If you’re anything like me, you absolutely loved Grand Theft Auto V‘s single-player offering. It brought three playable characters together for one incredibly unique gameplay experience, all the while telling a fantastic and compelling story. It was a narrative that I, and many vocal fans, wanted to see expanded into various single-player expansions. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be.
As GTA Online grew increasingly popular, with support fuelled by microtransactions, the single-player felt like it had been left abandoned. Those expecting GTA IV-like expansions grew tired of waiting and moved on.
In an interview with GameInformer, Rockstar’s director of design Imran Sarwar explained why single-player expansions never came to be:
“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.”
Happily, it looks like Rockstar isn’t totally done with single-player expansions. Sarwar went on to say that “as a company, [Rockstar] love[s] single-player more than anything, and believe[s] in it absolutely.” He then confirmed that Rockstar “would love to do more single-player add-ons for games in the future.”
“We would love to do more single-player add-ons for games in the future … As a company, we love single-player more than anything, and believe in it absolutely – for storytelling and a sense of immersion in a world, multiplayer games don’t rival single-player games.”
