future Future plans to continue "The legacy"

[Kristian 47]

Just spotted THIS video over on the interwebs. Few keywords from the end of the video:
 

Quote

What's next for BI? We plan to continue the legacy we've built over the last two decades"

Could reference OFP/ArmA as series. Planning to continue meaning continuation of ArmA, which is to be expected.

Quote

Armed with the knowledge, experience and expertise game development brings, and with a shift to our brand new Enfusion -engine, our sights are firmly locked on to our next major project

Shift to new engine, sights locked, major project. I keep hearing ArmA 4 as I repeat those.

Quote

It's safe to say, we're all looking *dramatic pause* very FOURWARD to what the future has in store for BI

It caught my ear so bad, and comments on youtube seem to echo my thoughts 😂

 

Right before this, Op.Drewski put up THIS VIDEO that did some good speculating too. Title might 

be a little clickbait, but he makes good points, and now the BI video seems to somewhat confirm what he says.

 

Thoughts? 🤔

[old_painless 182]

I heard the same as you 🙂 They said "major project" singular, as opposed to multiple "projects". I re-played the last sentence and I also heard FOURWARD, not FORWARD and what "the future has in store", ie. the Steam store. Could it be anything but Arma 4 ?

 

This is nuts. And what would Arma 4 even be, except Arma 3 on the Enfusion engine? Maybe that is enough of an upgrade, but I do hope they revamp the AI (driving, autonomy smarts etc.). One other aspect to improve is terrain fidelity, just look at Vigor to see what they can do if they put in the effort

 

-OP

[stburr91 1002]

I think this means pretty much what you'd expect, that the Enfusion engine is developed enough to start shifting more resources to Arma 4's development. 

 

I like Drewski, but his videos constantly saying A4 is about to be released are nothing but clickbait.  

 

I'd bet dollars to donuts that A4 is at least 2 years out. 

[drebin052 323]

Unless BI have decided to screw over the Creator DLC teams completely, an Arma 4 reveal isn't going to happen in 2020 -- let alone a release. So no, that Drewski vid is just more clickbait for ad revenue.

[Tankbuster 1746]

4 hours ago, drebin052 said:

 that Drewski vid is just more clickbait for ad revenue.

Which I why I have unsubbed from him.

What we can take to the bank is that unusual stuff is appearing in ArmA 3 changelogs recently. IN the most recent, there was interesting stuff related to AI driving. At this late stage in the development of the game, this can only be as new technology proving for a future game.

It does seem likely there will be at least one more cDLC. Unsung team are currently hawking for texture artists and have been actively and loudly looking for many other types of developer for some time.

Personally, I think (and I can separate hopes from opinions) we will see signs of the next game late this year.

[krzychuzokecia 717]

Operator Drewski vid is pure, unsubstantiated clickety-clickbait. Based on one small paragraph which he blown out of proportions.

 

The best way to have a sneak peek behind the courtains is to check that "Careers>Job postitions" at the very top of this page. Currently it shows 2 open positions for Enfusion programmers (so it applies to both DayZ and A4), and 10 open positions for "unannounced project". Also 2 positions for their art sweatshop studio in Thailand. From that we can speculate that game is very, very early in development, and it's minimum a year before they will be able to show anything which is not concept art.

 

Even more BIS themselves said:

Quote

This past month a lot of the work done by our people might not have been publicly visible. And that will be the case for many more months to come. However, rest assured – behind-the-scenes – we're making some very solid progress, particularly with regards to a future powered by our new proprietary Enfusion engine.

In essence that means company is preparing for a long time of no big announcements and hard work.

 

Also Mr Youtube Personality is wrong when he says that Vigor is a "small" project for BIS - currently there are 10 job openings for that project only, equal to the number of positions open for "unannounced project".

 

As for the "20 years of Bohemia" vid... it's one of those corporate identity "oorah" things, which are not even aimed at customers (us), but employees. Heck, in making that "we're so great" image of the company, authors of the video made a mistake when talking about the history of OFP - claiming that game development took only two years (1999-2001), when in fact it was in development since 1997 (with first public announcement in 1998). I guess BIS marketing guys and accountants don't play video games!

...and on the topic of accountants and marketing - I'm seeing huge focus in that vid on multi-platform games, DLCs, and "game copies sold". Seems to me that BIS matured as a game developer, and just like AAA corporations in this industry, is now focusing on "delivering product", instead of "making art". Naturally, video narrator says that they don't want to "pump out" as many games as possible, and have passion of original games... But that's what every Todd Howard says during his favorite promotional event. And let's be honest: Argo, Ylands and Vigor are all cheap rip offs of other, profitable games. On the other hand several original ideas/projects that BI had in last decade were left to rot.

 

BIS is dead, long live (new) BIS?

[old_painless 182]

Yeah we should disregard the Drewski video and focus on the Bohemia one, the last few minutes.

 

And great idea to cross-reference with job openings. I for one was doubtful that Arma 4 would ever come out, but now I am more optimistic

[target_practice 163]

3 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said:

...and on the topic of accountants and marketing - I'm seeing huge focus in that vid on multi-platform games, DLCs, and "game copies sold". Seems to me that BIS matured as a game developer, and just like AAA corporations in this industry, is now focusing on "delivering product", instead of "making art". Naturally, video narrator says that they don't want to "pump out" as many games as possible, and have passion of original games... But that's what every Todd Howard says during his favorite promotional event. And let's be honest: Argo, Ylands and Vigor are all cheap rip offs of other, profitable games. On the other hand several original ideas/projects that BI had in last decade were left to rot.

 

BIS is dead, long live (new) BIS?

 

You actually raise a conerning point here, and one that has worrying implications for the Arma series; since DayZ, BIS seems to have been undergoing a gradual transformation from a relatively small studio genuinely invested in what they were creating, to yet another profit-driven AAA developer.

BIS themselves have stated that their employee numbers have roughly quadrupled since the release of Arma 3, but honestly they had no real reason to grow this quickly.

Plenty of successfull studios have no more than a few hundred employees, yet BIS seems to have opted for a strategy of expanding as quickly as possible.

As you say, their emphasis on game design has shifted from original ideas to developing knock-off titles and shovelware mobile games.

 

At this point, Arma is pretty much the only half-decent thing BIS makes, but given the changing mentality of the company, I'm worried Arma 4 will be developed less as a successor and evolution to the franchise, and more as an attempt to create a launchpad for the next big gaming fad.

[krzychuzokecia 717]

5 hours ago, old_painless said:

I for one was doubtful that Arma 4 would ever come out, but now I am more optimistic

The question never was if, question has always been when and how.

 

Even if Arma 3 would be the greatest game in the world, at some point sales are going to die off. Developers have to be ready for that, and it seems like BIS do knows what they are going to do. In 2019 they finished most of their projects (Vigor is apparently still being actively developed), and team is taking all of that experience (especially with DayZ - their first Enfusion game) to work hard on what seems to be new Arma game. Naturally, we don't know what's happening inside, and can only speculate.

 

To be honest, I don't have a positive outlook on Arma future. And by that I don't mean BIS is going to make a bad game - however in 21st century, not only gameplay and quality of art affects the final product. Marketing and pricing policy is also very important. I have a feeling that next Arma may move into the realm previously occupied by sims like DCS or Il-2 - where base game (virtually devoid of any meaningful content) is provided for free/low price, but to actually have some fun with it, you have to pay for one of myriads of DLCs (which often cost as much as full game from competition).

 

This is like a distorted version of what Arma community often called for: let BIS make engine, and get community to make it alive. With community replaced by DLCs. As for community itself, I'm forseeing changes to Arma ease and openess to modding. With paid mods being a thing now (let's not fool ourselves: Creator DLCs are just that) it is possible that addonmakers will be divided into those who release their stuff for free, and those who release their stuff for cash, a percent of which is getting back to BIS. Natural evolution of such situation would be giving some form of advantage for those who share their profits with company - either more powerful modding tools, better documentation, or access to internal builds, so that 3rd party developers can make their products ready for game updates. That's also what happens in world of DCS, and why wouldn't it work in Arma?

 

It's also possible that apart from main Arma sequel we could also get some kind of Arma spin-off - possibly a multi-platform, MP-focused game with all those modern bells and whistles like microtransactions, leaderboards etc. All of this actually happened in BIS games already - just take a look at Argo and Ylands. That's why IMHO it's not out of realm of possibility for BIS flagship title/series.

 

Of course, that's my pessimist outlook, and it's based only on BIS public and past actions. Who knows, maybe company itself just looks at Argo with disgust, and over the Maruk's office doors there's a huge poster Argo - never again!. But Vigor and Ylands are still a thing, and their longetivity is surprising for non-Arma BIS game. Remember Take on games? Yeah, it seems like BIS doesn't remember them either, they vanished so fast, while Vigor is here to stay.

 

Anyway, who knows, we can only speculate. Difference is that some of us speculate for free on the fourms, while others take profit from us watching their ramblings on YT! :P

 

PS. One of the sure signs of things going bad AAA-dev way for me is the corporate-speak ever-present in "20 years of Bohemia" video. At one point narrator says we support our titltes with numerous free platform updates - yeah, well, 15 years ago we called them patches, and if developer wasn't patching his buggy game, he was shunned. Now it's the other way around - if you patch support game with free platform updates you're among the best of the best, not simply doing what you should be doing anyway...

(I may be wrong, but the first game where I saw free update used instead of patch was in case of No Man's Sky - and while it's good that Sean Murray finally deliverd game he promised, you have to notice the irony of content promised to be part of base game being released as a free update - well, of course it's free, people already paid to have that stuff in your game!)

[drebin052 323]

2 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said:

To be honest, I don't have a positive outlook on Arma future. And by that I don't mean BIS is going to make a bad game - however in 21st century, not only gameplay and quality of art affects the final product. Marketing and pricing policy is also very important. I have a feeling that next Arma may move into the realm previously occupied by sims like DCS or Il-2 - where base game (virtually devoid of any meaningful content) is provided for free/low price, but to actually have some fun with it, you have to pay for one of myriads of DLCs (which often cost as much as full game from competition).

 

I'm sure BI isn't going to stoop to Bethesda levels...or at the very least, I have a little faith they won't go that low.

 

If Arma 4 were to follow the same route as Arma 3 where you don't have critical assets locked out and only have niche aspects of the game made premium (i.e. Tanks/Jets DLC), then it's fine in my books. They need a way of monetising A4's development after release, and going down the "sell-one-retextured-vehicle-for-five-dollars" route obviously wouldn't work for a series like Arma.

 

Now if BI were to go down the Bethesda route and start charging $20 USD for ingame hand gestures...then yeah, it'd be time to grab the pitchforks and torches. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that.

[stburr91 1002]

My two biggest concerns about Arma 4 is that, one  it will go to console,  and two, it will be set back in the cold war days, or in some other past time frame. 

 

I can't see Arma going to console, and being able to retain the core essence of the series. Not having modding, or the mission making tools/scripting we have now would kill the series for me.

 

Similarly, going backwards in time for A4, and not having modern military equipment, would also kill the series for me. 

 

DLC is here to stay, lets just hope it's not creator DLC, which is just paid mods. If I'm going to have to buy DLC to keep the Arma series going, I want it to be from BI, and not from modders.   

[old_painless 182]

3 hours ago, stburr91 said:

Similarly, going backwards in time for A4, and not having modern military equipment, would also kill the series for me. 

 

Agree, It would be unwise to dramatically shift time period. Other games like the Ghost Recon series (no comparison btw) maintain current or slightly futuristic time age and equipment but move the game around geographically in new releases and come up with other stories/background narratives. They sell like crazy even though it is hard to tell two releases apart.

 

Iron sights would be unbearable for Arma 4. That can be modded in later on for those who enjoy Vietnam or 2nd world war, just like the great work of the Unsung team.

[joostsidy 685]

I am positively inclined. BIS still has a kind of monopoly on the 'serious military game' with infantry and vehicles together. I can see them going the 'don't fix if it aint broken' route. That excludes going to console or or changing the whole setting again. They had some failed experiments in the past with going to console and a (too) fantastic setting (aliens and railguns (not Contact, that one is cool)). Joining the AAA trends with futuristic gameplay while maintaining the serious aspect is a solid niche for them, with high profit potential and low risk. 

 

It will probably take time though, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a couple of years and I don't mind honestly. I fully expect delays due to staff getting captured on spy missions again or their tank stuck in reverse driving through their HQ, etc.

[krzychuzokecia 717]

On 4/17/2020 at 9:03 PM, drebin052 said:

Arma 3 where you don't have critical assets locked out and only have niche aspects of the game made premium (i.e. Tanks/Jets DLC), then it's fine in my books.

The DCS/Il-2 model I'm speaking of is very similiar. The difference is in price (single DLC for DCS can cost as much as a new release AAA title such as FarCry or Battlefield), scope and quality (usually one DLC depicts single aircraft, but does it in a meticulous detail). But no platform or base game features are behind the paywall - you can even use free 3rd party addons, with one caveat that these are usually of way lower quality. Additionally, in case of DCS (which is free to play) all playable content (missions, campaigns) are also behind the DLC paywall.

 

I know many Arma players who are also into DCS or Il-2, and I believe that this DLC model would be accepted by the most of Arma community. I don't think base game would be free to play, and as such it would probably have a decent amount of playable content, but I have a feeling that additional sandbox content (weapons, vehicles) would be sold as a single items, not as packs as it was in case of A3. Reception of DLCs such as Marksmen, Helicopters and Jets was pretty divided - people either loved them, or hated them. I probably heard a thousand times phrase 10 Euro for five guns?! Scandal! I don't even use half of them - so it would be reasonable to sell single items at a higher price. This way people can buy exactly the stuff they are interested in, and company can still expect profit.

 

4 hours ago, joostsidy said:

BIS still has a kind of monopoly on the 'serious military game' with infantry and vehicles together. I can see them going the 'don't fix if it aint broken' route. That excludes going to console (...) They had some failed experiments in the past with going to console (...) Joining the AAA trends (...) while maintaining the serious aspect is a solid niche for them, with high profit potential and low risk. 

Except that those AAA trends are currently: multi-platform games, competetive MP and microtransactions. You can't simply go with AAA mainstream while retaining core Arma gameplay, because those are often at odds. Especially multi-platform part (90% of console players are using pads, which requires a very different approach in controls and gameplay too).

 

Also, I disagree that BIS experiments in console have failed. Quite the opposite - as we can see from "20 years of Bohemia" vid, they are proud of their accomplishments with DayZ (PS4, XOne) and Vigor (XOne). Not to mention still ongoing shovelware mobile game (as described by @target_practice) Arma Mobile Ops. It seems like BIS, after failed attempt to bring OFP and Arma 2 to consoles, have finally found console secret sauce, and they're gonna spread all over the next Arma sandwich.

 

If not, if next main Arma game won't be multi-platform, then I'm sure we will see an Arma spin-off, which surely will have all those AAA traits, with gameplay dumbed down to gamepad limits and microtransactions with skins, gestures and so on.

 

Oh, by the way. I'm also pretty sure that next Arma game won't be called Arma 4, but just Arma. Reboots are a thing all the cool kids do these days, and since BIS can't really do a follow up to A3 story (remember that initially people hated the not-so-futuristic setting), reboot seems like a good choice. Also this allows them to abandon the (often inconsistent and contradictory) Armaverse.

 

EDIT: And one more thing. One could say (and would be right) that BIS is not really an AAA developer. Indeed, they are not, but (as evidenced in that corporate vid) they really, really identify as one. There's even a line in the video how Bohemia Interactive is the biggest game developer in Czech Republic. Normal reaction is to ask: so what? It's not like Czech Rep is chock full of huge game devs. The only two apart from BIS I can remember are Warhorse (Kingdom Come) and SCS (Truck Simulator series) - and those two are NICHE AS HELL! But BIS is still flexing their muscles, telling us we're the Big Deal now!

Edited April 18, 2020 by krzychuzokecia

[target_practice 163]

14 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said:

I know many Arma players who are also into DCS or Il-2, and I believe that this DLC model would be accepted by the most of Arma community.

I'm willing to believe that BIS won't do this. DCS/Train Simulator DLC model is one that is only really practical for simulators with a dedicated niche community.

Arma does of course have this, but these days the majority of the franchise's revenue comes from more casual players. Most of the Arma community is now comprised of these people, for better or worse (largely the latter, honestly) and I serioulsy doubt they'll be receptive to that kind of scheme.

Bohemia runs the risk of sinking the franchise with such a method by driving away the mainstream audience; given that they seem to be moving in the direction of more mainstream appeal, I doubt they'll approach it in such a way if these are the circumstances.

Either way, if BIS actually goes through with such a thing, I know for certain I'll be ending my (admittedly brief) time with the series.

 

What I think is a far more likely concern is something I alluded to in my previous post; the design of Arma shifting away from being semi-milsim with extensive modding support, to being a military-themed Garry's mod.

In other words, instead of trying to make a complete game in of itself, they'll take a page out of Bethesda's book and create something that is good enough, exploiting the pre-established modding community to do the remainder of the work for them.

Furthermore, due to the success and recognition that mods for their games brought them before, they'll be less interested in creating a game, but rather a modding sandbox out of which they hope will emerge another industry trendsetter.

Owing to how much they harp on about their "close relationship with our community" in their recent self-panegyrizing video, I feel this is a far more likely course for them to take.

 

Make no mistake, I certainly hope I'm wrong about all this, and that those who work on the game, as well as the company at large, are invested in Arma for what it is.

The company has undergone an undeniable change in priorities however, and so it is equally likely even those within Bohemia that would rather avoid such a route will be unable to do anything about it, and the franchise as we know it will end with Arma 3.

[major_barnes1987 33]

We still don't know if this "major project will be ArmA 4,it could be something totally new.So i don't wanna get hyped just yet.But it needs to be ArmA 4 for many reasons.There are a few ideas about what i want to see in the next game but we'll discuss this if they offiacially anounce it.But that was some good news allright!

[connorwarman 60]

On 4/16/2020 at 10:13 PM, drebin052 said:

Unless BI have decided to screw over the Creator DLC teams completely, an Arma 4 reveal isn't going to happen in 2020 -- let alone a release. So no, that Drewski vid is just more clickbait for ad revenue.

 

Is there more Creator DLC coming out in 2020? And if so, do we know what it will be? 

[POLPOX 778]

33 minutes ago, connorwarman said:

Is there more Creator DLC coming out in 2020? And if so, do we know what it will be? 

We know nothing about release date of any of CDLCs, but one of the CDLC is an Asian-themed, is confirmed information.

Also, CSLA is rumored to be CDLC.

[zukov 490]

"Asian-themed"  vietnam?  

[mankyle 410]

It would be more "influenced by reality" an "Spratly/paracels" multi island map...

 

But one can dream...

 

I still want a big map appropiate por large scale amphibious assaults

[Kristian 47]

47 minutes ago, mankyle said:

It would be more "influenced by reality" an "Spratly/paracels" multi island map...

 

But one can dream...

 

I still want a big map appropiate por large scale amphibious assaults

Yeah I was kinda hoping something along these lines when Apex was announced, but instead of island hopping we got VTOLs, which are pretty cool too, but not as cool as naval warfare around the archipelago would've been, imo 😛

Would be intresting to know more about upcoming CDLCs, but those have their own speculative threads, I think.

I do hope for better performance from A4 (DayZ current state is a good sign) and the ability to finally walk on moving objects, such as ships, planes etc. I understand that AI might not work under those conditions though, but I don't 

see AIs inability to use something as a reason to cut it from the game.  Like bipods and weapon resting in A3, purely for player use.

 

As for setting, I do hope for something modern. I think I've had it with these old soviet bloc / soviet village / middle-eastern shantytown types of places. Tanoa has really nice infastructure, the place actually looks and feels like modern 

society. Perhaps a  fictional island somewhere in the north pacific? Mainland US? Somehow I want to get china, russia and US all involved 😄 

[zukov 490]

why not latin / south america? Africa to me is the candidate, the  fictional  name are in the tac ops dlc in particular east wind the  francophone troops from africa.....

[drebin052 323]

11 hours ago, connorwarman said:

Is there more Creator DLC coming out in 2020? And if so, do we know what it will be? 

 

Release is pretty likely in 2020, but so far BI have only confirmed that more news about them will be unveiled sometime later this year (see paragraph under OPERATIONS). We're also approaching the first year milestone of Global Mobilization's release in about six days time, so perhaps there'll be news around that time?

 

Unfortunately, there's been little on the latter aside from rumours based on job offers on the official Arma Discord channels. And as POLPOX stated, it's very likely to be SEA-themed given the author of the offer and the mod they're currently working on.

[stburr91 1002]

11 hours ago, POLPOX said:

We know nothing about release date of any of CDLCs, but one of the CDLC is an Asian-themed, is confirmed information.

Also, CSLA is rumored to be CDLC.

 

Can you provide a link to where this information was confirmed? 

[connorwarman 60]

6 hours ago, drebin052 said:

 

Release is pretty likely in 2020, but so far BI have only confirmed that more news about them will be unveiled sometime later this year (see paragraph under OPERATIONS). We're also approaching the first year milestone of Global Mobilization's release in about six days time, so perhaps there'll be news around that time?

 

Unfortunately, there's been little on the latter aside from rumours based on job offers on the official Arma Discord channels. And as POLPOX stated, it's very likely to be SEA-themed given the author of the offer and the mod they're currently working on.

Got it, thanks. I would love some more CDLC's. Looking forward to it.