Today, we at Bohemia Interactive are happy to announce the release of the Ground Support milestone update, the first set of content featured from our public Roadmap. Ground Support delivers an entirely unique landscape to explore, a cooperative-multiplayer game mode, new weapons, and much more. Of course, this 0.9.7 update is also packed with a sizable list of critical fixes, stability optimizations, and other exciting improvements for both players and community modders.

Admittedly, a game of this complexity requires a careful approach and a lot of seemingly invisible work related to its performance and stability, which slows down the process of adding anything new. As such, our original plan didn't survive the first contact: Ground Support, originally intended to be a single massive update, has been redefined as a series of smaller ones released over the upcoming months. Our goals regarding the content and features of Arma Reforger remain unchanged. Our focus instead has shifted to bringing you smaller updates containing fixes, stable features, and a variety of improvements more frequently, with a priority on quality and stability. You may look forward to a steady flow of enhancements and occasional presents in the form of new toys or gameplay features. This smaller scope of particular updates will hopefully result in a much smoother experience with extensively tested and polished novelties. Don't worry, though. After we've fulfilled our promises with the Ground Support milestone, we'll move on to the next greatly anticipated set of content - the Air Assault update.

Now, welcome to the new island of Arland!

Arma Reforger Ground Support Update Key Features

• Arland - Arland is probably the most prominent addition: spanning over a modest area of 16 km2, it shall provide you with another diverse and picturesque Arma world, ready for exploration and combat operations. It's situated in the Malden Islands archipelago, fairly close to the island of Everon, and is part of the Everon Socialist Republic. The island features a rural landscape with two picturesque villages and a wind-swept military area in which heaths and pine groves surround the vast military airfield with plenty of unique structures: a control tower, hardened aircraft shelters, and underground bunkers. These distinct regions are separated by the wooded ridge reaching up to 148 m above sea level, crowned by the communications station, which is expected to see many clashes. Arland features its own Game Master and Conflict scenarios. Conflict has been adapted to the smaller scale of the island, resulting in more intense player vs. player battles without compromising the importance of logistics and communication for victory.
• Combat Ops - The first iteration of our new dynamic, cooperative, multiplayer-oriented game mode - Combat Ops. Cooperation has become a value staple experience of Arma games, and we're excited to finally bring it in an interesting open-world scenario in which up to 6 players team up to fulfill three objectives randomly scattered across the island and exfiltrate. Although the challenge calls for team collaboration, the scenario is naturally playable by a single player.
• Sa-58P and Sa-58V 7.62x39 Assault Rifles - Named the new standard issue service weapon for FIA soldiers, players can now face off against this new set of heavy-hitting weaponry or take it with them to ensure their victory.
• 4×20 Carry Handle Scope - For those longer-ranged engagements, the M16 rifles now have the option for an attached 4x20 magnification scope for enhanced performance on the battlefield.

Continuing with other highlights from the Ground Support update, here is a list of other important changes included in this 0.9.7 milestone:

• Scenario Framework - Combat Ops has been created using the new Scenario Framework, which shall be immensely helpful to the community scenario designers. This new function will allow users to create their own scenarios in Workbench while possessing minimal scripting knowledge - an easier way to create playable content. We will post a detailed tutorial on our BIKI soon. We intend to polish and expand this system so that it could be useful as a general scenario logic in the other official game modes in the future.
• Damage and Healing Logic - The system of bleeding, healing, and injuries has received quite an overhaul, including a rework of the structure of consumable items. Game Masters can also adjust the health setting in the scenario properties or from the context menu on characters.
• In-game Session Hosting (PC) - The game can host multiplayer sessions on a local machine, allowing players to host and play the session. Network configuration (for example, opening ports on a router) is still up to the user.
• Driving Manual - The realistic features of operating vehicles have been expanded. The option to use a manual gearbox in vehicles (where it's available) was added, and the game won't turn off the engine now while getting out of the vehicle. HUD elements for vehicles were enhanced by adding lights, handbrakes, and other indicators.
• Encumbrance of Characters - The weight of each cartridge is now added to the magazine weight. This has an effect on stamina and should force players to be even more considerate about their loadouts.
• Video Graphics Settings (Xbox) - We listened to players' feedback about performance problems on Xbox. This version brings updated graphics settings for Xbox, which should help achieve stable performance on all versions of the console.
• Voting Improvements - Voting should be much easier now with the addition of a key to instantly cast a vote for an ongoing vote. Players can now only vote to kick a player of the same faction.
• Other Improvements - Network traffic optimizations, audio sound changes, tweaked controls, AI perception improvements, quality of life changes, and more.

To see the full list of content, be sure to read our latest 0.9.7 Changelog, where you'll find everything that has been added, changed, tweaked, fixed, and removed.

This Ground Support milestone update is now available for all owners of Arma Reforger on Steam and Xbox Game Preview. We look forward to bringing you more content soon and thank you for your continued support on our journey.

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