Forging a Seamless Battleground: GameFabric Quickly Provisions High-Performance Game Servers to Arma Reforger

🔺  Problem
Quickly provisioning high-performing game servers to meet a larger-than-expected surge in player demand post Arma Reforger’s PS5 launch.

✅  Solution
GameFabric, with its bare metal machines, agile platform, and global infrastructure, quickly provisioned nearly 700 individual game servers for a smooth, low-latency experience across all game platforms for Arma Reforger’s explosive post-PS5 launch growth.

⭐️  Product
GameFabric Multiplayer Servers

Overview

Arma Reforger, much like its popular predecessors in the Arma series, has taken the military simulation genre by storm, captivating players across the globe with realistic gameplay, immersive environments, and epic large-scale battles. Having launched on PC, Xbox, and recently PlayStation 5, Arma Reforger has garnered a dedicated, cross-platform community. However, supporting a complex and highly popular title like Arma Reforger across multiple platforms presents significant technical challenges. From quickly provisioning greater-than-expected server capacity to providing a seamless cross-play experience, the demands on server infrastructure become immense. To meet these demanding requirements, GameFabric rapidly provided the robust, high-performing server infrastructure that Bohemia Interactive needed to handle large player counts across the world and deliver a fluid cross-play experience, ultimately assisting Arma Reforger’s explosive growth following its successful PlayStation 5 launch.

Scaling a Modern Military Sim

Arma Reforger is a far cry from your average online shooter. Evolving the definition of military simulation through enhanced gunplay, sprawling detailed maps, and large scale team-oriented conquests has led to an online experience that provides players with a thrilling, expansive, and entirely immersive spin on the mil-sim genre. Its realistic gameplay, gamemode variety, and objective-based matches has mustered veterans and newcomers alike to the Cold War era lands of Everon and Arland. Its focus on realism and tactical depth demands a high level of fidelity and responsiveness. Players expect smooth performance, even in the midst of intense and sweeping firefights involving dozens of combatants. For Bohemia Interactive, the need to deliver a consistent and optimized multiplayer experience, especially as initial game server demand surpassed expectations, was a critical priority. Adding to the complexity was the game’s multi-platform ecosystems and need for cross-play support, requiring seamless interaction between PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 5 players.

Performance and Agility

GameFabric, Nitrado’s developer-first multiplayer server orchestration platform, provided the perfect solution to these challenges. With its focus on performance, agile provisioning, and scalability, GameFabric empowered Bohemia Interactive to focus their attention on Arma Reforger’s comprehensive feature roadmap. 

At the heart of GameFabric’s offerings are its Multiplayer Servers and its game server orchestration, designed to handle the most severe demands of modern online games. For Arma Reforger, GameFabric provided powerful, optimized bare metal servers. These high-performance game servers delivered the raw processing power needed to handle Reforger’s complex systems and ensured a smooth experience for the game’s consistently growing playerbase.

One of the biggest challenges in launching a successful multiplayer title is accurately predicting player demand. Arma Reforger’s demand exceeded Bohemia Interactive’s initial expectations following its launch on the PS5, requiring a rapid increase in server capacity for players itching to jump into the action. GameFabric proved its agility by quickly provisioning beyond the initial estimates when needed, providing the necessary infrastructure to accommodate Arma Reforger’s expanding player base. This rapid capacity delivery was crucial for maintaining a positive player experience by ensuring the optimal amount of game servers were readily available to meet the large demand.

“GameFabric has been a valuable partner in supporting the ongoing popularity of Arma Reforger following the game’s successful PS5 launch. Their Multiplayer Servers solution has streamlined the orchestration of our rapidly expanding playerbase, making it easy to spin up new game servers as needed. This ability to quickly and flexibly scale our server capacity to accommodate the influx of new Arma Reforger users has been particularly helpful in maximizing our growth and momentum.”

– Evan Vischi, Marketing and Brand Manager for the Arma Platform at Bohemia Interactive

GameFabric’s Vessels and Formations functionality, designed to facilitate long-lived game server sessions, simplified server management by allowing Bohemia Interactive to quickly spin up new game servers with shared and specified properties as needed with the flexibility required to adapt to increasing player demand. In little time, they could deploy additional servers, ensuring that players always had a smooth and responsive experience.

Using GameFabric, Bohemia Interactive has been able to utilize 119 of the platform’s bare metal machines, provisioning nearly 700 individual game servers.

GameFabric’s worldwide reach also contributed in serving Arma Reforger’s global playerbase, with strategic locations in:

• San Francisco

• Los Angeles

• Miami

• New York City

• Frankfurt

• Singapore

• Sydney

• Washington

GameFabric has ensured that players around the world can connect to low-latency servers, minimizing lag and maximizing exhilarating thrills.

What’s more, the platform also enabled Bohemia Interactive’s team to swiftly roll out capacity for testing whenever needed, giving them further control across server environments.

Finally, GameFabric’s platform seamlessly supports cross-play functionality, allowing PC, Xbox, and PS5 players to do battle together on the same dedicated servers. This was a critical feature for Arma Reforger, bringing together the game’s loyal and vibrant community.

The Results: A Legion of Logins

The results of the partnership between Bohemia Interactive and GameFabric have already borne valuable fruit. Arma Reforger has seen significant player growth, particularly with its successful PS5 launch and the game continues to be a smash hit across all platforms. As of the time of this Success Story, Arma Reforger has achieved player peaks of 225,987 daily active users and 914,460 monthly active users. This is a testament to the quality and popularity of Arma Reforger, Bohemia Interactive’s team, and of GameFabric Multiplayer Servers’ ability to quickly meet the highest of demands.

Looking Ahead: Continued Partnership and Innovation

As Arma Reforger continues to evolve and innovate on the mil-sim genre, GameFabric remains committed to supporting Bohemia Interactive’s longstanding vision for the game. GameFabric’s flexibility and scalability ensure that Arma Reforger can continue to grow and adapt to the ever-changing demands of the online gaming landscape, allowing Bohemia Interactive to optimize their game server infrastructure for continued high-quality player experiences.

Scaling Success

Arma Reforger has proven to be a success for Bohemia Interactive and has given the series’ active community a unique and addictive entry into the beloved Arma platform. GameFabric’s comprehensive suite of tools and services has proven to be a valuable asset for Bohemia Interactive in supporting this successful title, enabling them to rapidly provision the game servers needed to meet Arma Reforger’s explosive player growth. GameFabric’s platform with high-performance servers, agile deployment capabilities, and global reach have supported Arma Reforger’s continued success, and its partnership with Bohemia Interactive is an exemplar of its commitment to empowering game developers to create and scale successful online games, lifting the burden of multiplayer game server management.