These days, when you hear about Grand Theft Auto, chances are it’s related to GTA Online rather than the single player portion, GTA 5.
GTA Online is getting constant DLC updates many of which dominate gaming headlines when they’re released. The multiplayer game reigns supreme in terms of player base – but what about that single player DLC?
Over the years, there has been a lot of conflicting news and confusion regarding any potential single player DLC for GTA 5. We’ve collected all the relevant information and answers to whatever questions you may have into this FAQ. Here’s everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the continuation of Franklin, Trevor and Micael’s adventures, but were afraid to ask.
Will there be any single player DLC for GTA 5?
No.
Let’s get the big question out of the way first. It took a while, but we now have official confirmation that GTA 5 will not be receiving additional single player content.
It’s a shame since it was GTA 5’s single player portion that earned almost universal praise back when the game was released, and while some fan favorite characters did turn up in Online through cameos, it just isn’t the same.
So where did all the rumors and fuss come from?
Official sources.
While we now know that the official stance is a big “no” on story DLC (see above), things looked a little bit different in the past.
The reason why the community was so hyped up about some story DLC is because at one point Rockstar Games announced it.
Considering the massive success of GTA 5, it wasn’t even surprising. Though certain events at the end of the story meant that Rockstar would need to set the DLC during the course of the existing story, or canonize one of the three possible endings, it seemed like a logical evolution for the game.
As for the exact content of the scrapped DLC, we can’t say for sure.
The source code of certain GTA Online DLCs contain a lot of leftovers that make it seem like they were originally planned for single player DLC, most notably Heists and the more recent The Doomsday Heist.
However, GTA Online had a few words to say about that. The absolutely unexpected runaway success of the multiplayer mode, which included similarly successful microtransactions, clearly caused some resource re-allocation and suddenly Rockstar was releasing one GTA Online DLC after another.
Although it speculated for years, the leaked source code of GTA 5 all but confirmed this. Apparently, at some point, Rockstar was working on at least eight single-player DLCs for the game. All were canceled in favor of GTA Online, Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Dead Online and possibly even GTA 6.
It’s believed that some of the single-player content carried over to GTA Online updates and expansions, including heists, among others.
When was the story DLC cancelled?
We don’t know.
Much of the back history of GTA 5 story DLC is mired in secrecy. At best, we can peg the approximate cancellation of the DLC as sometime in 2014/2015.
What we do know comes from conflicting reports, making it seem like at one point Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive weren’t on the same page. A Rockstar representative indicated that DLC would be produced for GTA 5, but then a Take-Two representative issued a corrective statement saying that isn’t the case, all within a couple of days.
What made this whole period of time even more confusing was several Instagram posts by Shawn Fonteno that kept hinting at story DLC. Whether some or all of these were made back before the DLC was canceled, or he was just trolling, is something we’ll never know.
Why are there so many fake GTA 5 Story DLC leaks?
Because it generates traffic.
Even today, so many years after the game was first released, when we’ve already had official confirmation that there is no plan for single player DLC, people are still wishing and hoping. GTA 5 Story DLC, or variations thereof, is a hot search term. Fans might hope that the off chance of it happening are worth investigating, or some people just didn’t get the memo.
Even so, people adamant about nabbing their 15 minutes of fame keep posting leaks, some more elaborate than others.
How can I add more content to single player then?
Mods!
If you play on consoles, tough luck, what you get is all there is. However, on PC, players can download fan-made mods that add to or change the game’s single player portion. In fact, porting content from the Online DLCs over to single player with mods is quite common.
What about Zombie DLC?
Allegedly planned, definitely cancelled.
Among the various rumors regarding what the story DLC would have looked like had it been spared the headman’s axe, one of the most prevalent theories indicated a zombie scenario similar to the one we saw in Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare.
Early on after the game was launched, data miners already discovered a number of references in the code regarding Zombies. Files, code snippets, directories all indicated that the undead would have some kind of presence in the game.
While there have yet to be any zombie-related discoveries or any new GTA Online update which brought zombies to the game, it is possible that future content for the multiplayer mode will revive this scrapped idea in some form, as certain other Online DLCs have scavenged such ideas before.
In true zombie fashion, this dead piece of news reared its decomposing head again during 2018 when the data mined from the game files made the rounds online once more, even though no new info was discovered.
