I’m not saying I shed actual tears when Eiji Aonuma confirmed that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom would get zero DLC, but I definitely stared at my Switch like a disappointed Hylian retriever. No Master Mode, no bonus story, no ridiculous Korok-themed horse armor. Nothing. Nada. It hit me harder than a Silver Lynel with a grudge. And then I realized it’s not just Hyrule. The era of big, juicy, single-player expansions is wheezing on the floor like a Bokoblin after one too many bomb arrows.
Let’s rewind. Breath of the Wild got two expansion packs: The Master Trials and The Champions’ Ballad. Were they perfect? No, the master cycle was deeply silly, but it was content — earned, optional, and sometimes brilliant. Tears of the Kingdom? Aonuma basically said the team had already poured everything into the base game. Which is lovely, but my wallet and my heart were ready for a “Ganondorf’s fitness journey” pack.
Then there’s the CD Projekt Red roller coaster. The Witcher 3 launched in May 2015, and by the end of May 2016 we had Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. Blood and Wine alone was basically a whole new game wearing the skin of an expansion. Compare that to Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, which arrived in September 2023, nearly three years after the base game limped out the door. It was fantastic, truly, but it was also the only expansion Cyberpunk 2077 will ever get. Meanwhile, I’m still finding half-finished perk shards in my inventory.
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Why the change? Big games now take an eternity to cook. When Assassin’s Creed went from Syndicate in 2015 to Origins in 2017, everyone lost their minds over a two-year gap. Now Valhalla to Mirage was a three-year gap and we barely blinked, mostly because we were too busy raiding monasteries in a content coma. Development cycles have ballooned from two or three years to five or six, and the time it takes to build a meaningful story expansion now feels less like a side quest and more like developing a sequel.
The Last of Us Part 2 drove this home. The first game got Left Behind, a short but superb add-on. Part 2 got... a multiplayer spin-off that vanished into development limbo like a stealth-focused Shambler. Naughty Dog showed concept art, not gameplay. Eventually, the project was shelved entirely, which felt less surprising than a clicker in a dark basement.
From a business perspective, I kind of get it. Single-player DLC doesn’t sell like a live-service battle pass with a dancing banana skin. Players finish a big story and scatter like Koroks looking for seeds. Daily active users? More like “daily active uninstalls.” Multiplayer games get constant updates because players are already checking in every afternoon, but a single-player expansion asks people to return weeks or years later. And when your base game took 80 hours to finish, asking for 20 more is a tough sell.
But as a player, this trend stings. Developers often admit they only truly understand a game right before shipping it. DLC used to be the victory lap, the place where the team flexed the muscles they built while wrestling the base game out the door. Left Behind was tighter than the original. Blood and Wine was more confident than Wild Hunt. The Lost Legacy gave Chloe and Nadine room to breathe. Killing off single-player expansions doesn’t just reduce my backlog; it starves the creative muscles that make sequels better.
There are exceptions. Insomniac still ships a Spider-Man game and often a meaty follow-up, and FromSoftware basically treats Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree as a full game with a “DLC” label to avoid scaring us. But they’re anomalies, not the rule. The industry is chasing season passes, cosmetic bundles, and live-service roadmaps, and the classic expansion pack is being packed away like an old amiibo.
I’m not asking for a return to 2006-era horse armor (okay, I am a little). I just want story packs that feel like dessert after a massive main course. But as 2026 rolls on, I’ve accepted the truth: the days of substantial single-player add-ons are numbered. I’ll keep my expansion pass money ready, Nintendo, just in case a “Tears of the Kingdom: Ganondorf Buys a Yacht” pack ever materializes.