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As much fun as players have had with Grand Theft Auto Online over the years, it’s still unfortunate that Rockstar Games never released any GTA 5 story DLC. However, it turns out that the studio was working on single-player content at one point, and Online’s success played a role in its cancellation.
Why didn’t Rockstar make GTA 5 story DLC?
Former Rockstar developer Joe Robino recently spoke with YouTuber StanInPlay about the canceled single-player add-on. As he explained, the studio was working on GTA Online, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the canceled GTA 5 story DLC simultaneously. According to Robino, the DLC project was about halfway done when Rockstar paused development to focus on Online. The multiplayer mode’s success eventually made it difficult to justify continuing to spend resources on new single-player content.
“It was really, really good,” Robino said about the canceled GTA 5 story DLC. “But when GTA Online came out it was so much of a cash cow, and people were loving it so much that it was hard to make an argument that a standalone DLC would outcompete that. I think, looking back now, you could probably do both. But that was a business decision they made. I was a little upset about that.”
“That actually was a lot of the reason for me being a little sour at that time,” he adds. “Because I was like, yo, WTF guys? This s—’s awesome. Let’s keep going. Let’s finish this s—.”
The silver lining is that Rockstar didn’t waste everything from the unfinished GTA 5 story DLC. Instead, Robino says that a lot of it eventually made its way into Online. However, it’s still interesting for fans to imagine what could have been.