I’ve Finally Made A Return To Milsim Gaming On The PC!
Dusting Off My Military Simulation Credentials
‘Back in the day’ (the early 2000s) I got involved with multiplayer battlefield computer gaming in a big way (there’s a hidden pin here which I’ll explain in a bit). Before this I was a ‘solo’ player of Tactical Shooter games like the legendary ‘Ghost Recon’ but the a work colleague introduced me to multiplayer military shooters, namely ‘Joint Operations’ by Novalogic.
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| Above: My first taste of Milsim-Lite - Joint Operations an impressive precursor to Battlefield 2. JO actually had some advantages over BF2, it had a huge world map and allowed up to 150 simultaneous players, something BF2 never equalled. Sadly, despite it's promise Novalogic never fired back at DICE's BF franchise and there was never a Joint Ops 2. |
Joint Ops was a precursor to Battlefield 2, but not many remember it these days, but it really got me hooked both on team based shooters and on the notion of ‘milsimming’ - the role playing of a military game in a manner where we simulated ‘serious’ military operations, including training.
In the end, I became part of a formal gaming clan and played games like Battlefield 2 competitively. This involved a formal pseudo-military structure where we had ranks and roles and turned up regularly to practise team tactics and entered inter-clan and clan versus clan competitions. It all got rather serious for a time.
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| Above: Practically forgotten about now, Americas Army 3 was a free game used by the US Army as a recruiting tool back in 2009. It was quite 'milsim-ish' as it introduced a lot of real training aspects to the game. Pictured above is the Medical Training sequence which included real clips of real US Army medics explaining field First Aid techniques. In this the game was well ahead of it's time but - sadly - the game aspect of this shooter was less well received at the game finally disappeared in 2022. But I actually enjoyed it! |
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| Above: 2009 must have been the year of the Milsim game as 'we' (RiP game clan) also tried out Operation Flashpoint 2, a multiplayer tactical shooter that was intended to rival ARMA 2. It was intended to be slightly more accessible than ARMA and I commented at the time that "the graphics are good, as good as CoD4 but not quite as luscious as ArmA2. Mind you the demands of ArmA2 were so high it was nice to look at but a pig to play!" As impressive as it was this game, again, failed to get much traction. I guess the mainstream gaming public just was not ready for the Milsim...Yet! |
Above: It wasn't all bad news for those who wanted to Milsim back in the mid-2000s, there was one haven for the dedicated 'simmer' that established a bit of a cult following and that was the Project Reality mod for Battlefield 2. This garnered the reputation as being for the 'elite' BF2 player and some clans were dedicated to playing this version of mainstream Battlefield 2. Unfortunately, once again, my particular gaming clan decided it was a bit too niche and didn't set up a server for it.
Anyway, predictably I got a bit too serious about this pastime - though not so serious that I migrated from simply being a 'serious competitive BF2 player' to stepping up and joining a Project reality playing clan - and the inevitable ‘burn out’ ensued and I stopped playing anything other than informal team games - just for the fun of it…
But, just recently I started to rekindle my interest in computer Milsimming and bought myself ARMA Reforger - as I was told it was a lot more accessible than earlier incarnations of this ‘very serious’ (!) game.
Fast Forward to 2026
I picked up Reforger as I got a bit bored with the sci-fi shooters that I had been playing since I parted company with milsimming - games like Fall Out, Borderlands and even Division (although Division was at least an attempt at blending ‘realistic’ military action with a sci-fi plot).
I had been watching some YouTube video on the rise in popularity of tactical shooters like Squad, Ready or Not and - of course - ARMA 3 and had even dipped my toe in the water by having a go at Ghost Recon: Wildlands and Ground Branch (though in single player mode). But this did pique my interest in maybe trying a full-on multiplayer Milsim again, something like Hell Let Loose or Red Orchestra 2, but the reviews and comments about intense difficulty - particularly for beginners - put me off.
Then I watched a video about ARMA Reforger. I was still somewhat biased against the ARMA franchise given my negative experience with ARMA 2, but as that was from way back in 2009 I thought it might be time for me to give the series another chance.
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| Above: Back in 2009 I did give ARMA 2 a try, as did other members of my gaming clan but the general opinion was that the game wasn't 'action orientated enough' and the 'there was too much walking and not enough shooting'! So we passed on it. But I do remember being very impressed by the graphics. |
What really convinced me to fork out the money for this game though was the number of YouTube videos which highlighted the single player options for this game, including mod support. I therefore no longer was hampered by team mates who were not prepared to be patient and persevere with the game's depth of complexity.
Additionally, several of these videos highlighted one mod in particular that the creators professed made this a good option for ‘solo beginners’. That was enough to convince me.
ARMA Reforger: Overthrow Mod
So while I was curious about trying some vanilla ARMA Reforger with a multiplayer team, I figured that getting in plenty of solo experience first would only benefit me (and then I wouldn’t look a complete ‘noob’ in from of strangers). 😆
Above: Videos like this - from Tactical Bootneck - really got me excited about the idea of getting involved with a clan again. This is the sort of serious Milsimming I'd love to get into but the learning curve is steep, including a period of induction and training. So even before I attempt this level of ARMA Reforger I decided to start with some intense solo training of my own so I wouldn't make a complete 'noobish' fool of myself in front of these guys (many of which are real military veterans)!
Even though I was new to the game the installation of a third party mod was made very easy by ARMA’s integrated ‘workshop’ facility. Best of all - and something that has annoyed me in the past about mods - is that the workshop also informs you of any ‘dependencies’ - additional mods that are required to make the primary mod work. So, within a couple of minutes I had everything downloaded that I needed to run Overthrow.
I was soon firing up my first session of Overthrow, more just to work out the basics of ARMA’s key controls and to set up my Razer Orbweaver controller (a routine procedure I go through with any new game). But this was enough to persuade me that this game/mod was definitely up my street!
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| Above: 'Up my street' in the case of OVERTHROW meant my homebase in a little village under Soviet occupation! And it turned out to be quite a eventful residence, due in part to my making a school boy error concerning gun discipline! LOL |
After a couple of false starts where I jumped in to Overthrow just to get a sense of what it was like, I decided it was accessible enough for a 'noob' like me to actually give it a serious bash. So yesterday I had my first real session playing the mod.
So, I'm going to plough on with my first experience of ARMA Reforger/Overthrow mod and hopefully start to get familiar with the game mechanics. I'm really looking forward to my next session as it looks like the next stage in my resistance operative career will involve some - this time deliberate - gun play! 😆
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