// PC GAMER — GAMING
10 expansions that were better than the actual game
Bigger isn't always better. Except for sometimes when it is.
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Expansions should be improvements on the base game, you say. The whole point of them is that they're adding cool new stuff, and the same game with a bunch of cool new stuff added should always be better. Except often that isn't the case.
The list of add-ons that feel like they misunderstood what made the original good, or dragged it out unnecessarily, or were just sort of fine in a "second helping of the same meal" kind of way, is a long one.
The lists of expansions that were genuinely better than the game they were expanding in the first place is much less long. It's like 10 things tops, and these are those 10 things.
You can understand why Arkane thought Dishonored needed a silent protagonist. You've got a whole arsenal of tools and powers to approach problems with, and players should feel free to use the whole box instead of being constrained by questions like, "What would Corvo do?" But even without a voice players projected a persona onto Corvo, one that was at odds with the ability to possess a guard, walk him up to an electric Wall of Light, then exit just before that guard stumbled vomiting over the threshold and was cooked to death by it.
Dishonored's two-part story DLC wisely chose a voiced protagonist, and what a voice it was. Michael Madsen's Daud, the regretful assassin who was Corvo's most characterful antagonist, introduces each mission with a cynical film noir drawl. Now that's a man who wouldn't hesitate to kill someone while they were vomiting.
The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches were full of learnings from Dishonored. The Blink power gained a timestop element that felt so good it became the default way Blink worked in subsequent games, and every level felt built for climbing around without seeming gimmicky. Dishonored's DLC levels aren't just better than Dishonored, they're better than a lot of Dishonored 2.
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Dawn of War's campaign was enjoyably bombastic, but you had to play it as the boring old space marines. The first expansion, Winter Assault, let you choose from a couple of sides but funneled you through linear levels that had to be played in specific ways rather than letting you come up with your own tactics.