Easily my favorite game on steam, hands down! I love it, and here's why:

Arma 3 is a military sandbox shooter, allowing you to interact with almost all aspects of military warfare, from ships to planes to trucks to tanks to infantry. There hasn't been a single game which has released since Arma 3 that lets you interact with all of these aspects on anywhere near as large a scale (25x25km map, 1 to 1 scale with an IRL island), if at all to begin with.

By modern standards, the gameplay is relatively clunky, the graphics are out of date, and performance is relatively poor on lower-end machines. The game is also CPU intensive, which is better or worse for some rigs. In spite of this, the game has a very healthy playerbase with thousands of concurrent players, although spread out among a wide variety of different gamemodes and units which can give the impression the game is less populated than it actually is at any given time.

Although the game has a number of DLC, what many people tend to not know is much of the DLC releases came with free patches and updates for the game which everyone can enjoy - Helicopters DLC came with a helicopter overhaul for all helicopters, not just DLC ones. Marksman DLC allowed firing from vehicles for everyone, and so on.

The game has also gotten significant improvement in the AI department over time as well, although by modern standards the AI is still relatively lackluster. Compared to previous Arma games however, the AI in this game is actually extremely smart and complex, but also require experience with their behavior and knowledge of the honestly terrible system of actually controlling them. Still, I'd take Arma 3 AI any day over Arma 2 AI or god forbid Armed Assault AI.

The game also comes with honestly one of the best editors I have ever used in gaming, hands-down. It's essentially a built-in SDK for making missions that you can access straight from the main menu, and allows nearly anyone to sit down and make whatever the hell they want. Some of the more complicated things do require scripting (usually extremely simple scripting) but the Modules system alleviates the need for many scripts. You can spawn in and play with every single vehicle in the game, regardless if you own it or not if you can bear the annoying watermark that flashes on your screen.

One potential downside is that much of the multiplayer is PvE focused, and that's where you'll find the most amount of actually populated servers, doubly so if you get involved in the unit and modding scene behind the game. Still, you can easily find a couple hundred players playing PvP if you check during prime hours (during the day, weekends, etc.). Personally, I have spent the overwhelming majority of time playing PvE as the gamemodes and missions are significantly better balanced and fun regardless if you've spent 10 hours or 1000 hours in the game. Many PvP gamemodes like KOTH or Warlords require you to grind exp or money (or both) in order to get better gear and equipment.

All in all I would definitely recommend the game, especially during a sale where you can get the major content adding DLCs (especially Apex) for cheap and if your computer can play it. It's a unique experience you can't get anywhere else, with the ability to turn it into whatever kind of experience you want it to be.

Easily my favorite game on steam, hands down! I love it, and here's why: Arma 3 is a military sandbox shooter, allowing you to interact with almost all aspects of military warfare, from ships to planes to trucks to tanks to infantry. There hasn't been a single game which has released since Arma 3 that lets you interact with all of these aspects on anywhere near as large a scale (25x25km map, 1 to 1 scale with an IRL island), if at all to begin with. By modern standards, the gameplay is relatively clunky, the graphics are out of date, and performance is relatively poor on lower-end machines. The game is also CPU intensive, which is better or worse for some rigs. In spite of this, the game has a very healthy playerbase with thousands of concurrent players, although spread out among a wide variety of different gamemodes and units which can give the impression the game is less populated than it actually is at any given time. Although the game has a number of DLC, what many people tend to not know is much of the DLC releases came with free patches and updates for the game which everyone can enjoy - Helicopters DLC came with a helicopter overhaul for all helicopters, not just DLC ones. Marksman DLC allowed firing from vehicles for everyone, and so on. The game has also gotten significant improvement in the AI department over time as well, although by modern standards the AI is still relatively lackluster. Compared to previous Arma games however, the AI in this game is actually extremely smart and complex, but also require experience with their behavior and knowledge of the honestly terrible system of actually controlling them. Still, I'd take Arma 3 AI any day over Arma 2 AI or god forbid Armed Assault AI. The game also comes with honestly one of the best editors I have ever used in gaming, hands-down. It's essentially a built-in SDK for making missions that you can access straight from the main menu, and allows nearly anyone to sit down and make whatever the hell they want. Some of the more complicated things do require scripting (usually extremely simple scripting) but the Modules system alleviates the need for many scripts. You can spawn in and play with every single vehicle in the game, regardless if you own it or not if you can bear the annoying watermark that flashes on your screen. One potential downside is that much of the multiplayer is PvE focused, and that's where you'll find the most amount of actually populated servers, doubly so if you get involved in the unit and modding scene behind the game. Still, you can easily find a couple hundred players playing PvP if you check during prime hours (during the day, weekends, etc.). Personally, I have spent the overwhelming majority of time playing PvE as the gamemodes and missions are significantly better balanced and fun regardless if you've spent 10 hours or 1000 hours in the game. Many PvP gamemodes like KOTH or Warlords require you to grind exp or money (or both) in order to get better gear and equipment. All in all I would definitely recommend the game, especially during a sale where you can get the major content adding DLCs (especially Apex) for cheap and if your computer can play it. It's a unique experience you can't get anywhere else, with the ability to turn it into whatever kind of experience you want it to be.