New content seems like it should always be a good thing, especially when the game it’s for is great. Most of the time, that is precisely the case. New content for a fantastic game is often as good as, if not arguably better than, the base game.
There are countless examples of this, likeBorderlands 2’s Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep orCyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.
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However, the years have proven that this isn’t always the case, and that some DLC is just terrible. Sometimes it’s not worth the price, sometimes it’s not worth your time, and sometimes it even manages to make the overall experience worse.
A game being amazing doesn’t make it immune to having awful DLC, unfortunately.
8The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Horse Armor
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Does it even need to be said?The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’s Horse Armor is probably the most infamous DLC of all time, and for good reason. It costs a noticeable fraction of the game’s price for a single, fairly useless item. Why would you pay a twentieth of the full game’s cost for a thousandth of its content?
Horse armor wasn’t the only near-useless DLC in Oblivion either, withothers such as The Orrerybeing heavily criticized as well.
That said, the game itself is great and has some fantastic DLC as well. The Shivering Isles expansion even fits into the category of possibly being better than the base game.
7Borderlands
Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot
Borderlands
A game with infamously bad DLC isTiny Tina’s Wonderlands, but I feel that game falls short of amazing for a few reasons. However, the originalBorderlandsgameis certainly amazing, and it has a DLC with similar problems to Wonderland’s, the Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot DLC.
Underdome Riot recycles content, pitting you up against enemies you’ve already encountered in the game, and is excruciatingly tedious. It strips the game of most of the compelling reasons to play, like unique loot and an interesting story, and turns it into a monotonous grind.
I suppose if you really like turning your brain off and mindlessly killing for long periods of time, then you can get some fun out of it, but it’s hard to justify the $10 price tag.
Thankfully, the rest of the DLC for Borderlands is pretty great.
6Battlefield 4
Pay Not To Play
Battlefield 4
Do you like playing games? Of course, you do, andBattlefield 4is a great game to play, so why would you pay money not to play it? That’s essentially whatBattlefield’s Shortcut bundles are. They instantly unlock items that are already in the game.
The Battlefield gamesaren’t particularly grindy, especially for the amount of content, and the progression is one of the most compelling reasons to play the game. Paying to skip this progression is like paying to remove a portion of the game.
Since these don’t add any new content, it’s almost hard to call them DLC. However, you do have to pay for them and, for whatever reason, download them. I think that’s just a testament to how absurd they are.
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5Europa Universalis IV
Europa Universalis 4
Europa Universalis 4is one of the most detailed strategy games out there. It makes the Sid Meier’s Civilization gameslook like checkers. Many tiny moving parts make the game great; however, that’s also where things can go wrong.
The game has over a dozen DLC expansions, with most of them being good. However, one in particular was a bit of a disaster, at least on release. The Leviathan DLC came out in a broken state, with missing assets and extremely unbalanced changes to the game that would take forever to explain.
Long story short, you were paying for a worse experience. It was so bad that the expansion still has an overwhelmingly negative rating on Steam.
Thankfully, this DLC has largely been fixed. However, it was once truly terrible.
4Saints Row 2
Every Single DLC
Saints Row 2
Saints Row 2is a gem of a game. It was able to hold its own againstGrand Theft Auto, releasing the same year asGrand Theft Auto 4, despite often being dismissed as a GTA clone. It was so much more than a clone.
However, while the base game was great, the DLC was extremely lackluster. Outside of a free cosmetic pack, each DLC was just three missions, taking about an hour to complete.
Given that the base game took 20+ hours to complete, it’s hard to justify the price of each DLC, with Corporate Warfare costing $6.99 and Ultor Exposed costing $9.99.
Also, spoiler alert, they ended on cliffhangers that were never resolved. The cliffhangers bring the writing of the game as a whole down and are infuriating.
3Rainbow Six Siege
Gold Weapons Skin Pack
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
The mid-2010s were a great time for gaming; however, those years had their faults. One problem plaguing games was the reliance on pre-orders, and pre-order bonuses were a way to guarantee these pre-launch sales.
Sometimes the content was decent, seemingly free DLC. More often than not, it was content cut from the game, and at the same time, completely lackluster. If you don’t pre-order, you have to pay extra to get the cut content. The Gold Weapons Skin Pack ofTom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siegefits this bill.
Truly, if we’re holding games to Horse Armor standards, then most, if not all, paid cosmetic items are terrible DLC for being devoid of actual content. Siege is filled with cosmetic item DLC. However, the Gold skin is oddly dull-looking, and is content that was finished before the game was released, making it particularly atrocious.
That said, Rainbow Six Siege is truly an amazing game, havinglasted over a decadewith an ample player base despite the terrible pre-order bonus.
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2The Saboteur
The Midnight Show
The Saboteur
The Saboteuris an underrated, open-world, third-person shooter with fantastic art direction and an interesting story. It largely went under the radar, but that doesn’t make it any less of an amazing game.
However, it had a very questionable DLC in The Midnight Show. If you bought a new copy, or for an additional three dollars, you could unlock in-game nudity. That was supposed to be the selling point, anyway.
The Midnight Show DLC also came with a minigame and an unlockable car, but that really only puts it a modicum above Horse Armor, and that’s only if you’re ignoring that the DLC was available at release and was likely cut content.
1Gran Turismo 7
Gran Turismo 7
Just about any microtransaction out there is terrible DLC in my opinion, and I think few games highlight why as much asGran Turismo 7.
The game is fantastic and a demonstration of whatmakes the PS5 so great. However, there is a massive problem. Getting credits is a grind. A pretty extreme grind. Conveniently, you can skip the grind by paying with your real, hard-earned money in microtransactions.
It costs $19.99 for 2,000,000 Credits. Several cars cost 20,000,000 credits, so you would have to buy the most expensive credit pack ten times, or pay $200 per car. That is insane.
Microtransactions are bad to begin with, but they typically give you something that is not otherwise in the game, like new cosmetic items. This is just a way to skip an unreasonable grind.
Thankfully, Gran Turismo 7 does add free updates with some reasonably priced cars as well.
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