Free, and without microtransactions – Bohemia Interactive’s Argo is coming to Steam

Project Argo is an experimental total conversion of Arma 3, Bohemia’s military simulator, and it has been in development for some time now, offering multiplayer battles in 5 on 5 matches. It retains the realistic Arma approach with “one bullet, one dead” philosophy. Argo, on the other hand, will be the game that arises from Project Argo and coming to Steam on June 22.

Project Argo has been developed under the Bohemia Incubator label, which is reserved for experimental games when they make them available to the public. The goal of the company is to use this platform to learn and improve, as well as accept new ideas. Bohemia Interactive has been working on DayZ as well, which rose from an Arma mod to a standalone game, and its popularity probably proved enough for Bohemia to set up a sort of a “middleman” project.

Argo (without the project) will be available on Steam and the Bohemia Store, however, its business model is not certain yet. Bohemia says that it will not “feature microtransactions or require any other form of payment to play”. There will be an optional “supporter’s pack” for those who would like to, well, support the developers. This adds some cosmetic changes: more animations, items, highlighted names on leader boards, vehicle use in the scenario and premium server access.

This is a very interesting experiment from Bohemia. These days they are celebrating 16 years since Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, the game which is the grandfather of their ARMA series. In honor of this, they are basing Project Argo on the fictional island of Malden (which appeared in the original Operation Flashpoint), as well as releasing the map in Arma 3, which came out in 2013.

Argo should be available on Steam and Bohemia Store on June 22, for free, as stated above.