“This was not a decision we made lightly,” explains project lead Joris-Jan van ‘t Land. “As game creators, we love developing and playing through campaigns so, to those awaiting ours, we say: sorry for the delay.”
“After talking a lot about a focus on quality over the last year, it simply did not feel right to compromise now. Rather than pushing back the entire game, we launch this year with an awesome package – a splendid kick off for the ArmA III experience.”
A blog post on the Bohemia Interactive website by van ‘t Land and creative director Jay Crowe elaborates on the decision.
“There are several factors… that have made it infeasible for us to finish our work to the level of quality we'd be happy with for this release,” reads the post. “Why make it at all? Well, we like campaigns and we simply want to make and play them. We also know that we owe it to our community, who've backed us from the start.”
“As we approach the end of Beta, we are also faced with various things that lock us in creatively. One such thing is localization. The game needs to be translated for many regions of the world and that requires finalized source texts. Similarly, doing voice acting takes time. We can't wait and rush things in the last moments before release. Finally, games need to be rated in many markets, for which rating agencies need a solid and near-final playable build well ahead of release. Effectively this all means the campaign would have had to have been finished roughly two months ahead of its launch. It was not.
“We think of the main release as a platform - the beginning of a long lifetime for the game. A platform that will grow with official content additions, fixes, improvements, as well as with user-generated content. Veterans of the ArmA series know that previous games have matured and become better with time. Our team is committed to supporting ArmA III, and we already have lots of post-release plans.”
ArmA III is due in the third quarter of this year. Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can find him on IGN here or on Twitter @MrLukeReilly, or chat with him and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.