Many dedicated GTA 5 fans we wondering when the game would get some single player content, and those who have combed through the files of the recent source code leaks have discovered a trail of files for several single-player DLCs that have since been cancelled.
In the days when GTA IV was a fresh entry in the series, single-player DLC was something developers were still immensely interested in creating to expand the story of their game. While there are still some developers that do this, the live service business model has largely taken over even in the space of story-focused content.
GTA IV was a critical and commercial success that, at the time, had almost no match in the games industry. Though GTA 5 would go on to blow it out of the water, DLCs for the fourth entry like The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and the Damned raised the game to new heights.
Many long-time fans of the series were hoping that there’d be some single-player DLC on offer to evolve GTA 5 in the same way, but it wasn’t in the cards. Though there was DLC in development at one point according to leaked files in the source code, as well as a GTA Tokyo game for the PS2 that was scrapped.
GTA 5 source code leak reveals single-player DLC files
The scale of these single player DLCs varies, but the biggest ones would have really made waves. According to what’s contained within the files, there could have even been an entirely new city.
Or, well, it wouldn’t have been new to the franchise: GTA 5 at one point had a plan to return to Liberty City, the setting of GTA IV and GTA Chinatown Wars.
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Some of these single player DLCs were converted into GTA Online content, which makes sense for a few different reasons. With GTA Online being a constantly evolving environment that they can place microtransactions in, it makes sense they’d release free updates rather than DLCs that require a one-time payment. And, on top of that, it makes it so that players can enjoy new content with their friends rather than having to log out of GTA Online to enjoy it.
However, this hasn’t kept fans of the series from being disappointed in the decision to release no single-player DLCs. Rockstar has a long history of strong storytelling, and some of that is inherently lost with multiplayer content. Not only that, but Liberty City is a place longtime fans would have been excited to see re-imagined.
Hearing the news that Rockstar cancelled 8 story mode DLC’s for GTA 5 is incredibly disappointing.I understand why, it was simply more profitable to allocate further resources onto GTAO instead of developing singleplayer content which would have generated minimal revenue in… pic.twitter.com/5b1MmZJqSz
— GameRoll (@GameRollGTA) December 25, 2023
Additionally, there were some ancient files for what appears to be a scrapped GTA Tokyo game for the Playstation 2. For many, the PS2 era was a golden age for the franchise, with spinoff games like Vice City and San Andreas being fondly remembered to this day.
There appears to have been a GTA Tokyo game planned as well in this lineup of spinoffs, although it seems it didn’t make it far past the early stages of development.
With how far removed we are from the PS2 era, it’s likely this game will never see the light of day.