One of the difficult things about approaching a possibility space as large as the one presented by ArmA 3 is deciding what you actually want to do with it. Beyond the campaign, there’s the game’s powerful editor which allows players to create remarkably complex combined arms combat scenarios across vast land masses. But if you’re like me, sometimes that’s a bit… much. Sometimes I’d rather just fire up a quick game and lead a fire team over a hill to shoot some bad guys.
Find the mod on the Steam Workshop under Arma 3 and then click the subscribe button. This will automatically add the mod to you steam account and download it to your computer. Additionally, it will be updated whenever we add a new release. Once it has downloaded launch Arma 3 and find it in the mods list and activate. There is Only War is a total conversion mod for Arma 3, that includes: new features, new units, new maps, new animations, new systems, and everything needed to create an ultimate Warhammer 40,000 experience. Everything from walkers, to meltaguns, to space marines, to regular infantry and rifles are featured. There are multiple, varied factions and terrains to choose from, and wealth of content. There is Only War - Arma 3 Warhammer 40,000 Mod Warhammer 40,000 is a deep fantasy universe, one filled with long stories, enormous conflicts, supreme evil, and an eternity of unending war. It deserves a proper, massive, frontline experience that only a certain game can provide, and that game for us is Arma 3. 'There is Only War' is a mod whose goal is a true representation of 40k in Arma.
Thankfully, some truly amazing mods have emerged over the past year, so we’ve put together this guide to cover some of the new content out there - whether it’s total conversions, new models, or AI environments, you should be able to find something for you in this list.
Note: Mods are often custom-built for a single map, but even if you’re not interested in that environment, chances are pretty good that there’s another version of the mod available for your preferred landmass. Just do a little searching in the Steam Workshop, and you’re likely to find what you’re after.
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- ArmA 2 side of things are SLOW going as stated above. ArmA 3 side of things are: #1 The WH40K III Mod is still in the WIP side of things. #2 'There is Only WAR' A3 Mod has a Much larger team and have already released much content. Please look them up and DL their Mod if you have not done so yet.
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ARMA 3 Overhaul Mods
Right off the bat, Article 2 Studios’ Operation: TREBUCHET (OPTRE) is a standout in the new assets packages you can get for ArmA 3. It’s a full suite of soldiers, equipment, vehicles, and maps pulled from the Halo universe. The mod focuses primarily on UNSC infantry forces rather than the lethally-outfitted Spartans like Master Chief from the Halo series of games, but fear not: several Spartan variants are included as well.
What’s more interesting, though, are the new weapons and vehicles - take to the skies over the original game’s Blood Gulch in a Hornet or Falcon, or cover ground the more old-fashioned way in a Warthog ATV or Scorpion tank. Sure, some of the models look a little low-poly for modern eyes, but it’s impossible not to be impressed at the sheer amount of Halo bits Article 2 has recreated in ArmA 3. OPTRE focuses on the more grounded aspects of Halo’s sci-fi fantasy, so you’re going to see more helicopters and traditional ballistic weapons than plasma rifles and alien tech.
At the moment, OPTRE is just a massive toybox full of Halo kit, but the growing community around the mod is busily creating missions with the shiny new assets. You shouldn’t have too much trouble finding both single-player and multiplayer modes in the Workshop, and keep an eye out on your server browser for large-scale UNSC battles to join.
If you want something a bit different, the 'zombie' theme amongst ArmA 3's modding community hasn't dissapeared, even in the wake of DayZ going standalone all those years ago. Breaking Point is one of the current popular examples of a PvPvE survival mod (with zombies), although it hasn't been updated in a while.
It seems the developers are also going down the DayZ route of trying to to create a stand alone product using the Unreal engine. If you want to play what's there now though, the mod is as functional as it can be. The trick will be trying to find a serve that's running it, mind, but the community are pretty active on the mod page letting people know when servers are up.
Iron Front in ArmA 3 (AIO Lite) is the mod version of what once was a full game - Iron Front: Liberation 1944(It wasn't a very good game-ED). It’s an Eastern Front-focused equipment makeover for ArmA players who aren’t as keen on the game’s baseline present day/near future setting. The full, paid version of Iron Front featured eight-mission single player campaigns for the German and Russian sides, plus all the World War II equipment you could shake an M91/30 at.
Unfortunately, the full version has been discontinued and is no longer supported, and those single player missions aren’t included in the free “Lite” version available on the Steam Workshop, but there’s still plenty to like about the mod - there are five sizeable maps, tons of historic units and equipment, and plenty of clanky tanks to drive around in. The only other mod you’ll need to try out the free “Lite” version is CUP Terrains - Core, which you’ll quickly learn is a pretty commonly-used mod for projects like this one.
Hopefully, the team behind Iron Front in ArmA 3 will be able to continue supporting the mod - there’s still a healthy player base for it and the ArmA system works very well in the World War II setting. There are also mods you can find that allow you to use elements of ALiVE in Iron Front in Arma 3, giving you that whole suite of command and mission tools in that Eastern Front setting.
Arma 3 Quality of Life Mods
The Enhanced Movement mod, created by Steam user badbenson, allows players to hop, climb, and vault over fences and walls. The mod adds animations for each of these movements, and it’s a matter of moments to bind a single key (it’s context sensitive) to the “mantle” command. This corrects a rather strange omission from the base game, but I’m glad to have it either way. Recent updates have broken this mod, so you’ll also need to use the ACEX fix mod, a temporary solution, in order for it to work with up-to-date versions of ArmA 3.
Warhammer 40k Mod For Arma 3 Mods
Another good mod for solo players to pick up is the AI Accuracy Fix by Steam user Twisted. Enemy NPCs in ArmA 3 tend to be crack shots, even on lower difficulties. As the description says, this drops them back into the more human range of rifle skill. The other option of course is to just “get good” at in-game marksmanship, but who has time for that nonsense?
There’s a lot of gear to play with in ArmA 3, especially if you’ve added any of the massive list of equipment mods. Personal Arsenal gives you access to the game’s virtual armory at a keystroke, so you can outfit yourself with whatever weapons and armor you like, as well as plunk down to-spec vehicles.
Faces of War is a mod that adds in a bunch of thematic faces for you World War II junkies out there. It not only adds more expressive and historically appropriate faces for ArmA 3’s soldiers, it also includes a growing list of World War II uniforms and equipment. The team responsible for this mod does very high-quality work, so you’ll want to subscribe to this one - plus, it’s required for several of the more ambitious WWII mods.
CBA_A3 is an under-the-hood mod that basically makes modders’ lives easier, and you’ll most likely find it in the dependency list of mods you’re looking to download. Steam makes this pretty convenient by flagging up mods you’ll need to install. CBA_A3 lets modders create events and macros, monkey with the UI, and allow for custom keybinds for new actions they add to the game.
Arma 3 Operations & Missions Mods
- Dynamic Recon Ops [Altis ] [Stratis]
Now for the meaty stuff. One of the most important mods I’ve come across over the past year is the ALiVE system, which goes a long way toward bridging whatever gap remains between ArmA 3 and traditional wargames. It’s a full-on strategy simulation environment, allowing you to populate ArmA’s maps with OPFOR and BLUFOR units, each with their own goals and objectives, which they’ll pursue intelligently. Missions can be easily created on the fly, and they can be persistent, with actions in one carrying over to the next operation in a campaign.
While the interface takes a few minutes to learn, once you have the basics down it’s an incredibly simple system to use, and the results are spectacular. Once you have ALiVE installed, head to the mission editor and add some new elements: they’re modules called ALiVE (Required), ALiVE Data, ALiVE Player Options, and ALiVE Virtual AI System. These entities don’t physically occupy any space, but they handle the raft of features and systems that ALiVE adds to ArmA, such as intelligent commanders who spawn in and command appropriate units. Syncing these AI commanders with logistics modules and areas of operation is a bit touchy at first, but after a practice map or two you’ll have the hang of it, and it’s astonishingly powerful.
I feel like I’ve personally only scratched the surface of what ALiVE is capable of doing, but already I can’t imagine playing ArmA without it. There are tons of add-on mods for ALiVE, too, so if you don’t want to bother with the mission design side of things you’re still in good shape as long as you don’t mind browsing the Steam Workshop for a bit. Plus, you can use ALiVE’s elements along with most other ArmA content you have installed, but you may want to check the ALiVE wiki to make sure any particular map is supported.
Modder mbrdmn has created a system called Dynamic Recon Ops, which builds randomized recon missions to spec. These can be simple, involving a single objective, or surprisingly complex. You can specify parameters like time of day, weather conditions, and factions involved, or you can let the mod decide for you. The one-objective ops make for great bite-sized portions of ArmA action, and you can download the mod for countless maps, both official and user-created. While the base Malden map has tons of places to explore and operate in, I’ve enjoyed checking out the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone map. It’s unfinished and rough-looking in places, but the area has always fascinated me and it’s still creepy wandering around the ghost town of Pripyat even when you aren’t playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R..
DRO missions are fun and lightweight. It’s easy to dive straight in and start scouting, but as the “recon” name suggests, there’s usually a lot of walking (which, come to think of it, accounts for most of my time in ArmA). Generally, you and your squad will get dropped off by helicopter around 2 kilometers from your objective, which might be retrieving a prisoner or observing an enemy area. By default you’ll also have a resupply point, and the mod is fairly smart about putting a few patrols of enemy soldiers between you and where you’re trying to go.
For a more robust experience, you can try the Dynamic Universal War System, or DUWS. Like DRO (and its sibling, Dynamic Combat Ops), DUWS creates missions on the fly based on a set of parameters you choose to set or leave random. The big difference here is that instead of one-off missions, you’ll be generating an entire persistent campaign. And unlike the single-player campaign that shipped with the ArmA III base game, this one actually responds and changes based on your actions.
You begin by selecting either a random or hand-placed base of operations on the island. From there, you’ll launch missions to recapture zones held by enemy forces, or pick up side ops that become available from time to time. These tend to be pretty simple affairs, such as rescuing downed pilots, but they’ll earn you command points that you can spend on additional troops, vehicles, and weapons. Over the campaign you’ll also amass Army Points that can be used to unlock higher tiers of equipment.
It's an ambitious mod and it’s a bit tricky to figure out how everything works, but it opens the game up to some serious tactics and strategic planning. Figuring out where you need to build FOBs, and planning your next strikes on enemy territory become nail-biting experiences once you’re on the ground leading a couple fire teams into hostile fire. I have yet to finish a campaign in DUWS, but one lesson I’ve learned the hard way is to save often. Autosave doesn’t quite work as well as you might like, yet.
Official ARMA 3 Mods
- Creator DLC
- Malden 2035
- Apex
Modders aren’t the only people who have been adding to ArmA 3. Bohemia has been regularly pushing out new content for the game, including the free Malden 2035 DLC, which includes a remaster of one of the two islands featured in Operation Flashpoint way back in 2001. There are DLCs for jets, helicopters, and even go-karts available as well, plus the large Apex expansion that released in 2016, which offers a slate of new equipment and a new campaign that can be played solo or co-op.
Bohemia Interactive developers have also worked on mods in their “spare time” (or so they claim), and one no-brainer addition to your mods list ought to be the ADR-97 weapon pack. It’s an “official mod” meaning Bohemia has granted its imprimatur to the effort, and it adds several variants of a toploading bullpup submachine gun based on the FN P90 into ArmA 3.
Finally, Bohemia are releasing community content as add-ons under the label 'Creator DLC'. The first one is called Global Mobilization - Cold War Germany, and there's expected to be others as well.
What are your favourite ArmA 3 mods? Let us know in the comments!
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A small group of us with little to no ARMA modding experience are grouping up to produce a complete conversion mod for ARMA 3 using the universe of Warhammer 40,000. We are early in the planning phase and I am making this post for two reasons: to see if there is any interest in the mod and to see if anyone is interested in helping the development of the mod. Within our group we have a 3D artist and animator and a coder to start putting things together, but we are looking to expand our team massively before starting any development on the mod.
Warhammer 40,000 (Wh40k) is a futuristic setting where all-out war has taken over the universe. Multiple races and factions war over territory, resources and control utilising psychic powers, powerful infantry troops and a range of different tanks, vehicles and arial combat. We are looking to recreate the intricate detail of this universe with multiple stages of release, focused on initially creating a new gametype with a strong gameplay element backed up with some fantastic new visuals. We will then expand the mod as time goes on to include more of the diverse options available within Wh40k.
Gameplay is the key with this mod, and we are looking to focus on PvP development with objective based gametypes and at the core a persistent leveling and class based system, with multiple class trees and specialisms based on the lore and units within Wh40k. All classes will be capable of piloting any craft, and buying any vehicle or emplacement will cost requisition, a resource acquired slowly over time and in large amounts for completing objectives.
Development Aims:
1. Develop custom 3D models for characters and weapons for the two initial races and implement them into the game.
2. Create the missions using existing map and develop a system that manages requisition (TeeTimes currently manages all of this already - possibly my favourite mission!)
3. Develop custom 3D models for vehicles and implement resource requisition of vehicles.
4. Build the progression system and persistent data storage (more than likely per server not global) with class skill trees unlocking available weaponry.
5. Develop a custom environment with custom models and styling to more effectively match that of Wh40k.
6. Expand our available races once we have reached this point in development.
7. Add in psychic powers and other cool stuff from 40k!
We will be presenting more information about the mod as and when it is available, along with some more class progression details, races that will be available at launch and hopefully some pictures and images of things to come.
If you are interested in joining the development team for this mod then get in touch: , I look forward to hearing what people have to say about the idea and hope that one or two experienced ARMA modders can get behind the mod and help us push the mod off the ideas board and into reality.