Demo: The Most Realistic First Aid/Hit Reaction/Gore Mod Combo Possible in ArmA III

This video showcases the most realistic combination of medical/first aid, hit reaction, and gore mods possible in ArmA III: ACE/KAT Medical + Advanced Wound Reaction (AWR) + Death & Hit Reactions + Project Injury Reaction (PIR) Ragdoll Physics + Bloodlust.

There is really no way to showcase and analyze these injury effects without coming across as a psychopath, but if you can forgive my morbid curiosity and remember that this is just a video game, I hope this video is informative for anyone looking for true "simulation value" in ArmA.

The most realistic hit reactions possible in ArmA III are undoubtedly going to be through the Project Injury Reaction (PIR) mod, but unfortunately, the first aid experience in PIR includes aspects that are outright unrealistic (apparently, you need to use a tourniquet to stop someone from bleeding, even if the injury is on the torso or head). By contrast, ACE Medical + KAT includes limb-by-limb injury management, multiple types of tourniquets and bandages, airway & breathing management, heartbeat analysis, blood oxygen saturation simulation, drug effects, and much, much more that can keep the EMT nerds occupied for hours.

ACE Medical + KAT is undoubtedly the most realistic first aid system ever introduced into any video game, and those desiring a true infantry combat simulator would be remised to skip out on the experience. For those wearing of getting into the mods, don't be! The first aid experience includes scalable difficulty levels that span from "press 'x' to insta-heal" to "what type of airway blockage does this injured soldier have based on what I hear through my stethoscope?"

All that said, this video does not showcase the first aid process; there are plenty of other videos that instruct players how to properly treat an injured soldier with these mods. Instead, my goal with this video is to demonstrate which other mods can achieve 90% of the injury effects that Project Injury Reaction (PIR) offers while still using ACE Medical + KAT as the base, since the latter provides much better simulation value for the first aid treatment process.

Here is a more detailed list of what each specific injury effect mod accomplishes:

-Advanced Wound Reaction (AWR): This mod incorporates "limb disabling" -- i.e. someone receives enough damage to a specific limb, and that limb can no longer be used. ACE Medical already incorporates limping upon being shot in the legs, but AWR forces both players and A.I. units to crawl after being hit in both legs. Likewise, players and A.I. units shot in the arms can be made to drop their weapon. Each of these features is dependent upon a damage and/or pain threshold that can be adjusted to the player's liking.

-Death & Hit Reactions: This mod incorporates reactions for both players and A.I. Although vanilla ArmA III is realistic in the sense that not every hit will be lethal, it's also silly that the A.I. can "tank" round after round without hardly flinching. Death & Hit Reactions fixes that so that units will "stumble" briefly upon being hit -- not because they have necessarily received a debilitating injury, but because being hit IRL is painful and startling regardless of where a bullet strikes upon the body (even if the bullet is completely stopped by someone's body armor). The mod also includes death animations, but I personally turn these off because they look a little too "Hollywood" for my liking; I simply let the ragdoll physics do their work.

-Project Injury Reaction (PIR) -- Ragdoll Physics: Speaking of ragdoll physics, the vanilla ArmA III ragdoll effects do not look convincing. There are several mods on the Steam Workshop where someone has "ripped" the more realistic ragdoll physics from Project Injury Reaction, and any of them should work. The idea is that when a unit ragdolls, it does not simply "flop over," but instead buckles at the knees and folds mid-body like can be seen in real-life footage of...unfortunate incidents.

-Bloodlust: Lastly, but very importantly, the Bloodlust mod replaces ArmA III's laughable, last-generation blood-stain effects with much, much more realistic bleeding. Units that are shot can be made to bleed for a specific amount of time based on the severity of the wound, and units that crawl as a result of severe injury will even "smear" their blood on the ground. Headshots result in blood splatter on surfaces immediately behind the wounded unit, as well as "brain leakage" all over the ground. More graphically, Bloodlust also features an "obliteration" effect where units that reach a certain velocity, get blown up, or are hit by vehicles traveling at high speed will go "splat" and turn into red mist with actual, in-world body parts flying in every direction. This features is typically experienced during gameplay when players or A.I. units are inside a vehicle that is completely and violently destroyed, and the effects are convincing.

Overall, I am satisfied with the combination of these mods to create realistic reactions, sickening gore, and a simulator-level first aid experience in ArmA III. For those looking for a more "arcade" first aid experience ("press 'x' to heal"), I will always recommend Project Injury Reaction with the extended medical system turned off, which leaves units writhing in pain on the ground upon being hit anywhere non-lethal on the body. For those who desire to have a similar experience, but with realistic first aid procedures that can actually teach players how to treat victims -- a skill that could carry over into real life, even without being in the middle of a war zone -- I highly recommend that players install and tweak the above mods to their liking.

#arma3 #milsim