Update – issue resolved via Bohemia Support

Bohemia Support has confirmed that my original Arma 3 license on Steam was a region‑locked RU Retail version with only English and Russian available. They kindly provided a new key for Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition Retail on my account, which should overwrite the old region‑locked license and unlock the Ukrainian language. I have already activated the new key and reinstalled the game.

As a long‑time Arma player from Ukraine, I am very happy to finally be able to use the official Ukrainian interface in Arma 3 – especially now that Ukrainian localization has been added to the game and the language is listed on the Steam store page for our region.

I also want to sincerely thank @bis_fnc_kk and the support team for how quickly and carefully they handled this, given the circumstances. During the last week my city has been under repeated attacks by jet drones, and I only have small windows of safety and quiet time at the computer between going to and from shelter. In this situation, having the issue acknowledged and resolved so promptly means a lot, both as a player and as someone living through the war.

From this experience it seems likely that other Ukrainian players who bought Arma 3 around the original release (and ended up with RU Retail licenses) may face the same problem of having only EN+RU despite Ukrainian being available in current builds. I hope this ticket can serve as a reference case and help identify and fix similar situations for other Ukrainian players in the future.

Thank you again for your work on Arma and for supporting Ukrainian localization.

Thanks for your comment.

You are right that my copy also appears as “Arma 3 – Retail (RU)” in the Steam account licenses, and that explains why I only see English and Russian.

However, my Steam account region is Ukraine and has always been set to Ukraine. The current Arma 3 Steam store page for my region lists Ukrainian among the available languages and recent updates mention new languages including Ukrainian, so for Ukrainian players this isn’t just a matter of “wanting more languages”, it’s about receiving the language support that is now officially advertised for our region.

I understand that the RU Retail package is a historical artifact from 2013, but in 2026, with Ukrainian localization added and Ukraine having its own region in Steam, asking Ukrainian users to buy a second copy of the same game just to unlock the promised language feels wrong.

I’m trying to resolve this through Bohemia support: ideally, old region‑specific licenses for Ukrainian accounts could be updated/converted to the current package that includes Ukrainian, instead of requiring people to repurchase Arma 3.

If you have already contacted Bohemia or Steam about your RU Retail license, I’d be interested to hear what response you got.

Thank you for your reply.

Regarding how I purchased Arma 3: I bought the game on Steam back in 2013, when it was first released. Unfortunately after 13 years I don’t remember the exact purchase details (whether it was a direct store purchase or a retail key), but it was always used on my current Steam account.

At that time Steam did not support Ukrainian currency, and Ukraine was effectively treated as part of the Russian‑language region for many games and store configurations. I suspect that my Arma 3 license might be some old region‑specific package limited to English + Russian languages, which is no longer appropriate today.

Now my Steam region is Ukraine, and the Arma 3 / Arma 3 Pass Steam pages list Ukrainian among the available languages. In the context of the ongoing Russian‑Ukrainian war, having my copy of the game still locked to a “Russian‑region” language configuration feels both outdated and upsetting.

Could you please:

Check which exact Arma 3 license/package my account has (possibly an old region‑locked RU package from 2013).

Confirm whether this is the reason why the Ukrainian language option is missing.

Let me know if you can update/convert my Arma 3 license to the current package that includes access to the new languages (including Ukrainian), so that my game configuration matches my current region (Ukraine) and the language information shown on the Steam store page.

My Steam profile: https://steamcommunity.com/id/Mariobobo39/

Thank you again for your time and for looking into this.

Hi,

No, Ukrainian is not available in the in‑game Options after launching Arma 3. In Settings → Game → Language I only see English and Russian, there is no Ukrainian entry.

Before reporting this issue I already:

– Used Steam’s “Verify integrity of game files” for Arma 3 (Steam → Library → Arma 3 → Properties → Installed Files → Verify integrity of game files).

– Fully reinstalled Arma 3 from Steam afterwards.

In both cases, the language options in the game and in Steam Properties stayed the same (only English and Russian).

I’m on Windows PC, using the public branch of Arma 3 on this Steam account.