One of the best games of the past decade — and probably of all-time — hasn’t quite received the support from its developer that many people thought it would. As it turns out, that support (or lack thereof) wasn’t a conscious decision: it was just the way things turned out.
“It is what it is”, as they say, and fans of Grand Theft Auto V have had to live with the fact that there is never going to be single-player DLC for the title.
That’s a huge shame, because GTA IV (and to a lesser extent Red Dead Redemption) received fantastic single-player expansions, most notably The Ballad Of Gay Tony, inspiration for this author’s current Xbox gamertag.
Even without that single-player support, that’s not to say the game hasn’t been supported. In fact, GTA Online has probably the received more post-launch updates of any other game, while its base game in GTA V continues to be among the most sold games on the market, some four years past release.
It comes as no surprise, then, than Rockstar Games and its parent company in Take-Two Interactive appear hesitant — or perhaps uninterested — in expanding upon what is already an expansive, three-ponged single-player offering. After all, why would you cannibalise an already-engaged audience by releasing individualistic content that is at odds with the online, multiplayer nature of the mode keeping the game in the charts?
Rockstar hasn’t spoken much about GTA V‘s lack of single-player DLC, but in a recent interview with Game Informer, Rockstar director of design, Imran Sarwar, did give us some insight.
“It was not really a conscious decision, it’s just what happened,” Sarwar said when asked if it was a purposeful design choice to avoid single-player DLC. “With GTA V, the single-player game was absolutely massive and very, very complete. It was three games in one.
“The next-gen versions took a year of everyone’s time to get right, then the online component had a lot of potential but to come close to realizing that potential, also sucked up a lot of resources. And then there are other games – in particular Red Dead Redemption II. The combination of these three factors means for this game, we did not feel single-player expansions were either possible or necessary.”
Well, there you have it. Not that any hope existed for GTA V single-player DLC, but what did remain is now all but gone with Sarwar’s comments. At least we have Red Dead Redemption 2 to look forward to.
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