Though it’s a powerful, versatile rifle, the M14s in Arma look and feel like they’ve been seeing heavy service for seven decades. Interestingly, insurgent forces get another rifle from American stock, the Korean War–era M14. The NATO forces get new sniper rifles and an assault rifle that looks a lot like the current American military workhorse, the M4. As in the Helicopters DLC, Bohemia has set aside some fancy new toys for the paying customers, and they are some gorgeous machines. Every player gets to stabilize their weapons in multiplayer and check out two new single-player missions, free of charge.

Up until now, everything I’ve described in this review is part of the free update for Arma 3. I once felt like I was “shooting a rifle,” but now I feel like I’m “shooting a Mark 14.” Every gun feels and shoots differently, and they all have their own particular character. Marksmen is doing the same for Arma’s guns. When it comes to clearing rooms and swinging around sharp corners, the heavy hitters are at a distinct disadvantage to the diminutive 9mm chatterbox.Īt every step, the new simulation for Arma’s helicopters made them less of a one-size-fits-all proposition. For the first time, I finally felt like submachine guns might be more useful in a close-quarters fight than pulling a Rambo with a hip-firing machine gun. Longer, heavier guns with more attachments bolted onto the barrel take ages to swing around and line up. Weapons have been given new handling physics, and this affects how they aim.

Though veterans should take a run through these, they’ll be most useful as an expanded boot camp for new players. A set of Virtual Reality training classes cover the basics of aiming and leading targets, while also touching on the importance of picking the right weapon for every situation. Arma continues to revise its training and tutorial programs to bring new players up to speed, and Marksmen packs a lot of new ways to train.

Arma 3 deploy bipod