Rockstar Reveals Why There Is No GTA 5 Story DLC

After being a frequent topic of discussion amongst fans for years now, Rockstar has finally given a semi-official statement regarding why Grand Theft Auto 5 never got any singleplayer DLC to expand the storyline.

In a recent interview with Game Informer about the development and evolution of GTA Online, Director of Design Imran Sarwar gave an answer about why GTA 5 didn't end up getting any post-launch single-player story content, even though its predecessor got two full expansions.

Another reason why story DLC has been such a topic of speculation is an announcement made by Rockstar on the Newswire not long after the game's initial launch, which spoke of upcoming content that will expand upon the story of Trevor, Franklin and Michael.

As such, the community's befuddlement over the absence of single player DLC isn't completely baseless. Most of the speculation as to why it never materialized pointed at the success of GTA Online.

While Sarwar finally gives us what amounts to the official answer to the question, nowhere in his statement is the original announcement referenced.

No, it was not really a conscious decision, it's just what happened. With GTA V, the single-player game was absolutely massive and very, very complete. It was three games in one. The next-gen versions took a year of everyone's time to get right, 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 II. The combination of these three factors means for this game, we did not feel single-player expansions were either possible or necessary.

It was no secret that Rockstar's resources were pretty heavily taxed.

Even before we knew about Red Dead Redemption 2 being in the works, it was widely known that something was being developed (well, somethings, really). Additionally, GTA 5's staggered release over the course of three years also spread the development of the ports into the years that the game was already live on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

However, the general assumption was that a company the size of Rockstar Games could easily facilitate the production of single-player DLC, provided they prioritized it over Online DLC. It seems the immense profitability of the multiplayer component has prevented that from happening.

As such, the community's befuddlement over the absence of single player DLC isn't completely baseless. Most of the speculation as to why it never materialized pointed at the success of GTA Online.

While Sarwar finally gives us what amounts to the official answer to the question, nowhere in his statement is the original announcement referenced.

No, it was not really a conscious decision, it's just what happened. With GTA V, the single-player game was absolutely massive and very, very complete. It was three games in one. The next-gen versions took a year of everyone's time to get right, 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 II. The combination of these three factors means for this game, we did not feel single-player expansions were either possible or necessary.

It was no secret that Rockstar's resources were pretty heavily taxed.