The DLC Dilemma: When Should an Expansion Just Be a Full Game? - Beyond 856
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Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is one of the more expansive expansions in recent memory, which has just pondering what exactly the sweet spot is for add-ons to games we love. Is waiting two years for a $40 expansion to a $70 game better than waiting five or six years for a full sequel? Regularly updated live-service games like Destiny 2 and Final Fantasy XIV have no trouble keeping existing players interested, but how do you attract new players when a game’s been going for over a decade? Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was nearly an expansion for GTA III before Rockstar made it a standalone release, and we got some wonderful expansions to Grand Theft Auto IV with The Lost & The Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, and then GTAV’s story DLC was allegedly scrapped to focus on the more granular and lucrative updates added to GTA Online. Meanwhile, plenty more great games got their start as DLC, like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Halo 3: ODST and Hollow Knight: Silk Song… Though that last one is still MIA. In other PlayStation-adjacent news, Astro’s Playroom has been getting some free sneaky little updates ahead of the release of Astro Bot, including some indication that someone working at Sony actually remembers that Bloodborne exists and that people love it. The Shapes is a new line of collector-grade action figures from Spin Master, featuring some familiar faces from God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, and Horizon Forbidden West. We got a couple little updates on the Watch Dogs movie we forgot was in the works, as well as the Metal Gear Solid movie that’s been in the works for almost 20 years. This week’s episode features Max Scoville, Jada Griffin and Matt Kim.

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