If you’ve grown tired of fantasy games, bored of arcade shooters, or just plain don’t like pixel art, then you may well be happy to hear that from next week you’ll be able to jump into Bohemia Interactive’s authentic military shooter Arma 3. This won’t be the full release, mind, simply the alpha. Though that, with its regular updates, may well be enough to tide you over till the launch of the beta, and then the full release later this year.
Details of how to get into the alpha, what it contains, and how much coin it will cost you is below.
The alpha launches on 5 March, that’s next Tuesday to you and me, and will feature a good spread of content to give us a showing of what the full game will offer. There are four missions, showing off four campaign styles, infantry, vehicles, SCUBA, and helicopter, as well as two multiplayer scenarios. Though that set should expand relatively quickly as Behomia are also releasing their scenario editor and launching modding support from day one. So, while the alpha focusses on the20 km² island of Stratis, not the full game’s 270km² island of Altis, there should still be a lot to play with.
Now getting into this alpha is both simple and complicated. It’s as simple as buying a version of Arma 3 through Steam. It becomes complicated when you want to pick one. Here are the versions Bohemia are selling:
Arma 3 Alpha: £20
- Alpha access
- Beta access
- Final game
Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition: £35
- Alpha access
- Beta access
- Final game
- digital soundtrack
- digital maps
- digital tactical guide
- Steam Gift of Arma: Cold War Assault (Operation Flashpoint, before that name got bought by Codemasters)
Arma 3 Supporter Edition £60 (Needs to be bought through Bohemia’s store)
- Alpha access
- Beta access
- Final game
- digital soundtrack
- digital maps
- digital tactical guide
- Steam Gift of Arma: Cold War Assault
- Steam Gift of Arma X
- all future Arma 3 DLCs
- special forums medal
- opportunity to have their names featured in the game’s credits
That’s not all. There is going to be a free version of Arma’s alpha but it will not be the easiest thing to come by and it will not include the multiplayer content found in the full alpha. Arma 3 Alpha Lite will be giftable by people who have bought the full version of the game and codes will be released to some websites to give away in contests.
Arma 3 will bepurchasablethrough Steam from 5 March.