Bohemia Interactive has issued an official statement about the curious rise of using carefully orchestrated Arma 3 gameplay footage as real-world combat footage from the ongoing war in Ukraine. An incredibly in-depth combat simulation engine, Arma has often been the subject of media misinterpretation of gameplay as actual, genuine combat video capture. The developers, however, are taking a hard stance against this trend.
Arma 3 prides itself on its authenticity and flexibility, but there's a severe downside to these features, too, which may end up having real-world ramifications. Thanks to the game's openness to community modding and the sheer quality of assets that it supports, it's relatively easy to mistake or misconstrue select instances of Arma's gameplay footage for the real deal.
According to Pavel Křižka, the PR Manager of Bohemia Interactive, the team behind Arma 3 is certainly flattered that the game delivers a realistic and believable gameplay experience, but they are "not pleased that it can be mistaken for real-life combat footage." Křižka specifically mentioned how dangerous it could be if malicious third parties were to use gameplay footage as war propaganda, as was the case when Arma got misrepresented as an Afghanistan combat video. To try and get ahead of such problematic cases in the future, Bohemia Interactive has published a comprehensive guide on how to distinguish gameplay videos from real-world footage. Examples include "unnatural" particle effects, a lack of sound, no visible human activity, and a variety of other distinctive features.
Earlier this year, Arma 3 was confused for Ukrainian war footage, wherein the video in question was supposed to have shown an early clash between the Ukrainian and Russian forces. While the video in question did get discredited relatively quickly, it spread like wildfire for a short amount of time, and had the potential to misrepresent real-world events to a substantial extent. Bohemia Interactive already announced that it will work with reliable fact-checking services such as Reuters and AFP to set up an impromptu anti-propaganda system to deal with these issues.
It's no secret at all that Arma 3 holds up remarkably well, even though it's been almost a full decade since it first came out back in 2013. Bohemia Interactive's penchant for working with the community and continuously updating and improving the game has paid off with dividends, and it certainly helps that there's hardly any competition in Arma's particular combat sandbox niche.
Players that would like to get a taste of what's to come for the Arma franchise can download the early access version of Arma Reforger via Steam. This new version of the classic military simulator promises an even more realistic and gritty gameplay experience, meaning that Bohemia Interactive's new fake news footage warnings are bound to be even more useful as time goes on.
Arma 3 is now available on PC.
Source: Bohemia Interactive
