Standalone Expansions, half-sequels, glorified DLC… whatever you want to call it, I’m a fan of these kinds of not-quite-full game, not-quite-DLC experiences. And with AAA game development now expected to take longer than ever, these half-sequels might be a way to address a potential new release shortage. So far nobody has done them better than PlayStation.
Looking back, it shouldn’t be surprising that these standalone expansions rank as some of my favorite games in the past decade. Uncharted Lost Legacy is one of my two favorite Uncharted games in the series, alongside Uncharted 2, and Miles Morales’ big advantage over Spider-Man was telling a story I had rarely heard before. Consider this: I’ve watched three different Peter Parker movies and watched him star in countless cartoons, but I never read an Ultimate Spider-Man comic in my life. It was new and fresh, but with all of the things from Marvel’s Spider-Man that I already loved.
It’s not just PlayStation either. FromSoftware has never released a DLC I wouldn’t consider among my favorite games of all time, from Dark Souls’ Artorias of the Abyss to the all-time hall-of-famer, Bloodborne: The Old Hunters.
Personally, I also prefer shorter games. This jet-set lifestyle of mine means I’m always traveling to exotic locales (like, uh, Edmonton?) and playing new games. And while I’m no statistician, if a game is shorter there’s a better chance I finish it (I also appreciate that for some, having lots to do in a big, sprawling game is what people want). Also, it’s not really fair to call these games short. How Long to Beat pings both Miles Morales and Lost Legacy at close to 20 hours for a full playthrough.
Admittedly the distinction between a standalone expansion and DLC is pretty arbitrary. I suppose the only defining trait of the standalone expansion is that it might cost more than what we expect a normal DLC pack to cost, but even that’s not really accurate. Consider a character pass in games like Street Fighter where getting 4 new characters now costs $30 as Capcom seemingly don't release their new character a la carte anymore.
To borrow from the famous Supreme Court ruling, “I know it when I see it.”
However, one thing that isn’t a personal preference is that game development times are becoming much, much longer. It’s been happening slowly, and we should only whisper it for now, but the biggest AAA games are taking almost a decade to come out. Literally, who knows if and when we’ll see Ghost of Tsushima 2? Could be 2026 — could be 2036. Either way, we shouldn’t treat expansions as appetizers when they might be the only major release we’ll see from a studio in years.
The standalone expansion has served PlayStation well in times of drought, with Uncharted Lost Legacy and Naughty Dog’s big DLC, The Last of Us: Left Behind, both releasing at the halfway point between The Last of Us Part 1 and The Last of Us Part 2. CD Projekt Red, with several projects that we know of in development but no release date for any of them in sight, has gifted us with Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, a standalone expansion for the ages and a challenger for Game of the Year in a year that saw the release of both The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur’s Gate 3.
The point is, with AAA game sequels looking increasingly further away, we’re likely going to approach a new paradigm. One where ideally big studios can take a chance on new IP and in the meantime satiate existing fans with smaller, more bespoke experiences from our beloved franchises. Especially if the sequel ends up being just a bloated version of the first game that gets bogged down by being essentially the same game but with “more systems and more waypoints.” I won’t name names, but I can think of at least two major sequels in the last five years that could’ve benefited from being a standalone expansion instead.
Something is going to change in AAA game development, it has to. But until then, I think we should appreciate the standalone expansions especially as they deliver full-length quality experiences without the decade-long wait.
