When Grand Theft Auto V was first released, Rockstar pledged to continue the story of its three main protagonists beyond the main game. In short, it was planning a bunch of single-player DLC for it, much like it did with previous entry in the series, GTA IV. But that never materialised. While there have been a number of updates for the game since its original release, there's not been even a hint of single-player DLC that continues the story of its main characters.
Rockstar has now stated that the reason was that it didn't have enough time or resources to work on it, because it was so focused on other aspects of the game. And other games.
"The next-gen versions took a year of everyone’s time to get right," said Rockstar design director Imran Sarwar in a chat with Game Informer. "Then the online component had a lot of potential, but to come close to realizing that potential also sucked up a lot of resources. And then there are other games - in particular, Red Dead Redemption 2. The combination of these three factors means for this game, we did not feel single-player expansions were either possible or necessary."
As expected, it sounds as if Rockstar made an absolute killing on GTA V - billions, by most measures - and yet found that as sales slowed, it was in rereleases and expansion of the ongoing multiplayer component where it could make the most money. Selling online cash for extra DLC is a lot easier than creating new single-player components which will appeal to a smaller segment of the audience.
Yet Rockstar doesn't rule out single player expansions of future titles, claiming instead that this was some particular use case for GTA V.
But what of GTA Online now that Rockstar is moving on to other projects? Will it continue to expand and support the service forever? It sounds like it might not. Although Sarwar said there was no definitive end-point for GTA V Online, he did suggest that Rockstar might start to wind down its support in order to focus on Red Dead Redemption 2.
Are you guys still playing GTA V and its online components?
