I Wish Rockstar Hadn't Given Up On Single-Player DLC
In 2009, Rockstar released two critically acclaimed expansions for Grand Theft Auto 4 and set a new standard for single-player DLC. In The Lost and Damned we played as Johnny Klebitz, a biker trying to keep his fractured gang together amidst a bloody turf war on the streets of Alderney. In its follow-up, The Ballad of Gay Tony, we took on the role of Luis Lopez, right-hand man of notorious nightclub empresario Tony Prince. After spending hours in Liberty City as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immigrant, these expansions were a chance to experience the city from a completely different perspective.
In The Lost and Damned, Johnny saw the city in a way that reflected his hard-edged lifestyle and pessimistic outlook on life. A visual filter added a layer of grain to the screen, as well as slightly desaturating the colours. It made this expansion feel tangibly bleak and grimy. In Gay Tony, which focused on the city's vibrant night life, the colours were richer and more vivid. In both cases the effect was subtle, but it's remarkable how these minor changes in mood transformed and recontextualised the city. Even after becoming intimately familiar with Liberty City as Niko, it suddenly felt brand new again.
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The Ballad of Gay Tony was also a response to criticism that the base game took itself too seriously. Compared to previous games in the series, GTA 4 was understated, gritty, and realistic—which extended to its weighty, physics-based driving model. I loved this, and I hope the developer takes this approach again some day. But even I had to admit that TBOGT was way more fun, with outlandish missions involving James Bond-esque stunts and dramatic, explosive
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