Like the title! I normally am very critical of Expansions, but sometimes they build upon the base game in very unique ways. I love Dead Money for Fallout: New Vegas, it has the sharpest character writing and turns the game into a Survival Horror experience while remaining authentically “Fallout.”
What are y’all’s thoughts?
Diablo II LoD, Everquest Ruins Of Kunark + Scars Of Velious, Sims Hot Date + Vacation, STALKER Call Of Pripyat, Half Life 2 Episode 2, Star Wars Galaxies Jump To Lightspeed. All goodies I played through the years that actually added onto the core gameplay of the original games like a good expansion pack should.
I miss the era of expansion packs, miss me with that “dlc” or “add on” nonsense.
Yep, even when it comes to Fallout 4, the fact that Far Harbor was large enough to contain all of the necessary elements to build a cool new cohesive location, expand on playstyles, and provide a complete narrative vs how empty Nuka World and Automatron were is where I draw big inspiration.
Shadow of the Erdtree has frustrating parts, but is ultimately a prime example of an Expansion vs DLC. Same with Phantom Liberty, for the same reasons as Far Harbor.
Red Alert 2: Yuri’s Revenge is a shining example of what an expansion can be. A lot of refined mechanics, better fleshed out factions (plus one new one!) and three new campaigns with just as many FMV cutscenes as the previous iterarion.
Honorable mention and this kinda doesn’t count but Mental Omega is a mod for Yuri’s Revenge that has between 3 to 4 times more content than the base game. There’s a dozen subfactions split between four subfactions and inregrates features from later C&C games while introducing a lot of it’s own stuff. It has some “borrowed” voice lines from other games but there are some units that have original voices which is pretty cool. No FMV video though. It’s suprisingly deep for what it was based off of and it has become one of my favorite RTS experiences.
Side note:
This is such an unpopular opinion of mine but while Dead Money is cool my favorite of the FONV expansions was Old World Blues because of the goofiness of the characters contrasted with the manmade horrors of the big empty. I found Lonesome Road to be meh and Honest Hearts to be uncomfortable with how it seems to embrace the concept of the “White Man’s Burden” uncritically.
This is such an unpopular opinion of mine but while Dead Money is cool my favorite of the FONV expansions was Old World Blues because of the goofiness of the characters contrasted with the manmade horrors of the big empty.
Unpopular? Thought that was the standard! Love for Dead Money was the spicy take, most fans loved OWB or LR to my knowledge.
Maybe things have changed over time, haha
Dawn of War: Winter Assault gave all the non-Space Marine factions in the base game a campaign. Sure, they were all sorta mushed together, but they got one! And also it made the Imperial Guard playable.
Dark Crusade was neat, and so was Soulstorm, but Winter Assault showed what the game could become.
just imagine living in a socialist utopia where Dawn of War Soulstorm is open source, getting regular updates like graphics updates, optimizations, native support MacOS and linux, ARM builds, new campaigns added regularly, new game modes, an optional hybrid LoL/DotA game mode…
Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency, back when an expansion pack was something you bought boxed at a store.
StarCraft: Brood War was also nice, but I always liked Total Annihilation more.
dark souls 3’s the ringed city dlc is pretty perfect imo (though halflight is pretty hit or miss)
i’ve never cared about playing the game properly but age of mythology’s titans expansion is great.
warcraft 3: the frozen throne for sure
gonna also say spore: galactic adventures for the meme
