"It was supposed to feature a zombie apocalypse" - Grand Theft Auto Online data miners talk about the canceled plans for story DLC
Plans lost to the success of GTA Online
It's probably one of the most disappointing buildups in Grand Theft Auto history. After years of waiting for single player expansions similar to The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and the Damned expansions for Grand Theft Auto 4, Rockstar finally confirmed that no story DLC would be coming to GTA 5 in 2017.
However, a Eurogamer feature exploring the origins of the recently opened Diamond Casino & Resort went into detail about what single player expansions Rockstar had planned for Grand Theft Auto 5. Dataminers looked back on their discoveries and speculated on what those additional stories would have looked like.
"What Rockstar was planning to do with the single-player DLC can be compared to adding a whole new map expansion," said data miner Tez2. "They had plans to redesign 80 or 90 percent of the map to fit a specific theme - one of the episodes was supposed to feature a zombie apocalypse. Rockstar would make changes to the whole map to fit the zombie apocalypse theme."
Similar to Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare expansion, GTA 5 would have seen a huge makeover for a zombie apocalypse like single player event. There were also plans for an Ocean 11-like Casino heist around the long awaited Casino in an unused corner of Los Santos. Unfortunately, these updates never saw the light of day due to the major success of Grand Theft Auto Online.
"The casino was supposed to come to GTA5 as single-player DLC as well as to GTA Online," another data miner Yan2295 said. "But as many already know, the single-player DLCs got cancelled thanks to the success of GTA Online."
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Aron Garst is a journalist and writer exploring the future of games and interactivity. Follow him on X at @GarstProduction.