ARMA III

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The followup to ARMA: Armed Assault and ARMA II. ARMA III is set on a fictionalized version of the Greek islands of Agios Efstratios and Limnos known as Stratis and Altis. Unlike its predecessors, ARMA III has a near future setting of 2035, with fictional caseless 6.5 ammo and an antagonistic anti-NATO alliance of China, Iran and other unspecified countries known as Canton-Protocol Strategic Alliance Treaty (CSAT).

The official campaign for ARMA III is The Eastwind. Ben Kerry is among a NATO force on Stratis who are tasked with drawing down NATO presence and about to go home when the local AAF, who have recently allied with CSAT over NATO, suddenly attack. Banding together with other surviving NATO forces Kerry must survive and counter-attack without connection to mainland NATO forces.

A free update titled Boot Camp a year after release added a short Prequel campaign known as Prologue. In Prologue the player controls Sergeant Conway as he assists in training local troops. Prologue functions as an extended tutorial and backstory to the main campaign, establishing the local factions and NATO involvement. It also introduced an in-game VR mode used for further tutorials.

Following several more minor DLC add-ons, an expansion pack titled Apex was released three years after the base game.

Tropes used in ARMA III include:
  • Bag of Spilling: At the end of the first chapter Survive the player is shipwrecked and loses all gear previously acquired, starting the second chapter Adapt with only a watch, compass, damaged clothes and a pistol the player likely ditched at the first opportunity during Survive as dead weight (an odd choice as Adapt starts right next to a dead body they need to loot anyways).
  • Foreshadowing: At base during Survive a few soldiers note they have no actual proof Miller is who or what rank he says he is. Turns out Miller is part of Combat Technology Research Group (CTRG) and the British claim to have no record of him when contact is re-established.
  • Retirony: Like Operation Flashpoint, the campaign starts with soldiers about to go home being forced into a sudden war. While Kerry survives, a good number of the NATO forces in the same situation do not.
  • Obligatory War Crime Scene: The AAF abuse prisoners during Prologue to establish they're bad people and that the rebel FIA, who the player allies with in The Eastwind, are sympathetic.
  • Product Placement: Real world firearm manufacturer CMMG's logo is prominently featured on the fictional MX rifle series, which they contributed the design for.
  • Unusable Enemy Equipment: In the official campaign enemy vehicles, aside from transport trucks, can't be used but civilian vehicles can be stolen with no effort. This is the exact opposite of how it should work, as military vehicles don't need keys but civilian ones do. This is per campaign and only the official ones do it. Enemy fatigues can't be looted, though dead allies can.