As Xbox ends the year with more than a few expansions under its belt, Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer is warm on expansions but doesn’t want them to feel “manipulative.”
Speaking with reporter Stephen Totilo for GameFile (as our friends at PC Gamer spotted), Spencer stresses that there’s no “top-down mandate” for expansions to Xbox games, noting later in the interview that “not every [Microsoft] game will do expansions.” Instead, he says “it’s really left to the creators what plan they have for their stories. I think it’s a great way for us to re-engage players who may be lapsed.”
Matching Totilo’s comments on 2024 closers like Starfield: Shattered Space and Diablo 4 DLC Vessel of Hatred, Spencer notes that the former added a bespoke setting and story while the latter introduced a (famously overpowered) new class. Significant additions like these, it seems, help make an expansion, well, expansive in Spencer’s view.
“I don’t like expansions that are manipulative,” he says. “I want it to have a unique point of view. I don’t want it to be, like, the third level that you cut before you launched.”
Spencer points to Shattered Space and conversations he had with Bethesda boss Todd Howard, who apparently wondered if the team “should have waited to put buggies out” given the common criticism that Shattered Space didn’t have enough new features. Instead, buggies dropped just before the expansion in a free update. Maybe saving everything for one big go would better excite players, Spencer seems to ponder.
“We’re always learning,” Spencer says. “Todd and I were talking about Shattered Space. Starfield is a game I put a ton of hours into and really love, but they’ve had this thing where they’ve added features throughout the year and then they had an expansion.