[BLOG] Play God In ARMA 3's Zeus Mode

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Digmbot
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Joined: 08 Oct 2013, 18:29

[BLOG] Play God In ARMA 3's Zeus Mode

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ARMA 3 may be the premiere hardcore military simulator on the market, but things just got a bit more interesting in Bohemia's love letter to modern war fighting. Now available by selecting the game's Development Build in Steam, the new Zeus mode looks set to change the way the huge armies of ARMA engage each other on the battlefield.



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The concept of Zeus mode will be familiar to anyone who has ever played a Real Time Strategy Game like Starcraft. The player in Zeus mode is granted a free flying  view of one of ARMA 3's massive maps. They can move around the map, zooming in and out, panning the camera and getting up close and personal with individual units with ease, while also easily surveying the entire map with a few clicks of the mouse. While in this mode, Zeus players are able to place enemy squads, animals, NPCs, vehicles, waypoints and more for the players on the ground. Even if this were the extent of Zeus mode, it would be a worthy addition to the multiplayer component of the game.



Fortunately, Bohemia has gone much, much further in implementing Zeus. The tools available to the Zeus player extend far beyond simply placing waypoints and summoning squads of Anti-Tank infantry from thin air to harass unsuspecting convoys. The player in command of this mode is able to sculpt a living story for players on the ground, through objectives he can place and change on a whim, ambushes along the road and easy improvisation, that has been made available through the tools that Bohemia Interactive provides. The player isn’t locked into one side of the conflict either. Able to interact with any of the myriad forces and factions deployable across and ARMA battleground, they can provide swift and varied reactions from multiple allies or potential threats in any given scenario as they create and morph it around players on the ground. In essence, Zeus mode turns the player in command into the GM in a DnD game, albeit in a hardcore military sim, with a lot less dice rolling, but the comparison is strong as the Zeus player guides those on foot through a custom built story that’s never the same in any given play session.


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The sheer depth that Zeus brings to the game has yet to be fully explored, but developer Bohemia showed off some of the functionality in a large scale battle during a live stream. The results were impressive. Maneuvering squads of AI in support of opposition or heroic forces, morphing objectives and waypoints on the fly were all demonstrated. While the developers did of course demonstrate the most basic capabilities of the mode, they were also quick to stress that this tool was conceptualized as a way for players to experience an interactive story on the battlefield, likening it to player created campaigns on the scale of other military shooters - with, I hope, less Michael bay style explosions. Theres a laundry list of things Bohemia plans to add to Zeus mode, including loading AI into other vehicles, making helicopters fly on there own (currently the Zeus player has to drag them airborne) and several balance fixes, but the basic start of the mode is very promising. It remains to be seen what can fully be done with this tool, but if the demonstrations are anything to go by, the most in depth military shooter on the market just got even more intense.



Want to see Zeus mode in action? Check out the video below:



-Digmbot

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