8 Pieces Of Game Changing DLC

A good piece of Downloadable Content – or DLC – can make a world of difference to any game. Whether providing more of the same tried and true formula to an already incredible experience or allowing fans to see a new side to their favorite gameplay moments, characters, and locations, DLC can be a valuable tool.

Many games, particularly large-scale games with seemingly endless scope, benefit from DLC which can bring the focus of the game into something smaller and more intimate. Even so, other games use DLC to change the game entirely and provide a wholly fresh face to the familiar. These pieces of DLC change the games they accompany in huge ways, and are perfect examples of how developers should package their extra content.

8 Bioshock Infinite

Burial At Sea

• Released: November 12, 2013
• Platforms: PlayStation 3, PC, Xbox 360
• Developer: Irrational Games

After the science fiction explosion of Bioshock Infinite‘s story, players may have been expecting any DLC to show more of the floating city of Columbia that features as the location for most of the story. Elizabeth’s ability to see into other parallel realities, though, allows the developers to revisit the setting of the first two games in the trilogy, Rapture. This underwater metropolis is only seen after it has been gripped by constant chaos in the original Bioshock titles, but here fans get an opportunity to see Rapture in its prime. Booker and Elizabeth reappear with a very different dynamic; Booker is a private detective and Elizabeth is a femme fatale who brings him into a case to save a missing girl.

Events unfold that tie the mystery into the grander narrative of the series, but fans will be delighted to see Booker and Elizabeth again. The reappearance of classic villains, references to the first game, and constant reminders of the brutal ending of Infinite make this a worthy addition to the Bioshock world that could easily have made up a whole new game. The second episode even lets fans play as Elizabeth in encounters much more focused on stealth than any in the original title.

7 Borderlands

Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot

• Released: December 29, 2009
• Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
• Developer: Gearbox Software

The classic looter-shooter, Borderlands can at times be a little locked down by the story. Players might struggle to find a challenge after they have completed the linear missions, and unless they are prepared to start the whole narrative over again there are very few options that will provide challenges, constant new content, and the possibility of worthwhile rewards. Enter, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot. Here, players can team up to face off against waves of enemies that will receive randomly generated modifiers to make every expedition into the Underdome arenas unique.

These challenges are very tricky. Players will need to get back up and attempt this with some co-op help but the skill point reward for beating each one, as well as the shiny achievement that is one of the rarest in any of the games more than makes up for the trial’s difficulty. The normal gameplay loop is turned on its head by this confined carnage that will add hours of post-game playtime for any fans of the series.

6 Far Cry 3

Blood Dragon

• Release: April 30, 2013
• Platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PC, Xbox One
• Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Fans of the Far Cry series have come to expect somewhat grounded gameplay with a focus on stealth approaches and survival tactics. Blood Dragon gives the whole franchise a fresh coat of neon paint that allows the whole experience to jump off the screen in a retro glow. Blood Dragon is a tongue-in-cheek stylized spin-off of the normal Far Cry formula that is meant to capture the essence of 80s action movies and over-the-top sci-fi. Players take control of a cyborg soldier who must liberate enemy control points across a hostile island filled with wild animals that have been cybernetically augmented, as well as the titular Blood Dragon that flies overhead and can wipe out whole outposts singlehandedly.

For any players who survived Far Cry 3, the game plays a little like a power fantasy, giving fans some abilities to represent the cyborg soldier’s abilities; players can run indefinitely at frightening speed, take no fall damage, and breathe underwater. Becoming a robot ninja serves as a far cry (pun intended) from the standard approach taken in the series that many fans were clamoring for after a few by-the-numbers entries.

5 Red Dead Redemption

Undead Nightmare

• Release: October 26, 2010
• Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
• Developer: Rockstar San Diego

Serving up a whole new single-player campaign, with multiplayer modes and a new timeline, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare was the only DLC expansion for Rockstar‘s Western masterpiece. The whole map of the original title is reworked to be darker to fit the post-apocalyptic timeline that this version of John Marston has found himself in. While this game is not canon to the events of RDR, fans were glad to have more time with the hero of the original game as he treks across the Old West to search for a cure for the zombie virus.

Marston’s journey puts much more of an emphasis on helping the innocent who are left to survive in the hostile environment and players can utilize new weapons, mounts, and costumes in their quest to cleanse the West of the undead scourge. Rockstar delivers a very different experience that piggybacks off of the astounding cowboy gameplay with a zombie game that still stands out today amid hundreds of others in the genre.

4 Civilization 5

Brave New World

• Released: July 9, 2013
• Platform: PC
• Developer: Firaxis Games

One of the original grand-scale strategy games that allows players to be the guiding hand that influences a kingdom from its conception and through its development, Civilization is an iconic franchise. Civilization 5 may be the very best title in the series, with a host of extra features that bulk out the entire game to allow for control over almost every aspect of the player’s empire. With the Brave New World expansion, players were given various new options that made the game an entirely different beast, both for new players to experience a full simulation of running a nation and for long-time fans to try new leaders and push to see new victory conditions.

The World Congress is a big part of this expansion, which allows for many more diplomacy opportunities that will make keeping allies useful and making enemies a huge mistake. The Cultural victory route was also changed massively, to hinge on tourism and having cultural sway over the other leaders that will face off against the player.

3 Stellaris

Utopia

• Released: April 6, 2017
• Platform: PC
• Developer: Paradox

Paradox’s sprawling spacefaring game of galactic conquest and community has countless DLC packs that chop and change parts of the regular Stellaris formula. Fans of the series may even be left adrift wondering which to purchase first to enhance their game experience. The base game has more than enough content to keep even the most die-hard player busy. Utopia, though, is considered by many to be a necessary purchase that turns most of the game’s systems on their heads.

Players now have the opportunity to force any pre-space travel planets that they find to take on their customs and traditions. This comes hand in hand with the opportunity to transcend into psionic heaven, reach peak evolution, become synthetic robotics, or assimilate with cyborgs to reach the best civilization possible. Perhaps the largest change is the introduction of the Megastructure, which takes up whole systems, costs massive amounts of resources to produce, and gives huge bonuses to the empire that constructs it. Add in the ability to play as a hive mind species and the sprawl of new features makes this a great addition to the game that changes play in very fundamental ways.

2 The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

The Champions’ Ballad

• Released: December 7, 2017
• Platform: Wii U, Nintendo Switch
• Developer: Nintendo

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of The Wild was a breath of fresh air for the series, delivering an open world with RPG and survival elements that impressed series veterans and newcomers alike and made Link an icon of gaming again after a brief hiatus. Nintendo released two different DLC packs, but the second of these delivered huge changes to the story, to the extended gameplay that players could stay in, and to the mechanics as a whole.

The Champions’ Ballad gives Link a selection of new missions to carry out, to eventually obtain his own divine beast. Players are first faced with different trials that test their abilities to see how far they have come, including being given a weapon that can kill any enemy in one hit that also makes Link perish after a single hit. New items, new challenges, and new bosses – as well as the reappearance of the champions and cutscenes that flesh out the time of calamity – all reach a climax when the Master Cycle Zero is gifted to Link to prove himself. The game immediately shifts. Players are let loose on the destroyed Hyrule now atop a mechanical motorbike. Nintendo has never released such a game-changing DLC.

1 Half-Life

Opposing Force

• Released: November 19, 1999
• Platform: PC
• Developer: Gearbox Software

A huge expansion for the first Half-Life game that set the standard for DLC afterward, Opposing Force gives players more of what they loved in a new format. It hands over some new details about the lab where the accident took place, more context about what exactly happened in the Black Mesa Research Facility, and new weapons and aliens available to use and destroy respectively.

Opposing Force puts fans behind the wheels of a marine who was one of the enemies in the original title, and who ventures into the facility to wipe out the dangerous alien incursion. Gameplay continues with the standard skulking through corridors and surviving against tricky torrents of enemy lifeforms but the revisiting and reframing of some of the best set pieces make this an incredible insight into Half-Life‘s world.

The addition of a grappling hook changes movement, speed, and platforming to introduce new challenges that those who completed the original game loved sinking their teeth into upon release. This still stands as a perfect example of what DLC can really provide.