Complete ArmA X Anniversary Edition for less than the cost of most lunches?

[RichUK]

As it is now a new decade and many people visiting OFPEC may think that OFP, ArmA and ArmA II (2) are just ancient history, then may I suggest that you might like to think again?

A bit of History...

As many already know, OFP was a gaming revolution when it came out in 2001, as developed by Bohemia Interactive (BIS).  This website was originally created to support users wishing to mod OFP and has carried on, despite all the odds, for nearly nineteen years now.  An enormous thank you to h- for his dedication in keeping it going in recent years!

I was one of the beta testers for ArmA which was released in 2006.  Since then, ArmA CWA provided the content of the original OFP in the new engine and lots of other releases followed, including ArmA II (ArmA 2) and ArmA II (ArmA 2) Operation Arrowhead.  The ArmA X Anniversary Edition, originally sold in 2011 contains ALL of these products!

OK, so after that. BIS brought out ArmA III (ArmA 3) and then DayZ amongst many other products.  So why should anyone be interested in the previous versions?  Well, there are lots of reasons, but I will just point out one of them for now, DayZ has recently become very popular, especially as it was released for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2019 to complement the Windows PC version.  It was originally developed as a Mod for Arma II (Arma 2) and it is now generating a lot of new interest in the ArmA X PC series, by people who never tried any of these games previously.

Using original ArmA X Anniversary Edition with Steam!

So back to the ArmA X Anniversary Edition.  This was released as a boxed set containing a number of DVDs to install the components.  If you own this, you can still install all the programs that way, which I did under Windows 10 Pro; everything appears to work OK for single player, but the Multiplayer stuff was designed for GameSpy, so no longer works.  Well, if you have (or create) a Steam account, you can use your "CD Keys" from your ArmA X Anniversary Edition DVD folders to add each one (except ArmA Gold) to Steam.  All you need to do in the Steam client is select "Activate a product on Steam..." from the Games menu and follow the prompts in the "Product Activation" dialog box that comes up.  This worked fine for me for 3 of the four DVD packs, namely:

- ArmA Cold War Assault (CWA)
- ArmA II (Arma 2)
- ArmA II (Arma 2) Operation Arrowhead (OA)

I am not sure why the key from my "ArmA Gold Edition" did not work, but I was not very bothered about it, as I found that I could buy it from the Steam Store for £1.19, which I did!

Buying complete ArmA X Anniversary Edition on Steam

If you do not have the boxed set, then you can buy it all on Steam right now at 80% off for the grand total price of £5.99 !!!!!  That has got to be the best six quid you have ever spent!

https://store.steampowered.com/sub/8701/?cc=kr

Here is the full listing for what the package contains:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=591190184

I have attached a snapshot from my Steam client showing my ArmA X products for my account (some still downloading at the time of writing).

I hope that this encourages people who have never played OFP, ArmA or Arma II (ArmA 2) to fork out £5.99 for the complete set.  After all, you are likely to spend over that in a single visit to a fast food place.