From unnecessary skin packs to outrageous faux-gambling minigames and underwhelming season passes, it's safe to say that most gamers are often wary of DLC content offerings. While there have absolutely been more than a few worthwhile pieces of DLC released in the past, that seems to be an exception rather than the rule.
For most major developers and publishers, sixty dollars just isn't enough, and with day-one DLC, season pass pre-orders, and exclusive cosmetics threatening to tear a hole in our wallets, gaming can quickly turn into an overly-expensive hobby. In light of this phenomenon, here are 10 of the most outrageously expensive DLCs of all time.
Updated on July 30, 2022, by Ritwik Mitra: There was a time when DLC content used to be quite substantial indeed, with players enjoying hours of content when they paid money for a game they'd already purchased. However, over time, the lines between meaningful content and cosmetic upgrades have been blurred quite a bit, to the point where developers cram a ton of paid DLC into their games with the hopes of making a quick buck instead of respecting the player's time and money.
The following games are notorious for going completely bonkers when it came to adding post-launch paid DLC to their games. The sheer amount of funds that players require to get all the content they want for the games on this list is simply staggering, and shows just how crazy people are that they would even think about spending such a massive amount on these games in the first place!
15 Evolve ($136+)
While DLC collections for certain games cost thousands of dollars in 2020, five years ago, 2K and Turtle Rock's Evolve caused quite a stir when it launched with approximately $136 worth of day-one DLC—and that wasn't counting the numerous season passes the game later received which likely pushed the total cost beyond the $200 mark.
In many ways, Evolve was the canary in the coal mine for monetization strategies of this nature, and it proved that games didn't like to be so overtly nickeled and dimed. Loot boxes have since become the go-to methodology, and Evolve has, at this point, long been forgotten.
14 Closers ($314)
Closers, also known as Closers Online, is a South Korean free-to-play anime MMORPG that seems to have attracted a not-insignificant following since its Western release. A 2D episodic brawler often compared to games like Dungeon Fighters Online, Closers definitely seems to be well-established in its niche.
That said, free-to-play games are often noted for their lack of restraint when it comes to paid DLC, and this release is no exception. The total cost of all optional content currently sits at $314, and nearly half of that comes from the exorbitant $150 platinum skin pack. The game may have its fans, but a single DLC in excess of $100 is tough to defend.
13 LittleBigPlanet 3 ($470)
The last of Media Molecule's imaginative build-your-own-platformer trilogy of LittleBigPlanet titles, LBP 3 went down as a bit of a wash, as a rocky launch and a shift between PlayStation consoles caused the game to sell poorly.
That said, Sony certainly didn't shy away from monetizing their cutesy sock puppet sim to hell and back. With packs upon packs of skins and cosmetic items—not to mention the dozens of miscellaneous microtransactions—available for the game, players found all the extra content to be overwhelming and hard to sift through. The developer may have since rebounded with the recent release of Dreams, but LBP 3 will forever be remembered as a bit of a downer.
12 Eve Online ($500)
Eve Online is a free-to-play space MMO with an obsessive—albeit niche—fanbase which tends to treat their in-game lives as seriously as they do their real ones. Naturally, that means some players are willing to sink thousands of dollars into their accounts, and that's where we have to draw the line.
Sure, gamers are free to spend their money as they see fit, but $500 for a pack of 15400 plex—essentially a type of in-game currency—seems excessive. There's a lot that can be done with Eve Online's Plex, but a single in-game purchase of half a grand is taking things a little too far.
11 The Sims 4 ($870+)
When The Sims 4 initially debuted all the way back in 2014, fans of the classic life simulation title were disappointed to see many features carved out of the base game. Given EA's track record, it should come as no surprise that the publisher then sold countless pieces of ancillary content at a premium to expand upon the barebones release.
With all the "stuff, " "game," and "expansion" packs for the game, the total value of the package rises up to $870, which is higher that any other Sims game before it. The Sims 4 is bound to see even more DLC releases further down the line, so the total asking price could be much higher now.
10 GTA Online: Diamond Casino & Resort Update ($800)
Grand Theft Auto 5 may be one of the most successful video games of all time, but most agree that, when it comes to the game's online components, Rockstar has gone a little overboard. Though they've dolled out tons of free updates over the years, each release seemed to require more time and money—both real and in-game—from the player.
Last year's Diamond Casino update, in particular, had some players up in arms. It was calculated that earning everything available through the update would cost around $63 million in-game, translating to about $800 in real-world cash. While gamers could potentially grind for everything, this was a pretty obvious cash-grab.
What's more, this update is far from the only heavily-monetized installment in Grand Theft Auto 5. In fact, there's so much add-on content in the game that calculating how much it would take to earn it all is almost impossible, though we'd wager that it would take thousands—if not tens of thousands—to buy everything. Obviously, purchasing in-game currency is never explicitly required, but, with Rockstar's shark card store page looking more like the cheap storefront of a lackluster mobile game than that of a top-tier AAA franchise, justifying all this is increasingly difficult, even for hardcore fans.
9 Dead Or Alive 6 ($2,051)
With most Triple-A publishers seemingly trying to one-up each other when it comes to ridiculous add-on content prices and offerings, Koei Tecmo's Dead Or Alive 6 may well have taken the cake. Fighting game fans should be more or less accustomed to being nickel-and-dimed these days, but DOA 6 took things way too far when it was released in March of 2019.
With four season passes, all of which cost more than the $60 base game, and an outright ridiculous amount of side content beyond that, DOA 6 players could potentially pay in excess of $2,000 for everything, and we'd hate to know if someone actually did.
8 DCS World ($2,575)
Essentially the ARMA 3 of flight sims, DCS world takes airborne combat to an almost overly-precise extreme. From mapping flight plans to having players go through just about every pre-flight check imaginable, DCS World definitely isn't for casual players. That said, it's certainly appealing to a niche audience, and we aren't here to begrudge their slightly-outrageous hobbies.
However, what is genuinely outrageous is the amount of DLC content available for the game. Though the title itself may be free, there's over $2,500 available in the form of add-on content, with most of it consisting of new vehicles to pilot. It wouldn't be fair to call this predatory, but it's fair to say that the developers have gone just a bit overboard.
7 Rocksmith 2014 Remastered Edition ($6,757)
Essentially the final evolution of the Guitar Hero formula, Ubisoft's Rocksmith 2014 Remastered Edition functioned as both a game and a guitar teaching tool, as players strummed along to songs while following on-screen prompts which could be translated to a real six-string. It was innovative, but it suffered from a major flaw.
The game was broken down into massive heaps of DLC, with song after song locked away behind a paywall. With most costing two or three dollars a pop, Rocksmith began to feel like less of a virtual guitar tutor and more of a nexus for microtransactions.
6 Train Simulator 2020 ($10,373)
If there's one game synonymous with microtransactions and out-of-control monetization schemes, it's, well, it's just about anything done by EA in the past decade, actually. It's also Dovetail Games' Train Simulator 2020. A title that actually saw its first incarnation release in 2009, the DLC add-ons associated with this game are almost legendary.
With hundreds upon hundreds of extra cosmetics, trains, and landscape packs, among a plethora of other offerings, Train Simulator 2020's DLC adds up to a whopping total cost of $10,373. With prices like that, train enthusiasts may as well clear out their basement and set up an elaborate miniature train display.
5 Path Of Exile ($12,500)
Most people don't really complain about the vast amount of paid content present in Path of Exile. After all, this game is a free-to-play hack-and-slash that was released around the same time as the disastrous launch of Diablo 3. As a result, players who felt wronged by Blizzard's antics found a home in Path of Exile, which felt like a much better game without any of the annoying caveats that were present in Diablo 3 around its launch.
There are several microtransactions that players can opt for in the game if they wish. However, the most egregious purchase that Path of Exile allows players to complete is the Ruler Of Wraeclast pack, which costs a whopping $12,500. The most notable parts of this purchase are a mention in the game's credits and a special title as well, but surely all of this is not worth five figures!
4 Star Citizen ($27,000)
Often lauded as one of the most ambitious video game projects of all time, Cloud Imperium's Star Citizen is meant to be a sprawling universe sim boasting nearly limitless potential. However, its current build is more similar to the infamous launch of No Man's Sky, as it has lingered in an unpolished, unfinished state, and some players are starting to question if it'll ever be amended.
The developer also seems all too eager to take players' money, charging an astronomical—pun intended—$27,000 for their Legatus pack. Sure, it may come with a nice assortment of fancy ships, but some gamers would have to take out a loan to buy this thing.
3 Curiosity: What's Inside The Cube? ($60,000+)
Peter Molyneux is infamous among gamers for overpromising and underdelivering; while he's been involved with some fantastic projects such as Fable and the original Syndicate, he's also been a part of some notorious failures.
One of the most extreme was perhaps 2012's Curiosity: What's Inside The Cube. A social experiment that saw iOS and Android players tapping away at a cube to reveal an allegedly-fabulous prize, the title seems to have been a money-making scheme to help fund Molyneux's Godus. Rather than tapping away one pixel at a time, players could spend real-world funds to purchase digital chisels that would hack away hundreds or thousands of bits with one tap.
The most expensive chisel cost fifty-thousand GBP, though there's no evidence that anyone actually bought it. What's more, the eventual winner of the game allegedly never earned any sort of prize. Thanks, Peter.
2 Entropia Universe ($6,000,000)
For a game that came out all the way back in 2003, it's rather interesting to see how the developers of Entropia Universe used the concept of microtransactions to release a virtual currency of their own. Project Entropia Dollars (PED) had a fixed exchange rate of 10:1 when compared to the US Dollar and could be bought and withdrawn at any time.
This basically led to the game featuring a bunch of assets that could be bought for players to use in-game. The total value of all the items that could be bought in the game came at around $6 million, which is simply insane! The largest transaction that happened in the game was in 2010, with a deal that was valued at around $635,000. The fact that such ginormous numbers were being traded around in a video game is still hard to believe!
1 Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War (Incalculable)
The follow-up to the soft reboot of the Modern Warfare subseries, Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is Treyarch's attempt at rebranding the now decade-old Black Ops chronology. Though a relatively robust offering that features a full-length campaign—something that isn't always a guarantee in Call of Duty these days—a deep and engaging multiplayer mode, and a fan-favorite zombies horde mode, the game is overly-eager to hock bundles and battle pass content to players.
It's not quite as egregious as some of the loot box fiascos we've seen in previous years, but purchasing all of the game's bundles — most of which offer little more than simple weapon cosmetics — can be extremely costly, and it's very much possible that some big spenders have sunk several hundred dollars into the title already.