I’m a player who loves sandbox games—specifically the Zeus mode in Arma 3, where I’ve spent over 1,000 hours offline, here is my review :
-extremly bad optimisation
-very bad ui, Navigating Game Master mode is incredibly slow and cumbersome; the UI is huge and takes up all the space, and the filter system is unintuitive.
-A really bad Zeus mod—which, subjectively speaking, was the best part of Arma 3 for me.
The difference between the freedom of what you could do in Arma 3 and what you can do in Arma Reforger is astronomical; you are heavily restricted in areas like inventory management, and you can't even spawn as many items as you want, and i dont even talk about all the thing that are not present : artillery, medics that dont care about their teamate And there are really too few adjustable parameters for props, vehicles, and AI; you can't even change their skill levels or inventories. There don't seem to be any empty containers with customizable inventories—only arsenals—except for vehicles, which can only be accessed by controlling an NPC in FPS mode rather than through Game Master mode..
-terrible workshop system, it's terrible to search for mod, and you dont even understand what are the utility of mod because 3/4 of the mod dont have description, but just ai slop icon (most of them are made for multiplayer), and a lot of them just dont want to load.
so playing with good mod, single player, in zeus like arma 3 is very hard and annoying. There are very few good mods like RHS, but that is nothing compared to the astronomical amount of content, factions, and gameplay mutators available for Arma 3.
-For me the AI in a sandbox (if there is one) is the most important thing in the game :
the vanilla AI in Arma Reforger is better than the vanilla AI in Arma 3; however, with mods (DCO, LAMBS, VCOM), the Arma 3 AI becomes equal to—or even better than—Reforger's, but Reforger ai cant even pilot helico so this is only for infantry and this ai is cool to watch fighting other ai while acting inteligent, but against real player the ai is very slow, have a bad aim, and not that inteligent. whereas well-configured Arma 3 AI with good mods can wipe you out.
since there are no mods for Reforger to improve it, the Arma3 ai stay better.
-but the vanilla map are prety cool and you can pause all the game master scene wich is a cool feature.
Multiplayer :
So, I tried to console myself by telling myself the game was primarily designed for multiplayer.
I started with the vanilla servers; they were okay overall, though I found the point-capture and victory systems overly complicated, and there was absolutely no communication with other players. The experience turned out to be a bit dull, so I decided to try community servers.
For the most part, the gameplay wasn't fun at all; many servers run an astronomical number of unoptimized mods, making them practically unplayable. Communication is only slightly better than on vanilla servers—meaning it's still pretty disastrous, full of uncoordinated lone wolves.
In terms of general gameplay (setting aside the victory system, which seems incredibly complex), the game feels more like *Battlefield*—complete with an inventory system but lacking hit markers—than a true milsim. There is no recoil, and the servers are packed with "tacticool" lone wolves sporting Adidas jackets and night-vision goggles.
As for the great servers I’d seen all over YouTube—the ultra-hardcore, immersive ones with no UI, incredible sound design, Ukraine-vs-Russia scenarios, and high-adrenaline action—they were all completely packed with massive queues, so I couldn't get in.
Conclusion :
If you have a similar profile to mine, I would advise against buying it. Arma 3 is cheaper and much better; with great mods, you can achieve incredible immersion. While the game is certainly very beautiful, I don't think it's worth it given the disastrous optimization.
I know Arma Reforger is a "stepping stone" to Arma 4, and I really hope Arma 4 turns out to be a fantastic game.
