Release Date: 30/04/2013
Played On: Win
Available On: PS3 / Win / XB360
Time Played: 7h 18m
Progress: 100% Complete
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal / Ubisoft Shanghai
Publisher: Ubisoft
Before we had DLC and digitally distributed patches, there was a wonderful thing called an "expansion pack". These were like dreams come true after you'd sunk countless hours into that game you'd saved up for and gingerly cracked the box to get inside. Loading up an expansion felt like finding a treasure trove of extra gameplay that had somehow always been there, just hidden away and waiting for permission to exist and entertain.
Sadly for some of us, the expansion pack has all but disappeared in the era of digital distribution. After all, why bother shipping a whole new game as an expansion when you can just make a download available for a reasonable price?!
It's unfortunate because the quality of DLC runs the full gamut available. For example, The Sims showed us they can make some graphical assets like chairs and tables, and sell them for forty bucks a pop. On one hand, DLC is only as successful as consumers allow it to be, like microtransactions. However we have seen some instances of publishers removing content from finished games, only to sell it back to the players later as DLC.
Let's not be too cynical though, as the upside to digital distribution is that we can pay a smaller amount of money for some additional content in our favourite games. There are even some generous developers and publishers out there who are willing to make more content and distribute it as a free update to the base game. In its best form, DLC has become a way to prolong the life of a game, as it's now rare that finishing a game's campaign is the end of the story.
For a while it seemed like every game on the release calendar had DLC planned for its post release schedule. There are even some gamers now who expect that there will be DLC available to buy; some even get mad if there isn't (no source for that claim, but I remember reading a few forum threads along this line). Soon we saw the existence of the "season pass", which from a publisher's perspective is a fantastic invention. Essentially we consumers get the privilege of paying for future DLC, before it's even been made! Often before the base game has even been released.
It's easy to see why companies want to pre-sell everything, rather than invest time and money making something before knowing if it will sell. However, pre-paying for things is a terrible deal for consumers in almost every circumstance. Pre-order culture is a discussion for another time, but I would recommend only ever pre-ordering something if you either get a significant benefit for doing so, or you are one hundred percent certain that you will be buying it the moment it releases anyway.
I used to pre-order CDs from music stores, because it meant that I would have it in my hands a few days before release, and it cost the same amount of money. It was a good deal because I got a benefit out of it (guaranteed a copy, and early access), and the store could guarantee that I would buy a copy.
Anyway, the point is that there are ups and downs with DLC and digital distribution that are both positive and negative. In fact, by the time Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon came out, we were in the middle of a bad patch for DLC quality.
There had been a few big titles with low-quality DLC rip-offs that were publicly covered in games media, so everyone was a little sceptical about the whole thing. Far Cry 3 was a bit of a polarising game as well, even though it managed to acquire good reviews and sold well. I remember reading all about how Far Cry 3 wasn't in the same league as its predecessors, while also reading elsewhere that it was a vast improvement on the mess of Far Cry 2.
One thing I have to note is that I loved Far Cry 2 and it remains my favourite in the series to this day, so I didn't know what they were talking about when articles mentioned it as a low point in the series.
Regardless of anything else, Far Cry 3 was a big deal, and the formula was carried into Far Cry 4 with success. It even looks like Far Cry 5 is shaping up to be the same template, but in a different setting. Clearly the publishers and developers decided that they were onto a good thing and have run with it ever since.
However, soon after Far Cry 3 made its splash, Ubisoft announced that it would be releasing a stand-alone bit of DLC called Blood Dragon. It was only thirty bucks, and you didn't even need a copy of Far Cry 3 to play it, even though it clearly used all the existing assets and engine as the base game, Blood Dragon told a different story with a different take on the open-world base invasion genre.
Blood Dragon is a parody of 1980s sci-fi action films with over the top patriotism and ridiculous robotics and technology, all draped in the neon synth landscape. The pistol is straight out of RoboCop and the player character has cyborg ninja abilities that ensure he's be comfortable in any number of Schwarzenegger action movies.
I didn't end up playing Blood Dragon for a long time after its release, but I always heard the hype that never ceased to be present around it. It soon became heralded as the "right" way to do DLC and that it was a welcomed expansion on the original game because it took risks and was a wacky idea. It didn't play it safe like the base game, which seemed to resonate with people well. So much so that we've now seen similar small expansions tacked onto some other big budget games.
Eventually though, I got around to playing it for myself and seeing what all the fuss was about. Turns out that the press was true and Blood Dragon is indeed a small neon soaked parody version of the original game, but aside from a few over the top set-piece moments, I felt the overall experience was hollow and unfulfilling.
You know how open world games often suffer from the problem of having a huge map without a lot of things to actually do in it? Or how big maps in Skyrim or Far Cry show little evidence of it being a "living" world where things change. After a short time it always becomes clear that you're playing a video game with limitations and a pale emulation of a large world. Now take that experience and distil it to a shorter campaign on a smaller map, and you have Blood Dragon.
The few cut scenes are funny as they're showing you just how over the top the game can be and letting you know that they're not taking things seriously at all. Like in Far Cry 3, the story is simple, but interesting enough to motivate you forward and through the campaign missions. However, as with Far Cry 3, Blood Dragon soon has you chasing after secondary objectives like taking over enemy outposts and collecting random things around the map. It doesn't take long for the game to become a treadmill of going from one base to another, taking out enemies and wildlife as you go and checking the map every now and then for collectibles.
What else do you want for a thirty dollar game that's kind of a side project of the original anyway? Not a lot right? Except after playing for a few hours, all I wanted was to mainline the story quests, and get it over and done with. At the same time, the story quests are minimal and it's easy to blast through them in no time at all, so if you want to feel like you've got your money's worth, it's back to exploring the map.
In the base game things were much the same, but the campaign was much larger and the side quests felt somewhat worthwhile as they helped you upgrade everything and get ready for the final fight. The problem I had with Blood Dragon is that there's never enough of anything to make any part of it feel worthwhile or necessary. It might not want to be a complete game, but ends up being a shallow reskin of Far Cry 3, with all its content taken out.
I guess if the humour really gels with you then it could be a wild ride for the entire journey, but everything got old for me really fast. In the end I would have much preferred it if Blood Dragon were a linear sci-fi romp without all the open world tropes carried over from Far Cry 3. Everything other than invading bases and exploring the world was interesting enough to do, but that doesn't leave much from an open world game. However, I still think the them e would have been served better as a linear shooter like Wolfenstein: The New Order.
Eventually though, you do get to ride a mechanical fire breathing dragon in Blood Dragon, so all is not lost in the end. Just make sure you don't burn out on the mundane box-ticking of open world grocery lists, and focus on the fun stuff instead.
I love how Blood Dragon became a template for developers and publishers to know that smaller, riskier games can be successful. We're seeing more and more examples of DLC being released as if it were an old school expansion, which is a trend I hope to see continue. I just hope there's a bit more focus on the quality, instead of an arbitrary quantity.