Arma 3 map might be bigger than you ever imagined

Arma 3 is a game with a vast landscape.

is a game with a vast landscape. Its Altis launch map is 270 square kilometers, giving players in the military sim a worthy sandbox to explore and make their own. But how does the map compare to other well-known game worlds, both big and small? Bohemia Interactive game designer Karel Mořický has assembled a handy guideto try and do just that.

What Mořický's comparison show us is that Altis, at least in terms of its sheer virtual size, stands alone. Even when the island map is set alongside iconic spaces like Battlefield 3's Caspian Border, Skyrim's frozen continent, or Grand Theft Auto 4's Liberty City, Altis dwarfs them all.

"It's so large that most people have trouble understanding such scale in a video game," wrote Mořický on his blog. "The surface area value is not really descriptive, and even comparing it to our previous maps (e.g., 1.5x larger than Chernarus) really explains nothing if you never played our games before."

Mořický's illustration contains exact comparisons to the dimensions of maps from previous Arma games, but relies on published estimates to see how Altis looks next to a landmass like Far Cry 3's Rook Islands, for example. He also points out that when you take into account the playable water and underwater environments on Altis, there are actually almost 1,000 square kilometers to navigate on the map. Naturally it's what we can do and accomplish in all that vastness that will make the difference when Arma 3 leaves beta and officially launches on September 12, but it's great to have a way to wrap your head around just how big a space we'll have to mod, navigate, or stage the next zombie apocalypse.