Rockstar’s output of single player expansions last generation was some of the best in the entire industry, with both GTA 4 and Red Dead Redemption enjoying excellent post-launch support with incredible single player DLCs. Then GTA 5 came along, and GTA Online proved to be a ridiculously lucrative post-launch model for Rockstar- and support for that online component meant that any single player post-launch plans had to be put on the back-burner.
Chances are, in spite of Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive still seeing some value in that model, things won’t change any time soon, especially considering how successful GTA Online continues to be even now. The perfect example of that is newly surfaced details (thanks several dataminers and insiders, via Eurogamer report) on single player expansions that Rockstar had in the pipeline for GTA 5, which they eventually canned in order to devote all their attention to GTA Online.
One particular expansion, in fact, was going to supposedly redesign 80 to 90 per cent of the game’s entire map so that it could fit a new theme- one of a zombie post-apocalypse, similar to Red Dead Redemption’s expansion, Undead Nightmare. And that’s not it. Reportedly, there was going to be another single player DLC episode, which would be focused entirely on pulling off a heist in the Diamond Casino and Resort- which, of course, was recently opened up for GTA Online players.
Both those ideas sound like something scores of players would love to try out- but when you look at the success that GTA Online has brought for GTA 5 – a game that launched years ago and still continues to sell like peanuts – one can’t argue with the fact that continued support for GTA Online is obviously much more profitable for Rockstar.
And it looks like Rockstar will be following that model for all their games, not just GTA. Recently, rumours suggested that Red Dead Redemption 2 would be getting an aliens-themed single player expansion- but that, predictably enough, turned out to be bogus.