Getting into the world of mods in Arma Reforger can be eye-opening. After all, community-made content not only introduces exciting new assets such as weapons or terrains but also entirely new factions and game modes, and sometimes, they can fully overhaul the game to an unrecognizable shape. Understandably, it may also be confusing for newcomers. Let's have a look at different kinds of mods, how to try them out, and how to join servers with different mod lists.
What Are Mods
Short for modifications, mods are community-created content to expand, enhance, or change the core (vanilla) game. Arma Reforger offers modders near identical possibilities as the developers have via the Workbench, a program created to work within the game's Enfusion engine. It lets anyone with a computer not just modify the game's systems, assets, etc., but also create entirely new content that integrates into the game seamlessly.
We have created Arma Reforger to be as moddable as possible, and we are constantly amazed at the creativity and dedication of our talented modding community. Modders create incredible content in their spare time, for free.
It is also important to note that mods are not made by Bohemia Interactive, and modders do not have the same QA team behind them as the vanilla game. As a result, we cannot guarantee the performance of every mod, and we cannot edit, bugfix, or alter community-created content. Should you encounter any issues pertaining to specific mods, many modders are active on our Discord, where you can go to ask community modders questions in their respective showcase channels. Some larger modding groups and communities also have their channels for communication, many of which are displayed in the mods' welcome messages upon launch.
How To Play Mods
Mods can be viewed in the Workshop either in-game or on our online Workshop. All mods linked to in this article are available both in the online Workshop and available to download in-game.
There are two ways for a player to play with modded content on their machines. First is solo, offline. Ideal to try out new assets, explore new terrains, learn how to use more complicated systems or vehicles, or to enjoy a single-player scenario on your own. The second way is through the server browser.
Using Mods Solo
Upon entering the Workshop, you are met with over a thousand pages of mods filled with over 12,000 mods and dependencies. Filtering helps navigate the landscape when you're looking for the right mod. All of these are based on what each mod creator or group uses as tags upon publishing their mod. The categories with examples are as follows:
(Note: this is by no means an official endorsement of these mods, or any indication of our potential evaluation of them for Make Arma Not War 2025. We are merely suggesting examples of these common categories of mods.)
Vehicles: UAZ-452 Offroad, RHIB, Project Redline - UH-60, HMMWV Variants
Weapons: M110 DMR, MP5_MP5SD, Cheytac .408, P320
Structures: HMAS Adelaide, Police Department, ZBK, Khanh Trung Tree and Huts
Characters: BallienCreatures, Vergys Custom Clothing, British Forces, Canadian Armed Forces
Animals: Environmental Ambience Mod
Vegetation: Force Grass & Distant Shadows, Dead Everon, TROPICAL TREES PACK, MMHs IVY
Props: UFO, Milsim PRC163 Radios, Locker System, Suspicious Item Props
Compositions: HESCO Buildables, Military Banner, WZ Turrets
Scenarios (Singleplayer): REAPER_Exemption, GHOST OPS, Overthrow, Bacon Ravage
Scenarios (Multiplayer): Everon Life, United Offensive Vietnam PVE, Dayz Reforged Zone v2, Wasteland Reforged
Terrains: Zimnitrita, YELLOWSTONE, Worthy Islands, Takistan
Systems & Features: Bon Action Animations, Game Master Enhanced, First Person Helicopter HUD, ACE All in One
Effects: Night Vision System, Atmospheric Weather - The Fog, Cold War Colour, Music Radio in Vehicles
Miscellaneous: Where Am I, GM Persistent Loadouts, Helmet Camera View, Bacon Parachute
Once you download your mods via the workshop, along with all the necessary dependencies* (mods that other mods depend on to run), you can find the playable content in the Scenarios menu. Most mods can also be used within vanilla Game Master modes such as Arland or Everon. There, you can find your loaded mods via the Entity Browser or via the Scenario Properties.
Keep in mind that some modded assets or textures are only available through Workbench for scenario or terrain creation.
Modded scenarios shown in the Scenarios menu
Modded assets ready to use in the Game Master Entity Browser (You can filter for Modded content)
Modded factions and scenario/GM properties
PRO TIP: If you run into issues such as ADDON_LOAD_ERROR or some of your mods behave unexpectedly, there may be one or more mods conflicting with each other. The best course of action would be to disable mods in your Mod Manager one by one until your game runs with no errors again. This way, you can single out which mod was causing trouble, exclude it from your mod list, and try to use the others without it. Sometimes, mods can affect the same parts of the code, meaning they are simply not compatible with each other.
*Dependencies: Mods that other mods depend on to run. They can consist of simple data packs, scripts, models, or entire sets of mods. For example, vehicles that share weapon systems such as WCS_Armaments can all be published without said weapons included in the vehicle mod to save storage space, as they can simply utilize the data shared among many other vehicle mods.
Joining a Modded Server
The easiest way to play a multiplayer game with mods is to join a modded server via the Server Browser. The game will automatically start downloading any required mods or load any previously downloaded required mods from your SSD. All you need to do is wait for the downloads to finish, and you will automatically join the game (or server queue if the server is full) as soon as your mods have downloaded.
NOTE: Sometimes modded servers use different versions of specific mods. This may result in a need to redownload certain mods upon switching servers, even though it is already on your drive. Before you join a server, you can see the mods required, including their versions, and the remaining data needed to download.
Mods required for the specific server. The number in white indicates the total mod pack size, and the number in yellow indicates how much is not locally downloaded yet. This server uses 62 mods and needs a total of 16 GB of storage. 6.7 GB of mods are needed to download, the rest is already on the drive.
Mods being downloaded upon joining a modded server
You cannot pick and choose which mods you want to download for a specific server (i.e., all players in a server must use the same mod set required by the server).
Keep in mind that community servers are community-run. They have their own sets of rules, their specific admins, culture, mod lists, and requirements. Should you encounter issues with mod instability, server performance, queue times, or similar, contact the server owners with feedback. Running servers with high player counts can be costly, and community servers are doing their best to fit as many players as possible. Be patient with them, follow their rules, and treat everyone with respect.
NOTE: If you do not wish to join a modded server and want to experience vanilla Arma Reforger, you can do so by using filters. Select Vanilla to see servers with no mods enabled. Modded servers are also marked by the puzzle piece icon next to the scenario name. Vanilla servers lack the puzzle piece icon.
Basic Troubleshooting Practices
Disabling Unused Mods
Each server loads up all the required mods automatically, disabling the rest, but when you play locally on your own, you should pay attention to the mod manager. Say you've played a few rounds of Tiny Wars and then decided to play Combat Ops Arland or Training to sharpen a skill. If you haven't disabled Tiny Wars in the Mod Manager, some of the aspects of the game that it affects may still be modded.
In this case, simply leave the scenario, disable the mod causing such an issue, and reload the scenario.
Your Training scenario will look very strange if you try to play it with the Tiny Wars mod loaded.
Patience Is Key
You're excited to play mods. After all, the Workshop is bursting with so many new and interesting options to try, but when you're working with mods, patience is your best friend. Repeatedly cancelling and restarting downloads, scrolling through Workshop pages before letting the previous ones load, and other similar behavior may cause issues with your load times, downloads, or file integrity.
We are aware that these issues exist and are constantly working on fixes to the UI and UX. Until then, keep your cool, slow down, and wait until the current operation is finished before jumping into the next one.
Download Speeds vs Write Speeds
You may have noticed that your mod download speeds are not as fast as what your internet provider promises. While your connection might be fine, what is affecting the wait times before the mods are available to you is the write speed of your console's internal SSD.
When you download a game, the download and write speeds are fast. You can get a 200 GB game in less than an hour with a solid connection. But once you download it, you are much less likely to delete it and redownload it the very next day. And if the developer pushes an update out, it has to go through a submission process with the particular platform you're playing on, so the frequency of rewriting said game is fairly low.
Mods, on the other hand, update often. Sometimes multiple times a day. Modders do not have to go through the platform submission processes and can publish updates instantly. The mods will most likely update with each modded server you join or each modded scenario you load up. Multiply that by the number of mods per server, and the strain on the SSDs grows significantly.
To optimize the data writing onto the SSD, the write speeds are dynamically adjusted depending on a set budget and available cache. These budgets, along with the allocated mod storage capacity (25GB), are set by the platform, and we utilize them to achieve maximum possible performance while adhering to the read/write budgets of the given platform to ensure SSD longevity.
Modding Is Here For You
Players of all three platforms can now enjoy Arma Reforger to its full potential. And whether you prefer the vanilla experience or you like to alter your gameplay significantly using mods, the sandbox is yours. Once you familiarize yourself with the inner workings of playing with mods, you will open a whole new world of Arma for yourself.
If you'd like to try your hand at modding, we've created a wide range of resources to help you get started. You can look at all the available documentation, the Modding Boot Camp series of articles and YouTube videos, our Wiki, and Discord.
Don't forget to check out Make Arma Not War, a modding competition with over $100,000 in prizes, and follow @ArmaPlatform on social media of your choice for the latest news!
For more information about Arma Reforger, please visit reforger.armaplatform.com. To keep track of all the latest news throughout the competition, be sure to join our Discord and follow Arma Platform on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, and Steam.
