One of the first questions new recruits ask is whether you can play Arma Reforger on your own, away from the chaos of a 64-player public server. The short answer is yes — and as of the current 1.6 build there are more ways to do it than ever. Between the new single-player Campaign, solo-friendly Combat Ops, local Game Master sessions, and the option to host your own private Conflict server, you have a complete sandbox to learn Bohemia Interactive’s Enfusion-powered shooter at your own pace. This guide walks through every solo and offline path, how to save a hosted session, the core mechanics that trip up beginners, and a practice route that takes you from confused to competent.
Can You Play Arma Reforger Solo or Offline?
Yes. Arma Reforger is built around large-scale multiplayer, but it ships with several genuinely solo-playable experiences. There are four practical routes for playing alone, and each suits a different goal:
- Single-player Campaign (Operation Omega) — a proper offline story campaign added in 1.6, with no other humans required.
- Combat Ops — randomized solo/co-op missions you can complete entirely on your own in roughly 45–60 minutes.
- Game Master (GM) — a Zeus-style sandbox where you can run a local session, spawn anything, and experiment freely.
- Hosting a local Conflict server — spin up your own private instance of the flagship mode and play in it solo or invite a few friends.
Importantly, you do not need to be online to enjoy the Campaign, Combat Ops, or a local Game Master scenario — these run on your machine. If you want to play in a hosted Conflict server, you’ll need to launch a server process, which can also run locally on the same PC.
The Single-Player Campaign: Operation Omega
The standout addition in the 1.6 update is Operation Omega, the game’s first true offline single-player Campaign. Set in 1989, it drops you into a US special-forces raid on the island of Kolguyev — a brand-new map introduced alongside the campaign in 1.6, joining the existing Everon and Arland terrains. This is the mode to pick if you want a directed, narrative-driven experience rather than open sandbox play.
Because Operation Omega is designed for solo play, it’s the gentlest on-ramp for learning the fundamentals — movement, weapon handling, and the medical system — under controlled conditions before you ever touch a competitive Conflict match. If you’re completely new to the Arma platform, start here. For a broader orientation to the game’s systems, our beginner’s guide with tips and tricks for newbies pairs well with the campaign.
Combat Ops: The Best Solo Practice Ground
Combat Ops is a randomized mission mode where you’re handed objectives like destroying vehicles, clearing areas, or assassinating a target, after which you extract. Sessions run roughly 45–60 minutes, and crucially, they’re fully playable solo. There are two official Combat Ops scenarios — one on Arland and one on Everon — and because objectives are randomized, every run feels fresh.
Combat Ops is the perfect bridge between the scripted Campaign and live multiplayer. You face real AI under realistic conditions, you have to navigate by map, manage your loadout weight, and apply medical care when you take fire — all without the pressure of human opponents. Treat it as your shooting range with stakes.
Game Master: Your Personal Sandbox
Game Master (GM) is Arma Reforger’s Zeus-style mode. It gives you real-time, god-mode control of the world: spawn AI squads, place objects and vehicles, set up firefights, and direct a dynamic scenario as it unfolds. You can play GM as the omniscient “director,” drop into a soldier’s body, or do both. It’s available across all three maps — Everon, Arland, and Kolguyev.
For solo learners, Game Master is invaluable. Want to practice treating a chest wound? Spawn an enemy, take a hit, and patch yourself up. Want to learn vehicle controls? Spawn a truck or helicopter with no consequences. Game Master also has a second, critical job that we’ll cover below: it’s how you manually save a hosted session.
Hosting a Local Conflict Server for Solo Play
Conflict is Arma Reforger’s flagship large-scale mode: you pick a faction (US vs USSR, with FIA as a third force), capture bases that fall within radio range, manage supply lines, build services, and spawn vehicles and weapons from the arsenal. In 1.6 the classic Conflict was reworked toward a Headquarters Commander (HQC) command-layer experience, so expect more of a command-and-control feel than older builds.
You can run Conflict privately by launching your own dedicated server — even on the same machine you play on. The dedicated server installs via SteamCMD as an anonymous (free) download, so you don’t need to own a second copy of the game on the host. The stable dedicated-server SteamCMD app ID is 1874900 (the experimental branch is 1890870; the game client, which you don’t need to host, is 1874880). There are genuine native binaries for both platforms — ArmaReforgerServer.exe on Windows and ./ArmaReforgerServer on Linux, with no Proton or Wine required.
Here’s the Windows install command:
steamcmd.exe +force_install_dir "C:\ArmaReforger\Server" +login anonymous +app_update 1874900 validate +quitOnce installed, you launch the server with a config file and a few startup parameters. Capping the frame rate with -maxFPS is strongly recommended — without it the server will happily pin a CPU core running at thousands of frames per second:
# Windows
ArmaReforgerServer.exe -config ".\Configs\ServerConfig.json" -maxFPS 60 -profile ".\profile"
# Linux
./ArmaReforgerServer -config /path/to/config.json -maxFPS 60 -profile /path/to/profileIf you’d rather skip the manual SteamCMD setup entirely and have a managed instance ready in minutes, you can spin up a ready-to-go Arma Reforger server instead — handy when you want friends to join your “solo” world later. For a deeper technical walkthrough of doing it yourself, see our step-by-step Arma Reforger server setup guide and the Arma Reforger hosting documentation.
A Minimal Local Conflict Config
Arma Reforger uses a JSON server config — not a classic Arma .cfg file — and every key is case-sensitive. Note that IPv6 is not supported. For a private local game you can keep it lean. The example below loads Conflict on Everon, sets an admin password, and uses sensible defaults. The default ports are baked in: game traffic on UDP 2001, the Steam/A2S query on 17777, and RCON on 19999 if you enable it.
{
"bindAddress": "",
"bindPort": 2001,
"publicAddress": "",
"publicPort": 2001,
"a2s": {
"address": "0.0.0.0",
"port": 17777
},
"rcon": {
"address": "127.0.0.1",
"port": 19999,
"password": "ChangeMe123",
"permission": "admin",
"maxClients": 16,
"blacklist": [],
"whitelist": []
},
"game": {
"name": "My Solo Reforger Server",
"password": "",
"passwordAdmin": "SuperSecretAdminPass",
"admins": [],
"scenarioId": "{ECC61978EDCC2B5A}Missions/23_Campaign.conf",
"maxPlayers": 64,
"visible": false,
"crossPlatform": false,
"supportedPlatforms": ["PLATFORM_PC"],
"gameProperties": {
"serverMaxViewDistance": 1600,
"serverMinGrassDistance": 0,
"networkViewDistance": 1500,
"fastValidation": true,
"battlEye": true
},
"mods": []
},
"operating": {
"lobbyPlayerSynchronise": true,
"playerSaveTime": 120,
"aiLimit": -1,
"slotReservationTimeout": 60,
"joinQueue": { "maxSize": 0 }
}
}A few notes for a solo setup: set "visible": false to keep your server out of the public browser, leave "password" blank for an open join or set one to lock it down, and use passwordAdmin (which must contain no spaces) to grant yourself admin in-game. The maxPlayers field defaults to 64 and accepts a range of 1–128 — drop it to 1 if you truly want a private game. For the full breakdown of every field, our complete server configuration guide goes section by section.
Picking Your Scenario
The scenarioId field decides what loads. Its format is {16-HEX-GUID}Missions/FileName.conf — the braced GUID identifies the owning resource (the base game or a specific mod), followed by the path to the scenario file. There are around 31 official scenarios in total; here are the canonical ones you’ll most likely want for solo and small-group play:
| Scenario | scenarioId |
|---|---|
| Conflict – Everon | {ECC61978EDCC2B5A}Missions/23_Campaign.conf |
| Conflict – Arland | {C41618FD18E9D714}Missions/23_Campaign_Arland.conf |
| Conflict – Northern Everon | {C700DB41F0C546E1}Missions/23_Campaign_NorthCentral.conf |
| Game Master – Everon | {59AD59368755F41A}Missions/21_GM_Eden.conf |
| Game Master – Kolguyev | {F45C6C15D31252E6}Missions/27_GM_Cain.conf |
| Combat Ops – Everon | {DFAC5FABD11F2390}Missions/26_CombatOpsEveron.conf |
| Combat Ops – Arland | {DAA03C6E6099D50F}Missions/24_CombatOps.conf |
| Tutorial | {002AF7323E0129AF}Missions/Tutorial.conf |
If you ever load mods or lose track of a scenario’s GUID, launch the server with the -listScenarios parameter — it prints every loadable scenario ID on startup, including those provided by mods. Want to build your own mission? See our walkthrough on creating a custom scenario in Arma Reforger.
How to Save a Hosted Conflict Game
This is the part that confuses most solo hosts: Conflict doesn’t have a simple “Save Game” button like a traditional single-player title. To save a hosted Conflict session, you enter Game Master and perform a manual, named save, which you can reload later.
The flow looks like this: log in as admin using the passwordAdmin you set, open Game Master, and use its save function to write a named snapshot of the current world state. Because the save is named, you can keep multiple checkpoints and roll back to whichever one you like. This is also why Game Master is more than a sandbox toy — it’s effectively the persistence and administration layer for your hosted world. Keep in mind the playerSaveTime field (default 120 seconds) controls how often player state is written; that’s separate from your manual world saves.
Core Mechanics for Your First Solo Session
Arma Reforger is a simulation first and a shooter second. These are the systems that catch newcomers off guard, and getting comfortable with them solo will save you a lot of frustration online.
Stamina and Weight
Your loadout weight directly affects stamina. Overload yourself and you’ll move slowly and gas out fast in a firefight. Pack deliberately — only carry what the mission demands. This is one of the first lessons the Campaign quietly teaches.
The Medical System
Healing is detailed and worth practicing before you bleed out in front of strangers. Damage causes bleeding that drains blood over time; as your blood drops, your vision distorts and loses color, then you pass out and eventually die if untreated. The core items are:
- Bandage (field dressing) — stops bleeding. Works on all body areas including the torso and head. Single-use, weighs 0.1 kg, and applies relatively slowly.
- Tourniquet — dramatically slows bleeding to a near-stop, but only on extremities (arms and legs). It cannot be used on the torso, neck, or head, so those wounds must be bandaged. Reusable and removable; it restricts leg movement and reduces arm accuracy while applied. Use it to buy time, then bandage.
- Saline bag — normalizes and replenishes blood levels over time. Single-use, weighs 0.5 kg. Community guides report it restores blood over roughly 90 seconds up to around 1,500 blood units, though Bohemia’s official Boot Camp page doesn’t state those exact figures — treat them as approximate.
- Morphine injector — a painkiller that reduces weapon sway, improves visibility, speeds healing, and can wake an unconscious player faster. Single-use, weighs 0.02 kg. (Painkillers and morphine are the same item class here.)
When a player’s blood gets severely depleted they go unconscious — vision is severely limited and movement is disabled — and they may not self-recover. Solo, that means death if you can’t stabilize in time, which is exactly why practicing self-treatment matters. In a squad, a teammate bandages to stop the loss, gives saline to restore blood, and can use morphine to speed waking. For the full treatment loop, read our guide to the medic role in Arma Reforger.
Weapon Handling and Zeroing
Ballistics are realistic. Sights can be zeroed to a range, and you’ll need to adjust your zeroing for distance and account for bullet drop on longer shots. Recoil and sway are significant — steadying your aim and using morphine both reduce sway. Combat Ops and Game Master are ideal places to drill marksmanship without a clock or an audience.
Supplies, Bases, and Navigation
In Conflict you capture and link bases via radio range and antennas, then transport and manage supplies to build services, spawn vehicles, and buy weapons from the arsenal. Disrupting the enemy’s radio network is how you contest territory. Navigation is manual — learn to read the paper map (and GPS where issued), because there’s no objective marker holding your hand. Beginner-friendly quality-of-life mods like Where Am I mark your position while you’re still learning.
A Recommended Solo Practice Path
Tie it all together with this progression, designed to build skills in the right order:
- Run the Tutorial to learn the controls and interface basics.
- Play through Operation Omega, the single-player Campaign, for a guided introduction to movement, combat, and medical care.
- Spawn a Game Master session to deliberately practice the things that scared you — patching wounds, driving vehicles, zeroing your sights — with zero consequences.
- Tackle Combat Ops solo for 45–60 minutes of realistic, randomized objectives against AI.
- Host a private Conflict server, learn the supply-and-base loop at your own pace, and save your world via Game Master so you can return to it.
- Invite friends or join a public server once you’re confident — and consider a managed host so the server stays online when you’re not.
Once you start adding mods, keep your stack focused and mind console compatibility. If you plan to let Xbox or PlayStation friends join, see our guide on making your Arma Reforger server cross-platform — scripted mods can silently exclude PS5 players. For inspiration on what to install, browse our roundup of the best Arma Reforger mods.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Arma Reforger have a single-player campaign?
Yes. The 1.6 update added Operation Omega, a proper offline single-player campaign set in 1989 on the new Kolguyev map, featuring a US special-forces raid. Before 1.6, solo play was limited to Combat Ops and Game Master, so if you remember the game lacking a campaign, that changed with the current build.
Can you play Arma Reforger offline with bots?
Yes. Combat Ops pits you against AI in randomized missions you can finish solo, and Game Master lets you spawn AI squads and entire battles to fight on your own. You can also host a local Conflict server, where AI fills out the opposing faction. None of these require other human players.
How do I save my progress in a hosted Conflict game?
Conflict has no one-click save. Log in as admin with your passwordAdmin, enter Game Master, and perform a manual, named save of the world state. You can reload that named save later, and you can keep several checkpoints. The playerSaveTime setting (default 120 seconds) handles automatic player-state saving separately.
Do I need to own the game to host my own server?
No. The dedicated server installs anonymously through SteamCMD using app ID 1874900 (stable branch) — you log in as anonymous and don’t need a purchased copy on the host machine. You do, of course, need the game on the client you actually play on. There are native binaries for both Windows (ArmaReforgerServer.exe) and Linux (./ArmaReforgerServer), with no Wine or Proton needed on Linux.
How long does a Combat Ops mission take to play solo?
A typical Combat Ops session runs about 45 to 60 minutes from insertion to extraction. Objectives are randomized — destroying vehicles, clearing areas, or assassinating a target — so replay value is high and no two runs play out the same way.
Which ports do I need to open to host a Conflict server at home?
Open UDP 2001 for game traffic and UDP 17777 for the Steam/A2S query so the server appears in the browser. If you enable RCON, also open port 19999 as defined in your config. For a purely local solo game on the same PC you typically don’t need to forward anything, but you will for friends connecting over the internet.
Ready to play?
Run your own Arma Reforger server with XGamingServer
Spin up an always-on Arma Reforger server your friends can join in minutes — no port-forwarding, no tech headaches.
