ARMA devs don’t like when their games are called  “shooters” as it dilutes the “respect” for combat 

ARMA studio Bohemia Interactive has been at the forefront of the Military Simulator genre for decades. Since the team’s original Operation Flashpoint, Bohemia has led the charge for MilSims, creating such realistic experiences that their games have often been used to create misinformation online. 

While Military Simulator is a genre of its own, some still refer to the ARMA series as an FPS, or a “shooter”. For the team at Bohemia, this term is almost seen as a black mark, as being dubbed a simple “shooter” lacks the game’s respect for real-world combat. 

ARMA shouldn’t be called a “shooter” 

Speaking to VideoGamer after the release of ARMA Reforger’s new Fire Support update, Project Lead Krzysztof Bielawski explained that the team doesn’t like it when the series is referred to outside of the simulator moniker. With typical shooters like Call of Duty, Halo or Battlefield offering a more streamlined experience, it can often feel like a glorification or a blockbuster adaptation of violence, a feeling Bohemia tries to avoid. 

“We don’t like to call it a shooter,” Bielawski said. “Shooting is just a very small part of what you experience in it. We don’t want to glorify the combat itself. We don’t want to [glorify] headshots and give big beautiful kill marks, so you feel the dopamine hit. We want players to think, plan, coordinate, put effort into the situation before they can even, you know, you know, the situation before they can even get off the first shot.”

Even in the challenge of streamlining the ARMA series to bring Reforger to console, Bohemia wanted to make sure the series never felt like it was an endorsement of combat. With the series on console, younger gamers may be more likely to check it out, and that gives the developers an opportunity to teach a whole new audience. 

“We want to approach combat in a respectful way,” we were told. “So we don’t want to simplify it. We don’t want to make it that, you know, 15-year-olds will have a spoiled imagination what, what war actually is. We want to approach the topic respectfully to mostly to the people that went through it. You know, to veterans.”

“It’s not possible to make a game fully real.”

ARMA PROJECT LEAd KRZYSZTOF BIELAWSKI

While some players nitpick about elements of ARMA that are not 100% realistic, Bohemia explains that the team strives to be as realistic as possible while still maintaining a degree of fun. 

“Realism is crucial, you know, we have to put maximum realism to it,” Bielawski explained. “Of course, it’s not 100% realism because there is always a bit of gamification in this. It’s not possible to make a game fully real.

“We kind of ambitiously approach those features in a way that we’re trying to make them as close to the reality, because that’s the respectful way of doing this.”

While Bohemia continues working on more updates for Reforger and improves its powerful Enfusion Engine, work is also being done on the long-awaited ARMA 4. While not much is known about the game, the team is still committed to bringing the respectful realism that players expect from the series to a new generation of hardware.