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- With franchises like FIFA and Call of Duty releasing games annually, titles like God of War take longer to launch, leaving fans waiting years for sequels and compelling narratives.
- To bridge the gap between major releases, developers should prioritize story-driven DLCs that explore secondary characters and expand the game world, keeping players engaged.
- By focusing on profit over fan service, companies like Rockstar miss opportunities for enriching lore and character development, as seen with the unrealized potential of GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 DLCs.
While franchises like FIFA, Call of Duty, and 2k games get yearly releases and fans blindly pay $70 for those reskinned releases, other franchises like God of War, Final Fantasy, and others take year-long hiatus between releases to push out more high-quality releases.
This also means that fans will have to wait years to complete the story of an ongoing arc. For example, God of War: Ragnarok was released four years after God of War (2018) despite there not being a massive shift in gameplay and graphics, only narrative and open-world.
Hence, developers should prioritize releasing story expansion DLCs between these releases to keep fans entertained and engaged until they release the following title and not risk the hype dying.
Why It Matters: Fans want the most they can get out of a good video game release, and if the main story can’t continue, developers should explore the option of discovering more stories within via DLC expansion that will prevent the hype from dying and avoid staleness.
DLC Releases Can Help Build A Shared Universe
Everyone loves shared universes and the idea of exploring more stories and characters in their favorite video game franchises. I absolutely love how Red Dead Redemption and Ghost of Tsushima nail this aspect by changing protagonists in each entry.
NPCs are exciting characters, and since the game is focused mainly on the protagonist, there needs to be more room to explore more characters’ stories. Lamar from GTA 5 is an excellent example of this; despite his significant screen time, I could never have had enough of the character.
The Batman games perfectly nail this aspect. In every entry of the Arkham series, the DLCs were stories of other Bat-Family members or even other characters such as Harley Quinn. The Nightwing: GCPD Lockdown DLC for Batman: Arkham Knight also lets players explore the story of Dick Grayson in an entirely new storyline against Mr. Freeze.
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, Freedom Cry DLC, explores Adewale’s story, who was Edward’s Quartermaster in the base game. The DLC follows his story as an Assassin and builds on his character for his future appearance in Assassin’s Creed: Rogue, creating a whole new storyline.
GTA 5 And RDR Desperately Needed A Story Expansion
The release window between GTA 5 and GTA 6 is the longest that the franchise has ever experienced, but as per Rockstar’s reputation, it will be worth every second.
Rockstar has continued to prioritize GTA Online, even reportedly abandoning RDR Online and potentially, plans for other Rockstar projects. Still, fans wanted to explore more stories within Los Santos, potentially exploring Trevor and Michael’s youth.
There was a Trevor DLC in the works at one, and it was partly finished before being scrapped because GTA Online made too much money for them to focus on anything else.
Steven Ogg said that it was some Trevor James Bond storyline, which sounds so exciting to hear considering how much of a maniac Trevor is in the game, but it still saddens me to find out what Rockstar deprived us of.
DLCs like these could’ve helped us wait for GTA 6, but Rockstar decided not to for money purposes. I don’t like publishers going the money route instead of fan service in video games nowadays. Even GTA 4 has 2 story expansion DLCs that explore more of the Liberty City lore from the base game.
Red Dead Redemption 2 also deserved an Undead Nightmare story expansion for the game, but nobody expected it after GTA 5. I really hope that for future titles such as GTA 6, Rockstar prioritizes DLCs because the next interval for GTA 7 may be as long.
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[News Reporter]
Shaheer is currently pursuing a Business degree while also working as a part-time Content Writer. With his deep passion for both writing and video games, he has seamlessly transitioned into a role as a Journalist. Over the past two years, Shaheer has contributed as a freelancer to various websites and landed positions on acclaimed platforms like Gamerant. Currently, his role at Tech4gamers is as a Features Writer, but he also covers News occasionally. Shaheer’s favorite gaming franchises are Assassin’s Creed and the God of War series.
Get In Touch: shaheer@tech4gamers.com
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