With almost 50% negative ratings, Arma Reforger faces a community that is dissatisfied with what it offers.

The story of Arma Reforger started excitingly. A few weeks ago, Czech studio Bohemia Interactive announced the news about the saga; it seemed that an upcoming Arma 4 was on the horizon, but the title we have in our hands today is Arma Reforger, which, far from being a ‘non-alcoholic’ light version of the franchise, will serve as a bridge between the third instalment and the future of the series – or at least that was the plan.

Perhaps the wait since Arma 3 was released in 2013, or the lack of awareness of the lesser title, caused the community to frown, and Arma Reforger debuted on Steam to mixed reviews.

While not a disaster, only 60% of user reviews are positive, leaving this new shooter far behind its predecessor.

Of course, it should be noted that Arma 3 has a much longer run, almost a decade of content and a much more established community than this title. Most of the complaints from gamers, however, revolve around the spin-off concept of the franchise as a standalone product, which presumably won’t receive much support as the studio focuses on developing Arma 4, which is scheduled for 2025.

Still, most are upset by the fact of the Early Access release.

Many are making it clear that bugs and performance issues can be forgiven as an Early Access game, while others are harshly attacking the Czech-Polish studio for selling a €29.99 title in such a green state. Be that as it may, it should be noted that Bohemia Interactive’s intention is merely to test the community with what they hope will be coming to Arma 4 while taking advantage of the Efusion engine, which replaces Arma 3’s previous engine Real Virtuality 4.

Despite this, many essential elements of the previous instalment do not appear in this title. The Arma Reforger lacks a 3D editor, the AI cannot drive, while the same vehicles have a lot of trouble navigating the different map levels. Also, many of the game’s servers seem to be inaccessible.

Another group of criticisms concerns the console version.

Arma Reforger is the first title in the series to leapfrog from PC, where it was ahead of the competition, to consoles, with versions for Xbox One and the current-generation X and S series. This opening in the series was greeted with resounding disappointment that a niche franchise had been “spoiled” on PC and that decisions to port the game to consoles could have an impact on the current Steam version.

At the moment, it seems that Arma Reforger still has some work to do, and studio Bohemia Interactive has already announced that development will be delayed by a year while they work on Arma 4. We don’t know what new features this title will contain or if they will be relevant to the series beyond acting as a “technology demo” for a future instalment.

Source: Steam

Arma Reforger has been out less than an hour and Tails has already managed this. pic.twitter.com/nA1l5OSGlY

— JayRaptor (@RubixRaptor) May 17, 2022