DLC, short for downloadable content, is additional content for a released game distributed by download, such as new missions, maps, characters, or items. It requires the base game and ranges from free updates to priced packs.
Downloadable additions existed on PC in the 1990s, but consoles set the modern pattern. The Dreamcast offered small downloads limited by its dial up connection and memory cards. The original Xbox, through Xbox Live, delivered content for games such as Halo 2 and Splinter Cell at larger scale, and the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 generations made paid DLC a standard part of a release plan through their online stores.
Scale is the dividing line between DLC and an expansion. DLC is normally sold and consumed in pieces: a map pack, a character, a story episode, a set of missions. Players can buy only the pieces they want, and developers can release them steadily after launch to keep a game active. Large story additions blur the line, and publishers label them by marketing choice as often as by size.
Players judge DLC by a simple test: does it add play they value at a fair share of the base game price. New areas and missions usually pass. Content that appears to have been removed from the base game to be sold back usually fails it, loudly.
In play"The story DLC adds a new island and about five hours of missions to the base game."