SITREP #00219

FROM: High Command
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Roadmap 2018, Dev-Branch Frequency
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

Last week we shared our plans for the second part of this year and took a brief look at what lies beyond. We're now finishing up on some of the final details of this summer's "Encore" Update, and we hope to introduce them to Dev-Branch quite soon™.

INTELLIGENCE

Every year since Arma 3's initial release, we've shared our plans for the upcoming months with regards to platform updates and DLC in a devblog. Although it now took us a bit more time to prepare our plans, 2018 is of course no exception. As soon as Tanks DLC rolled out the garage last April, we sat down and prioritized what we wanted to bring to Arma 3 and what would still be feasible. This was a challenge, since the majority of the original Arma 3 development team have slowly been assigned to other projects and technologies. Nevertheless we managed to squeeze out as much as possible considering the time and experts available.

As a result, the roadmap for 2018 came to be! With at least two major updates still planned for this year, we plan to introduce both new assets and fresh playable content. In the Roadmap 2018 blog, yours truly also expands on some of our future plans related to Arma 3, specifically the Third-Party DLC initiative and some other potential adventures and experiments. We recommend everyone to read the full blog if you're interested in Arma 3's development journey.

One more thing that surfaced together with the roadmap blog is an exclusive behind-the-scenes music video which shows us recording the Marksmen DLC theme song a couple of years ago. Performed by Bohemia's top-notch developers (gifted with varying degrees of musical talent), it really shows that in game development it always pays off to be creative. Enjoy!

OPERATIONS

After more than ten years of splendid service, community-made launcher and mod-manager withSIX is shutting down. Its administrators posted a farewell message to the community earlier this month. We'd like to thank the whole team for their contribution throughout the years. There were times in the history of the Arma series in which withSIX (and other similar platforms) were fundamental for a smooth installation and the data management of modsets. Thanks again, and good luck with potential future projects!

A well-known community creator bludclot bludski has introduced a new terrain that he's currently still working on. Vidda is set in Scandinavia, and while it's still in its Alpha stage, it already provides more than enough space and possibilities for interesting co-op gameplay. If you want to admire its wet roads and snowy mountains, head over to the Steam Workshop page. And don't forget to provide feedback directly to bludski on the forums!

In our roadmap blog we already mentioned that Arma 3's development will start to take on a slightly different form as of this year. This also relates to Arma 3's Dev-Branch. Ever since Arma 3 launched into the Early Access program on Steam, Dev-Branch builds have been essential to our iterative approach to development. We've used it to introduce prototypes, test new additions, and confirm fixes with the community. It's no understatement to say that daily releases even shaped us as developers. We got used to our work being publicly available within 24 hours, and the connection to our committed Dev-Branch players was and still is very strong. With that in mind, we certainly intend to continue with our Dev-Branch releases. However, due to our team becoming smaller than before, we do not see it as useful to update Dev-Branch on a daily basis. Instead, we've been investigating other options, and came to the conclusion that it would be best to start pushing Dev-Branch updates on a weekly basis. Via this change, we'll be able to reduce administrative duties on our end, and make the weekly Dev-Branch updates more juicy and worth playing!

LOGISTICS

In the past weeks, Arma 3 has received two security updates for its third-party anti-cheat service, BattlEye. If you have any related questions, we advise you to contact the team at BattlEye directly.