after their release.

Employment and publishing rights, along the lines of what was earned by DayZ creator Dean Hall, also aren t out of the question for potential winners and entrants to the contest. It s a great way for us to find new employees, says Korneel van t Land, Brand and PR Manager at Bohemia. They re training themselves with our tools and technology. We might be able to find talent. The recruitment aspect is also quite important.

The disproportionate, 200,000 sum allocated for the Total Modification category indicates that Bohemia is serious about stimulating more Arma spin-offs through this contest. After the success of DayZ, a mod that shifted Arma somewhat out of its simulation roots, Bohemia says it s looking for more original ideas alongside content that enhances Arma 3. It would be great if more people were able to think out of the box, step outside of the technical military simulation game we have, or even go deeper inside it, and create something revolutionary, something inspiring, something that will set a direction for the future, even for our competitors, says Buchta.

Read up on the contest rules at www.makearma.com. Bohemia will accept entries until October 28, 2014. In the meantime, here s a list of some of our favorite Arma 3 content created to date.

Prizes
Total Modification
200,000 1st place

Single-Player Game Mode
50,000 1st place
30,000 2nd place
20,000 3rd place

Multiplayer Game Mode
50,000 1st place
30,000 2nd place
20,000 3rd place

Addon
50,000 1st place
30,000 2nd place
20,000 3rd place

Arma 3 is a bit good, as opined in greater detail in our review. But it's also a bit lacking in campaign content, for the time being at least. Thankfully, things will change for the better when the second of the game's three campaign episodes releases next month - on January 21st to be exact. Following on from the first part, 'Survive', Adapt will feature "more open and unorthodox scenarios" and a "much stronger enemy", which must be a nice thing to hear if you've dedicated your life to enemyhood. If you can't wait till January and you want to play with Adapt's new toys now, however, Bohemia have you covered: on December 11th, its new weapons and vehicles will automagically be downloaded to your game folder via Steam. More details below.

That content includes new vehicles for the Altis Armed Forces: the Wy-55 Hellcat helicopter, the FV-720 Mora and the MBT-52 tank. You'll also get infra-red grenades, black versions of the MX rifles, and an LRPS sniper scope. I hope you understood some or all of that sentence, because militaryspeak is all Greek to me.

Together, the three campaign episodes - 'Survive', 'Adapt' and 'Win' - form The East Wind, Arma 3's free (if you own the game) episodic campaign. The third part hasn't yet been given a date.

The Arma series has long been known for its often stunningly realistic visuals. But alongside all that eye candy, modders have been consistently working to sharpen Arma's soundscape as well. A new, in-progress sound mod for Arma 3 the Advanced Combat Sound Environment continues this work and looks to achieve a dramatic level of audio immersion for the military simulation.

The ACSE is a standalone mod that alters weapon sounds to reflect a changing and dynamic battlefield, according to modder tpM, who also released the video above. The team behind ACSE features veterans of the earlier Advanced Combat Environment mod for Arma 2 and includes modders zGuba, Rocko, ViperMaul, and Mr. NouberNou, as tpM reports in the official ACSE forum thread. The goal of the mod is to give detailed and specific sounds for different weapons based on distance, interior or exterior environments, or even if you fire off the last round from a magazine. As you can hear in the video the sounds change depending on where you are and what the terrain is like.

TpM writes that the team has been working on the ACSE mod for more than two years and says the project will release "when it's done, hopefully sooner than you'd expect." There's no doubt that a massive Arma 3 map like Altis offers up a wide variety of situations in which sound and the way players are able to interpret it plays a vital role in victory or defeat. It's one of several mods for Arma 3 that we'll be keeping an eye on as it progresses towards full release.

I don't know if you heard, but we built a ridiculous computer. The first thing we fired up on it was Arma 3, a fitting inaugural test of our four GTX Titans. Here's the result, captured in first-person and with help from Arma 3's Splendid Camera.

See what's inside the Large Pixel Collider, our own personal demigod of a PC.