Bohemia Interactive – the developer of Arma 3 – has issued a statement on the rise of clips from the game that are being used to spread disinformation about the Israel-Hamas war.
A photorealistic open world tactical shooter title with replicas of an enormous range of military weapons and vehicles in its base game and over 20,000 mods, Arma 3 has been used in this manner a number of times in the past.
In 2021, Indian news outlet Republic reported on “exclusive” footage of what was mistakenly thought to be a Pakistani airstrike in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley. Additionally, in 2022, footage of the Ukrainian “Ghost of Kyiv” MiG-29 fighter jet was again lifted from a simulation in Arma 3.
“With the tragic events currently unfolding in the Middle East, we feel it is vital to share once again our statement concerning the use of #Arma3 as a source of fake news footage,” said Bohemia Interactive in a post to X (fka Twitter).
“It’s disheartening for us to see the game we all love being used in this way. While we have found ways to tackle this issue somewhat effectively by closely cooperating with leading fact-checking agencies, sadly we can’t mitigate it entirely.”
Bohemia Interactive then shared a set of signs to look out for when discerning whether or not footage that is said to be from active conflict areas is in fact from Arma 3.
These include very low resolution footage, a shaky camera, the events occurring at low light or at night, strange particle effects on explosions, fire and smoke, a lack of sound and a lack of people in the video.
These prevent the viewer from being able to tell that it is in fact a video game by reducing the level of detail that can be seen in the video. Moreover, even very modern games struggle to accurately recreate natural human movements.
In other gaming news, it was reported earlier today that Microsoft‘s acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been approved by the UK’s Competition And Markets Authority (CMA), meaning that the last obstacle to the buyout has now been overcome.