Does the rise of 'expandalone' games mean the end for big DLC?
Dying Light: The Beast is a new game from Techland that, originally, was destined to be DLC for Dying Light 2.
It's a familiar story. Last year's Assassin's Creed Mirage from Ubisoft was originally conceived as an expansion for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, before becoming its own, shorter standalone game. The most recent Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3, according to reports, was initially planned as an expansion for Modern Warfare 2 before, again, it was reimagined as a separate game.
The idea of a shorter 'semi-sequels', or 'expandalone' games, is nothing remotely new. It's the idea of taking the work done on a previous title – such as the assets and structure – and building something new out of it. And this approach has led to some truly iconic games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Fallout: New Vegas.
Over the years these 'expandalones' have been somewhat replaced by large downloadable add-ons to the main game. However, recent anecdotal examples suggest a pivot back towards these shorter semi-sequels.
An interesting case study is Insomniac's approach to Spider-Man. In 2018, the developer released Spider-Man, and immediately followed it with three DLC 'episodes' called The City That Never Sleeps. The three episodes together told a new story set in the same city, featured its own side missions and it's about 12 hours in length. It felt to me more like a new, shorter Spider-Man game, albeit one using the same mechanics and location of the main title.
Two years later, Insomniac released another Spider-Man story, set in the same city but this time with a few new tweaks. It was a little longer than the previous DLC, but still shorter than the initial game. Yet rather than release it as an expansion, the game was its own standalone release called Spider-Man: Miles Morales. It was a hit and has sold around 15 million copies.
The existence of Miles Morales meant fans had something to enjoy between mainline
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