The Problems with Piecemeal DLC

Because I have nothing else going on and all the free time in the world, I decided in late 2025 to try another mega mod change for a game, Phoenix Point's Terror From the Void fan mod. The mod was intended to combine all the DLC released into one coherent game. Looking at the DLC on Steam, the reviews range from good to bad to horrible. When it comes to DLC or expansions for games, developers have tried different methods for how they fit, and you need to be sure of what you're adding to your game.

The Kinds of Content

We live in a world where DLC (which generally takes the form of additional support and content for games) is expected by many consumers. If you love a game, getting more game is a win-win. However, developers have different ways of creating new content and dealing with the expectations that come with it.

On the smallest side, there are simple cosmetics or flavor items – new songs, portrait art, taunts, costumes, etc. This content remains evergreen for years to come, provided people are interested in expanding the look of a game.

The next step up, what Phoenix Point and other games have done, is create self-contained "chunks" of content. This isn't about adding 100 more hours to a game, but adding a very specific, focused amount of content for those who decide to buy it. This can be seen with a pack of new guns, a different kind of vehicle, weird weapons, and more. This adds more "stuff" to your game, but it's not directly changing the overall game or adding new gameplay. This kind of content typically gets slotted into the main game and can activate at the start or at specific points during the game. And if content does change the game, it is often placed behind a toggle for players to decide whether they want to use it.

Then there are expansions where the sky is the limit as to what can be included. XCOM 2's War of the Chosen, for example, was almost like getting XCOM 2.5, or as if the developers were originally putting these systems together for a sequel.

Selling DLCs piecemeal has been the go-to strategy for Paradox Interactive for years. Each of their bestsellers has dozens of DLC ranging from small to large, to the point that it can be overwhelming for a new player to decide what/if to buy. What Paradox does with their larger DLCs is that each one effectively is a new system or gameplay mechanic that adds more complexity to an already complex game. Now, this in and of itself is not a bad strategy. Putting more complicated elements behind DLC means that for people who want that stuff, it's available to purchase, but it's not a part of the base game for new players.

Looking at the DLC from Phoenix Point, they went with this model for their larger ones. However, the reason why Terror From the Void works better where the base game didn't is what all this means for the overarching game balance.

Piling on Problems

Downloadable content is meant to grow a game, but when you are releasing something optional, how does it work when it's all together?

When I talk about game balance, your base game (or version 1.0) is the baseline experience from which everything else stems. As you add more content to your game, how it is integrated affects the experience in large and small ways. For story/expansion DLC, the content may activate after a specific point in the game.

As I've discussed before, 'more for the sake of more' doesn't make a game better. If you create five DLC packs that balloon out the early game with more quests and things to do, it could slow the game down, make the player overpowered by the time they get to the middle, or make things harder for players where you don't want them to feel stuck. In the original Darkest Dungeon, the Crimson Court DLC introduced hard enemies early on and a new disease to make the early game even tougher; it was not recommended for first-time players.

I see this from a lot of developers when deciding to add more content through DLC – it's aimed specifically at spicing things up for veterans of the game. And to be fair, that's often a correct move; looking at Steam store pages, it's rare for a game's DLC to come anywhere near the sales achieved by the base game. The reason is that if someone didn't like your game at launch, they're not going to spend more money to make it better.

The more pressing issue is how DLC affects other content additions. Let's say DLC 4 introduces a new enemy type that is only weak to weapons and tactics introduced in DLC 2; what happens if someone only buys DLC 4 and doesn't have access to that weapon from DLC 2? You cannot assume that people will buy every DLC in order, unless you are explicitly bundling them with the base game as part of the "Complete Edition". It's this problem that leads developers to focus on DLC, making each one stand alone from the others, only requiring the base game to access all features.

But that leads to its own unique problem; When DLCs are separate from one another, it can make them feel segmented – instead of playing one complete game, you're playing 3 or more variations of the same. With XCOM 2, it's widely agreed that the mini DLCs were not as popular as the War of the Chosen expansion, which integrates a lot of different systems and new content into the game.

In multiplayer games, it is viewed as poor form to prevent players from playing maps if they join a game but haven't bought the DLC. And if you do introduce a new system or mechanic with DLC that becomes the norm, then it should have a free version available to everyone.

What's the (Phoenix) Point?

Let's quickly go over the different DLCs for Phoenix Point, starting with Living Weapons. This is a simple set that adds just a few different weapons and a new armor set. Blood and Titanium allows players to add cybernetic upgrades to characters and is similar to the upgrades introduced in XCOM's Enemy Unknown expansion. Legacy of the Ancients adds new enemies and a campaign structure meant to increase the game's difficulty.

Festering Skies is the most polarizing one and goes with the complaints about piecemeal DLC. After a few weeks of in-game time, the behemoth shows up to begin attacking havens, and the only way to deal with it is to build an air force and get into specific air-based combat with its ships. The issue players have is that it adds a difficulty and resource spike in a game at a point where, if you're not already prepared for it, you're in for a lot of trouble. The new air combat slows down the game and requires that you dedicate further resources to it.

Corrupted Horizons is the last campaign DLC, adding new enemies, mutated characters, and more, but it doesn't have good reviews due to the difficulty spikes it brings. Finally, Kaos Engines focuses on new vehicles, weapons, and a few new missions.

The consensus from the reviews is that the DLCs either make the game harder or more grindy, or add stuff that varies from just meh to game-breaking. That last point also brings up another tough point about DLC – you don't want to introduce something that feels "required" to play the game. This is different from an amazing expansion, where the full game is legitimately better with all the content vs. the base.

With that, let's talk about Terror From the Void and how it's being looked at more favorably compared to all the DLC that is required to play it.

The Sum of its Void

Phoenix Point's Terror From the Void mod is not a full conversion mod like Xpiratez, but an attempt to rebuild the entire game around the mod. It requires that you own all previously released DLCs, which, by itself, may be too much of an ask for new players. What it does is provide a complete rebalancing and recontextualizing of the entire game, with all the DLC integrated from the beginning, plus new classes, weapon balancing, GUI and UI improvements, and more that can show up.

Again, by requiring all DLC to be purchased to run it, the modding team knows full well that everyone playing it will have the same content available. This provides a more structured environment to fit all the DLC and make sure that it's balanced within the scope of the campaign.

This creates an interesting discussion on difficulty. The new DLC, especially the flying-based one, does make the game harder, but adjusting for its difficulty means that the other content can be made to counter it more easily and better integrate everything into the campaign as a whole.

While Terror From the Void does feel like the definitive way to play Phoenix Point, it doesn't quite fix the game's inherent issues and pain points. The GUI can feel like a mess in places until you begin to understand how everything works. The geoscape layer is still very daunting for new players: you'll soon have dozens of icons on the map, multiple missions and haven defenses, and a giant alien ship that goes around attacking everyone. Like the original X-COMs, once you start falling behind and begin to lose, it is often the death knell for your entire campaign.

Rising From the Ashes

The mod is a huge improvement over the base game, to the point that the developers have updated Phoenix Point with GUI and balancing improvements straight from the mod. If you've been hesitant about trying the game and have the money to buy all the DLC, I would highly recommend you give it a spin. However, if Firaxis's take on XCOM was too daunting for you to learn, this is a step up in difficulty and complexity from that.