What do Hitler, Snoop Dogg, George Washington, and Shakespeare have in common? If you said they all appear in Rik Mayall’s autobiography Bigger Than Hitler, Better Than Christ*, you’re wrong. Washington and Snoop aren’t mentioned in that. The correct answer is that each has been digitised and reformed–Weird Science style–into your games as DLC.
There’s a lot of DLC out there, ranging from the mundane to the insane, and I think I know why. Games are increasingly serious business, with huge budgets and a cast amount of public scrutiny. DLC–well some of it–feels like the passion projects that don’t fit into the canon. An outlet for the stuff that gets cleared from the whiteboard for being too off message, or too niche. DLC is cathartic. I’ve been on a strange journey, readers. I’ve been looking through games catalogues and hunting down the sort of DLC that could be described as ’boutique’. I’ve been on a boutique call, ahahahahahahaha!