Highlights
- Gaming can be an expensive hobby, with DLC and microtransactions costing players several times more than the original game.
- Some games have an excessive amount of DLC, leading to high prices. Cities: Skylines, War Thunder, The Sims 4, and DCS World are examples of games with pricey DLC.
- Train Simulator Classic is the most expensive game, with the complete experience costing around $11,291 due to the sheer volume of DLC.
Gaming is a hobby that can be either very affordable or very expensive, depending on the person and the games they play. Patient gamers can get a lot for a little by waiting for sales and other promotions. On the other hand, DLC and microtransactions can end up costing the player several times as much as the original game. Downloadable content can be a big problem for players who want to get into a game a few years down the line. Three or four add-ons is one thing, but there are games where players might spend hundreds of dollars on DLC alone.
Even excluding loot boxes, microtransactions, premium currencies, and Dead or Alive 6’s excessive number of skins leaves a few truly staggering DLC prices. Many gamers point to Destiny 2 as a game with a large number of DLCs, but cutting out duplicate items brings it down to “only” 379.91. While that’s still more than six times the standard price for AAA games at launch, it is small potatoes compared to some games on the market. A few titles have so much additional content that players coming to them in 2023 might end up with a five-digit price tag.
5 Cities: Skylines on PC ($425)
The title of the fifth most expensive game in 2023 goes to Colossal Order Ltd. and Paradox Interactive’s Cities: Skylines. Launched in 2015, the city-building game took advantage of the failure of 2013’s SimCity to take the genre by storm. The base game is only $29.99 on Steam and $39.99 on consoles. However, the PC version’s 62 DLC brings the total up to exactly $425.40. The Xbox and PlayStation versions will most likely catch up in a few years once developers finish porting all the DLC to consoles.
Individually, most Cities: Skylines DLC are relatively inexpensive. Three of them are free, and the additional in-game radio stations are only $3.99 each. The game’s numerous $4.99 DLC each gives players tens of new buildings and decorations based around a specific theme, ranging from Art Deco to Japanese train stations. Most of the other buildings and map DLC are in the $5.99 to $7.99 range. The more expensive $12.99 and $14.99 DLC typically introduce new features alongside more buildings. The high price is simply due to the sheer volume of additional content. At least the upcoming Cities Skylines 2 gives gamers an opportunity to get in on its ground floor.
4 War Thunder ($918)
Gaijin Entertainment released War Thunder in November 2012, and the vehicle combat game still enjoys an active community over a decade later. The game features a wide range of vehicles, including planes, tanks, ships, helicopters, and more. These come from all over the world and include weapons from World War II, through the Cold War, and into the modern day. However, 11 years leave a lot of time for DLC, and players wanting a full vehicle roster must shell out a substantial $917.73.
War Thunder’s DLC is almost the opposite of Cities: Skylines. It has less than half as many, but many of War Thunder’s DLCs are pretty expensive. The priciest items as of October 2023 are the USS Arkansas Pack, Su-39 Pack, F-4S Phantom II Pack, MiG-21bis “Lazur-M” Pack, and MiG-23ML Pack. Each includes the titular vehicle, a 20-day premium account, and a significant amount of premium currency. The latter two factors may be why they cost War Thunder players a substantial $69.99.
There is also a line of $64.99 packs and two $49.99 packs with similar offerings. Most of the remaining DLCs add two to four WW2-era vehicles for a specific country and cost $9.99 or less.
3 The Sims 4 ($1,164)
Launched in 2014, The Sims 4 is the most recent installment of EA and Maxis’ series of social simulation games, at least until Project Rene comes out. The base game moved to a free-to-play model in 2017, with its subsequent profits coming from DLC. The social simulation game remains popular almost a decade later, with over 70 million players, according to EA. However, new players will need to drop a lot of cash to get the complete experience, with its 73 DLC costing a combined $1,164.28.
The Sims 4 DLCs come in three categories divided by size and price. The 15 full-sized Expansion Packs are $39.99 each. Their contents include new neighborhoods and houses and a range of new features such as pets, clubs, expanded Sim interactions, and more. The smaller Game Packs are $19.99 each and add content focusing on a specific theme. The several $9.99 Stuff Packs add themed Furniture and Lots, while the numerous $4.99 Kits add a few additional Clothes, Furniture, and Rooms each.
2 DCS World ($3,400)
Technically, the title of 2023’s second most expensive game to get into should go to Rocksmith 2014 Edition – Remastered, knocking DCS World back to third. A guitar-teaching game that has players connect a real electric guitar to their PC or console; it features about $6,787 worth of additional songs available as DLC. However, Ubisoft plans to delist Rocksmith 2014 on October 23 due to expiring music licenses, so the window to “get into it” is closing fast.
Meanwhile, DCS World doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Digital Combat Simulator is a line of realistic combat flight simulators developed by Eagle Dynamics in partnership with vintage military aircraft operator The Fighter Collection. The US, Ukrainian, and French air forces either do or have used versions of DCS for training purposes. However, its realism has led to some people using DCS World to fake combat footage.
DCS World is a modular version that is available to the public as a free-to-play game. The base version comes with the WW2 American P-51 Mustang and the Cold War-era Soviet Su-25 “Frogfoot.” However, players can download additional planes, maps, and missions through paid DLC. There are 199 in all as of October 2023, and a full hanger will cost players exactly $3,400.73.
What makes DCS World a true simulator rather than a game is the extent to which developers went to re-create the unique performance and flight characteristics of each plane. Its modular nature also allows Eagle Dynamics to partner with other simulation developers, who add their own contributions to the game. This may also explain why its DLCs are so widely varied in price. With a few exceptions, most Campaign DLCs are in the $10 to $15 range, with Maps costing between $40 and $55. Meanwhile, new planes run from $15 up to $80.
1 Train Simulator Classic ($11,291)
Dovetail Games, who also develop Train Sim World, launched Train Simulator in 2009, getting a new title every time developers roll out a sufficiently major update. The current version, Train Simulator Classic, launched in April 2022. However, the last 13 years of DLC haven’t gone anywhere, with the Steam-exclusive game featuring 720 pieces of DLC as of October 2023. The whole package runs around $11,291, although the Classic version comes bundled with several DLCs that are also sold separately. Different items also go on sale at different times, so the price can fluctuate significantly. Still, $11,000 is a truly staggering amount of money.
Train Simulator Classic’s most expensive DLCs are the ones adding new routes. These range in price from $19.99 up to $42.99, though most are somewhere in between. The more expensive routes also add new trains. Locomotive-only DLC usually goes for $19.99, though some have a regular price of under $10. Finally, each Scenario Pack recreates a specific real-world train line during a particular time period and usually sells for $9.99. Still, even with reasonable-seeming prices, the sheer volume of DLC means the complete Train Simulator Classic experience can cost as much as a used car.