The expansion of the video game industry has contracted the prevalence of expansion packs - after launch, how can these stations remain in orbit?

One and done, then some is the prevailing principle within the medium.

In September of 2023, CD Projekt Red codified Cyberpunk 2077’s miraculous resurrection through a canny diptych of updates. First, the team delivered an extensive retooling to an end labelled as 2.0, before the debut of its lone story expansion: Phantom Liberty. This campaign’s depiction of a dire, deadly district in Dogtown was a direct refutation of the primary narrative’s sparseness; the team’s sophisticated character interplay was met by a tantamount attention to its succession of setpieces. Were it not for an examination of the base game’s failings, accompanied by a greater embrace of its triumphs, through Phantom Liberty, CD Projekt would not have garnered an additional five million sales from its besieged title. This is the platonic ideal of an expansion: a considered extension, enriching core gameplay elements whilst exercising novel ideas. I found Phantom Liberty’s web of corporate espionage and portentous forays into cyberspace to have woven itself in an impressive manner: not only did its conclusion recontextualise the primary storyline, its own tale was both resonant and heart-wrenching.

Phantom Liberty was a dark, yet joyous journey through Night City’s sequestered warzone of Dogtown.

However, in an interview with the publication VideoGamer, Skyrim lead systems designer Bruce Nesmith - who recently spoke to the unsustainability of the current model of commercial development - noted the erstwhile expansion model has become archaic in the current sales climate. Nesmith characterised expansions as a “market within a market … if your game sells … 10 million copies, you are not going to sell 10 million DLCs”. Despite recognising the propensity of DLC to raise the profile of its base game, Nesmith conceded the fast-paced consumption of Triple A titles challenges development teams to swiftly employ additional content to seize its limited time in the zeitgeist. Spider-Man, for instance, produced three chapters for its solitary story expansion, arriving in three successive months following its debut in September 2018. This provided players with a month to chart its main story, before continuing their arachnid adventure through to the years’ end. Furthermore, its conclusion in December primed the game for Christmas compilations, allowing a new audience to experience the whole narrative at once.

Phantom Liberty, conversely, arrived nearly three years removed from Cyberpunk 2077’s troubled launch, providing consumers with a clean point of entry - or reconsideration. As the game’s fundamentals were thoroughly revised, it felt new, if not a heightened form of déjà vu; driving became significantly less chaotic, for one. Nevertheless, this abated design is an exception, rather than a norm - contemporary expansions serve a purpose closer to a single mint, not a digestif. Infamously, Dying Light 2: Stay Human portrayed Bloody Ties as a true story DLC, despite limiting itself to a combat arena and a truncated, approximate duration of three hours. With regard to its successor, Techland elected to spin this second venture into a standalone title: The Beast. Though Dying Light 2’s marketing suggested its ambition was to craft a persistent world, fleshed out through new areas to tear through flesh within, the studio’s abandonment of this model a mere two years in serves as a reminder of how fickle the consumer market can be.

Techland identified greater commercial viability through positioning Dying Light 2’s second story DLC as a standalone title - a matter of material liberty.

Presently, Dying Light 2 has a sound, peak concurrent player count of 7,900. That this tally is within the upper end of four digits is something of a success for the team: its average player count dropped from 91,226 to 12,738 from its launch in February to March, mired in malaise since. Its predecessor, however, has maintained healthy engagement - currently, its count of 23,025 is a marked improvement upon its launch figure of 12,871. Though Dying Light 2 received a pair of notable revisions through an enhanced gore system and an ultimate ‘reload’ - introducing firearms, as its name slyly indicates - its community has mostly settled upon the defined tone of its original recipe. Steadly, the game has deviated from its conceptual RPG elements, introducing greater online functionality - though I have not returned to Villedor in some time, I found it to be an enjoyable lark. Nevertheless, Techland needed it to be a fixture of the medium, rather than a periphery experience in the shadow of its forebearer. Thus, The Beast represents an opportunity for the studio to begin anew, cannily shortening the development window for their next premium title in turn.

In this respect, Nesmith is correct: the market left Dying Light 2 behind. Inversely, developers can make this decision of their own accord, consistent with the aforementioned excess of time and creative rigour required to build upon existing foundations. Larian Studios, against Baldur’s Gate 3’s bounty of riches cultivated through 15 million sales, elected not to produce additional story DLC, nor an expansion. Baldur’s Gate 3’s novelistic breadth and defined structure lessened the necessity of further content; evidently, Larian elected to convert their cultural cachet into enthusiasm for their next title. Consequently, Baldur’s Gate 3’s eventual successor will be received warmly upon merits of its concept alone, promising to further its formula on the next generation of console hardware - not too far away! Indeed, Larian can afford to rest upon their laurels; the game will continue to retain and expand its audience through its sheer scope.

Baldur’s Gate will remain open and welcoming to travelers, mages, and residents for some time.

Continuous, gilded goodwill from its consumers is their greatest currency. As a privately-owned enterprise, Larian are exempt from the infinite growth folly of their public kin. Tencent, the multimedia monolith with an annual revenue of $26.2 billion and a 33.2% share of the gaming industry, holds 30% of the company. However, their influence is closer to a matter of vested interest, as they are not permitted to exercise voting rights against CEO Swen Vincke and his wife; the couple own a majority 62% of the studio.

Ultimately, these three cases neatly exemplify the industry’s changing relationship with the expansion model. In CD Projekt’s case, Phantom Liberty served as an opportunity to reintroduce their game in a more favourable light, sanctioned an extended period of incubation to refine the base campaign’s shortcomings. For Techland, The Beast is an acknowledgement of Dying Light 2’s dimming prospects, resetting their brand through a full-priced play for greater earnings - entitlement to a second DLC was baked into Dying Light 2’s season pass, fatally limiting earnings. Larian Studios, ostensible kings of the industry, recognised additional content would both lengthen development on their next title and tax their team, instead allowing Baldur’s Gate 3 to age on its own terms. For Nesmith’s former contemporaries at Bethesda, Starfield: Shattered Space … well, The Elder Scrolls VI must be coming along nicely, right?