Ok, they might not be the best out there, but these 5 video game expansions did something to forever change the gaming industry.
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00:00During my first half hour in Elden Ring Shadow of the Earth Tree, I couldn't stop whistling
00:04Liquidator by Harry J Allstars. Picture me slouching down the broad crumbling concrete
00:09walkway that leads to Castle Ensys, my shield rays slaying shambling foes and dodging a
00:14barrage of arrows with this tune stuck firmly in my head. And then picture me speeding down
00:19a late 60s London thoroughfare in my Austin Powers inspired Union Jackadaw and Jaguar
00:24E-Type rip-off en route to blow up the Queen's Park Rangers football team bus with the song
00:28blaring at my car's radio. The connection? GTA London was the first video game expansion
00:33I ever played, and the first I fell in love with. Liquidator is burnt into my brain as
00:38a result, and to be honest, I'm hardly complaining. Shadow of the Earth Tree is the latest expansion
00:43I've played on the other hand, and the latest to make me fall in love. Casting a wider critical
00:47eye of expansions more generally, I'd confidently say there are five that have changed the face
00:51of video games spanning the last 25 years. In chronological order, here's how they
00:56changed the conversation, the legacy they left, and why they're still so relevant
01:00to this day.
01:02Given the internal impact the series would go on to have, it seems almost prescient that
01:05the first ever PlayStation expansion was for the original Grand Theft Auto. Launched into
01:09a console world already occupied by the likes of Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Tekken,
01:14GTA landed with a bang amongst some great expansion-worthy companies. Still, it was
01:18DMA Designs' Crime Simulator that was granted that honour, and the 30-year time hop and
01:22transatlantic pivot worked ever so well, offering latitude for different language,
01:27outfits, weaponry, cars and indeed soundtracking. This was an expansion as it should be, an
01:31iteration on an original idea that built on its key beats without revolutionising enough
01:36to enter sequel territory, years before Sega's Dreamcast first introduced the idea of console
01:40DLC. Better still, GTA London showed what was possible for this series, and that the
01:45action could easily spill beyond the bounds of the OG Liberty City and its chaos-driven
01:49burrows.
01:51The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion needs little introduction, but it's easy to underplay
01:55what this game owes to the industry the best part of 20 years on from its original release.
02:00Improving on just about every foundation laid by Morrowind, Oblivion pushed every traditional
02:04RPG convention to its limit while simultaneously rolling out entirely new ones, not least fully-voiced
02:11NPCs, which in turn leveraged a broader, more mainstream appeal. The role-playing genre
02:15has always been synonymous with PC players, however landing on PS3 and Xbox 360 helped
02:21to spell an association that's pretty much non-existent today.
02:24After a string of uninspiring cosmetic-facing DLC packs, the less said about horse armour
02:29the better, Bethesda launched Knights of the Nine, a decent but short expansion that was
02:33good if not great. On March 27th 2007, however, Shivering Isles knocked it out of the park
02:39as a fully-fledged extension of Oblivion, adding a totally new location in a magical
02:43realm, more than 30 hours of added game time, new quests, baddies, bosses, armour, spells
02:49and more and what was easily one of the, if not the, most sophisticated expansions
02:53ever made to that point. We didn't know it then, but Shivering Isles was but a peek
02:57behind the curtain at what Bethesda was capable of while pushing the boundaries of the hardware
03:01it was working with.
03:04Single-player Grand Theft Auto DLC has become a bit of a white whale in recent years, but
03:08back before the GTA Online boom, the quote-unquote 4th crime sim installment was given two of
03:13the best offshoot stories the series has ever seen. The Lost and Damned came first, followed
03:17by The Ballad of Gay Tony, each focused on a peripheral character featured in the base
03:22game, Johnny Klebetz, Vice President of the Liberty City chapter of the Lost MC motorcycle
03:26gang, and Luis Fernando Lopez, a former drug dealer now bodyguard of nightclub owner and
03:31socialite Anthony Gay Tony Prince. Each story affects the other, and while running concurrently
03:36with the main game protagonist Nico Bellic's primary exploits, each expansion offers fascinating
03:41crossover and extra insight into the goings-on in Liberty City's central narrative.
03:46Arguably, The Lost and Damned's biggest, most revolutionary, or controversial point
03:50of note however, had nothing to do with its mechanics or overlapping storylines. The Lost
03:55and Damned was an Xbox 360 timed exclusive, first launched in early 2009 for Microsoft's
04:00then-flagship console, and not arriving on PS3 and PC until well over a year later. Timed
04:06exclusives are relatively commonplace in the modern landscape of video games, but this
04:10was the first time a series so big in stature had frozen such a sizable portion of the console
04:16market out for what was a pretty significant length of time. Suddenly, timed exclusives
04:20had entered mainstream consciousness. If something as big as Grand Theft Auto could do it, then
04:25any series could.
04:29With Blood and Wine, there was a clear sense that CD Projekt Red wanted to give players
04:32more of what they loved, without paying any of The Witcher 3's base game issues, well,
04:37any mind at all. For the vast majority, it worked, leaving us with what is undoubtedly
04:42one of the best narrative conclusions to any video game ever. One of The Witcher 3's
04:46crowning features, and indeed one of CDPR's central tenets in their approach to worldbuilding,
04:51is its deep and engaging sidequests, whereby missions off the beaten track had the same
04:56scope and narrative focus as those contained within the primary storyline. Blood and Wine,
05:00in essence, was a full expansion dedicated to these narrative loose ends, that brought
05:04story threads full circle, galvanised existing lore, and added new context to characters
05:09as their arcs wound down just before the credits rolled for the final time.
05:15If I'd had my way, Shadow of the Erd Tree would be sh**. Well, maybe not that bad, but
05:20I wanted From Software to adhere to the same speedy development timeline it had stuck to
05:24in the past, whereby DLC would land 6-8 months or so after the launch of whatever game was
05:29in line for an expansion. Which is to say, if things had gone my way, the first, and
05:34likely only, Elden Ring expansion would have been rushed out the door, less than half the
05:38size of what we have now, with a quarter of the features, foes, and weapons, and, yeah,
05:43let's just say I'm glad the developers didn't listen to me.
05:46Quintessential isn't a word I tend to use lightly, but it's without question the right
05:49one here. Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erd Tree is the quintessential expansion. Not
05:53only that, it's in essence a game unto itself. It's massive, masterfully designed, brimming
05:59with character god-awful baddies, and some of the hardest boss battles to feature in
06:03any video game, even by From Software's standards. My jokes aside, From Software was
06:08under immense pressure to release Shadow of the Erd Tree sooner, given the demand for
06:12the DLC, but broke from its traditional schedule pattern and stuck to its guns. What's come
06:17out the other end is nothing short of remarkable, and as close to perfection as I think we can
06:21hope for at this point with regards to great games delivering great expansions. Through
06:25all of this, a new standard has been set, for From Software, and for the rest of the
06:30gaming industry.
06:31If you can think of any other DLCs that are worth noting, I for sure can. Let us know
06:34in the comments, and for more, make sure to check out gamesradar.com.