Arma 3 will have sandbox singleplayer with side quests

Arma 3

Arma 3 was announced at E3 this year with talk of an "open-ended" single player campaign and "sandbox-oriented combat gameplay." In a recent interview with Everyeye , spotted by Blues News , Bohemia designer Ivan Buchta expanded on this, revealing that Arma 3 single player will let you take quests form NPCs in an open-ended environment, and even pursue side missions to get hold of better equipment, support or new vehicles.

Butcha explains how the system will work. "In the game, the player can obtain either "quests" directly related to the story, or some "side-quests" which would help him to get something special: equipment, information, guerrilla support, vehicles and so on."

"For example, your main objective may be to destroy an enemy base, because a friendly force is threatened by the enemy presence. By following some hints, you may eventually get a local guerrilla chieftain to distract the OPFOR in order to weaken its defenses or receive some close air support, all of which can make your effort much easier. Maybe you would even stumble upon a piece of Intel which would make the friendly command reconsider their intent.

"To achieve such changes, you would probably have to do a favor for the guerrilla commander or to prove the need for CAS by delivering some extra Intel - simply to accomplish a "side-quest".

The new mission structure won't stop those who want to jump straight into the action, however. "I would also like to note that we are not abandoning the scenarios (missions), which are much simpler and shorter providing the element of instant fun," says Butcha. "I am sure this kind of gameplay will be attractive for many players including the seasoned Arma veterans."

For more on Arma 3, check out the E3 announcement , or the Arma 3 screenshots . Arma 3 is due out next summer.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.