Which game series has the best expansions?

[Lauren Morton]

Hey PC Gamers, welcome back to the Chat Log! This week Mollie and I dragged Wes Fenlon out of The Lands Between to talk about playing the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion for Elden Ring and also lots of other game expansions. He recently pooled some minds on the team to remind us that "expansions are the best," actually. We talked about what makes for a great expansion and there's all sorts of things that developers can really make shine in that format: improved level design, curated stories, and new mechanics. I'll pose all of you the same question that I asked the two of them:

Which game series has the best expansions?​

Mollie speaks highly of the Monster Hunter World Iceborne expansion while Wes has fond memories of the all time great XCOM 2 expansion War of the Chosen. Someone back me up here, isn't there kind of a lot of love for Fallout series expansions? I mean I know they aren't all on the level of the Oblivion Shivering Isles expansion (as we talked about) but I feel like Fallout 3 and New Vegas expansion DLCs are pretty well-regarded! Anyhow, is there a series you think just always nails an expansion pack?

 

[Brian Boru]

Which game series has the best expansions?

Civilization
Civilization series are always good:
Civ4 Warlords and Beyond the Sword;
Civ5 Gods & Kings and Brave New World;
Civ6 Rise & Fall and Gathering Storm.
Without exception, these have all gathered review aggregates of 80%+. Plenty of system and mechanic additions and changes plus lots of new content. BNW maybe best of the lot, changed its base game more than BtS.

Command and Conquer
Command and Conquer series had some great expansions too. Without going thru all ~10 of them, the highlights for me are:
#1 Generals: Zero Hour—its 'Generals Challenge' mode is why I rate this my fav of all C&C games, even ahead of the revered…
#2 Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge;
#3 C&C2 Tiberian Sun: Firestorm.

Far Cry
Mixed bag, some great, some duds—the best:
FC5 New Dawn;
FC4 Primal;
FC4 Valley of the Yetis;
FC3 Blood Dragon has a cult status, but not for me.

Others
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance expansion.
Crysis: Warhead expansion was a bit better than the excellent original.
Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots—has to be in contention for best expansion ever.
Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency.

 

[Zloth]

Oblivion's Shivering Island was really good. That opening butterfly room....

Sometimes expansions are a lot more like the game growing to me. The company wants to keep adding more to the game, but they've got to find a way to pay for it, so they stick in something new as well and make DLC out of it. (Or they charge a subscription fee.) Civilization's expansions seem more like paying for the growing to me.

Then you've got No Man's Sky, which is also growing, but somehow doesn't need to charge for it.

 

[Colif]

wow feels like it deserves to be on list except instead of releasing multiple games, they just expanded the same game so many times it eclipses the length of many series. I don't play it any more and didn't long enough to say which expansions were the best... but some changed entire game world.

most of the games I follow/played don't survive past 3 games before going bad.

• Diablo used to have good expansions
• Sacred series only had two but they added areas and classes and items to games.

 

[steeleman21]

It will make me seem like a CDPR fanboy, but the first ones to come to mind are Witcher 3's Blood and Wine expansion and Cyberpunk's Phantom Liberty expansion - they are both stellar examples of huge content additions with expansive new areas with a fully-fledged story and new characters.

It's been a while since I've touched either of them, but I recall GTA IV's expansions (The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony) being a lot of fun and offering something different from the base game.

EDIT: I completely forgot, Doom Eternal's The Ancient Gods Pts. 1 and 2 are great too.