Dense jungles make for uncomfortable pitched infantry combat as you weave through trees trying to line up shots, the open fields give armour columns plenty of space to wreak havoc, the small villages and towns provide ample opportunities for combined operations, and the addition of rivers creates a new possibility for navel combat. Tanoa is massive and adds a lot of variety that the vanilla maps of ARMA 3 were sorely lacking in. Still, the campaign is only part of the package, and like always ARMA is an entire box of toys, not just the train. Its better with friends, certainly, but it doesn’t seem like a big enough draw, especially considering the price tag this pack carries with it. You only barely get to experience the new map or even the weapons since you’re largely locked into the same gun, even over nine classes to choose from. The eight new missions are uncomfortably linear and don’t offer the freedom you’d crave from a game as big as ARMA 3. It does make some improvements, like a new Battlefield style spawn system when you die, and the missions themselves are enjoyable enough, but it doesn’t feel like proper ARMA content, more like a mod put together by a very talented team. Unfortunately the campaign does a really bad job of showing off the new features Apex adds. Or characters as the case may be since the big change this time around is the inclusion of drop-in multiplayer, letting you complete the campaign with up to three additional players, which makes the firefights that much more tactical and off-sets the game’s incredible difficulty.ĪK rifles make a welcome return, a familiar face in contrast to the futuristic weapons on offer. The plot, what little there is, is revealed through cutscenes and radio chatter, with your character largely silent. You are a member of the NATO task force sent in to re-stabilise the country while taking down its largest crime syndicates. This time it’s the tropical island of Tanoa in the south pacific, specifically based on the Fiji islands.
The setup for Apex ‘s campaign is once again a humanitarian crises gone wrong in some unknown country that requires military intervention. Is this a war worth signing up for, or a draft you might want to dodge? Despite this the ARMA series has managed to carve out a comfortable niche as the world’s most hardcore military sim, and after 3 years and uncountable patches we finally get a proper expansion with the jungle based Apex pack.
Its not Battlefield, its definitely not Call of Duty, in fact, all things considered it sits a lot closer to Farming Sim than either of those games. ARMA almost refuses proper classification in the world of gaming. The closest conventional genre would be shooter, but that seems almost disingenuous to both ARMA itself and traditional shooters. Trying to sell ARMA 3 to someone unfamiliar with the series is pretty hard.
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