Guerrilla Games rethought Horizon's DLC strategy for Burning Shores, and it worked

gamedeveloper.com:

Story-driven downloadable content packs for games like Horizon Forbidden West can be a great deal for game developers. They're bite-sized versions of the broader game that can drive sales, be targeted toward passionate players invested in the game, and can be showcases of what a team perfected making the original title.

But as with all things in game development, designing such can come with major tradeoffs. Because you can't guarantee how many players will experience a story that's gated behind an additional purchase, you have to be careful of how far it advances the game's narrative.

On the other hand, you don't just want to deliver a "side story" for players who make that purchase. Then you're grappling with how many resources you have available, since much of your team is probably rolling over onto another project. And if you're Guerrilla Games, you're having to make hard decisions on if this DLC pack will be available on all consoles players can access Horizon Forbidden West on.

All of these are tricky questions—and with the release of Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, the studio's now had a chance to evaluate different approaches to designing DLC. Studio narrative director Ben McCaw and lead writer Annie Kitain took a moment to discuss the making of Burning Shores, and explained how Guerrilla Games changed its approach from the making of Horizon Zero Dawn's DLC The Frozen Wilds.

In Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, Aloy ventures down to the ruins of Los Angeles, and quickly makes friends with a hunter named Seyka. Seyka's a member of the Quen tribe; a faction of corporate worshippers Aloy encountered in the back end of of Forbidden West, and she and Seyka join forces to investigate a mysterious tower