In 2004 Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and in doing so wrapped up a trilogy of loosely connected games that began with 2001’s Grand Theft Auto III. An accomplishment that took three years and three individual full priced games to pull off, impressive to say the least. In 2006 at E3 then Vice President of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, Peter Moore stood on stage and announced that Grand Theft Auto IV was coming to the Xbox 360. Not only that, but it was bringing along two exclusive downloadable episodes. No one knew it at the time, but Rockstar Games was going to turn Grand Theft Auto IV into a trilogy using one disc.
The Grand Theft Auto games have always been sprawling gangster epics and Grand Theft Auto IV was no exception. We met a cast of characters, some innocent, some tragic, and some who were downright evil. Little did we know that many of these characters would come back in 2009’s expansions The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. If Vice City and San Andreas were improvements on Grand Theft Auto III then the same can be said for Lost and Damned and Gay Tony. The gameplay is more varied, missions are more structured, and the shorter length makes the story telling sharper and more impactful. It took me months to beat Grand Theft Auto IV, but the expansions can be played in a weekend. That’s not to say there isn’t as much to do as the main game; both expansions are filled with side missions and friendships to maintain.
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Much like the DLC for Fallout 3 the magic truly does happen after you’ve played both GTA IV expansions. You realize that the story isn’t Niko’s or Johnny’s. It’s not Gay Tony’s and it’s not Luis Lopez’s story either. The game is about Liberty City and what happens to it and how it treats these characters over the course of the three stories. Rockstar has crafted a love letter to the city that made them superstar game developers. Niko comes to Liberty City hoping to find a better life, Liberty City beats Johnny down to almost nothing, and Luis has it all, but the city might take it away from him. It’s an incredible narrative and it manages to fit on one disc thanks to the magic of downloadable content.
The story really does seem to have been written this way from the beginning. Meant to be played in pieces and arranged by the player. I don’t think the story would have been as thought out or well put together if these were three separate full retail releases. The immediacy at which they can be created and deployed means the stories can all be written at once, meanwhile the developers can continue to expand upon the games mechanics. While motorcycles were a pain in the ass to drive in the main game, in the biker-centric Lost and the Damned, Rockstar made the motorcycles as easy to drive as the game’s automobiles. Interweaving plot lines across multiple pieces of content can be planned ahead of time knowing that the DLC will use an existing engine and assets. In the end the main game may take some extra work, but the story will be enhanced greatly and make the expansions that much more impressive. Not to mention quicker to complete.
So bravo to Rockstar for possibly the best use of DLC in, DLC’s short lifetime, I can only hope that Grand Theft Auto V can utilize it in even more impressive and ambitious ways. To me Rockstar used to just be the guys who made Grand Theft Auto, but now I look at them as master storytellers, shaping video games to fit their story, not making sacrifices because something in the tech didn’t work. They invent tech that expands their visions and never compromise. Let’s hope they never stop pushing the medium’s boundaries and continue to make compelling games that rivals Hollywood’s blockbusters.