What we know about GTA IV DLC

With GTA IV available today, Microsoft is continuing its campaign to remind people that Xbox 360 offers unlockable Achievements and will have downloadable content later this year.

The platform holder's PR chorus has hit crescendo in recent weeks, reminding journalists about Achievements and DLC, and continued its assault this morning, targeting critics likely to be asked to appear on mainstream radio and TV broadcasts discussing the game's launch.

The DLC is "absolutely exclusive" to Xbox 360, a spokesperson reiterated. As you can see from the ads Microsoft's bought up all over the Internet, it's due out in the autumn.

But what do we actually know about it? In concrete terms, not a lot. "Exclusive episodic content" has been mentioned ever since the original DLC announcement at E3 in May 2006, with Xbox.com subsequently describing "two distinct episodes, both downloadable from Xbox Live and each a minimum of 10 hours long".

Elsewhere, A recent CVG Special magazine speculated that Rockstar was aiming to have entire "cities" as DLC, but in an interview with Edge recently the game's executive producer Sam Houser mentioned what could be side missions:

"In the game, you might be walking around and then someone will come up to you and say something like, 'Hey, I need your help', and you'll be like, 'What? this isn't a story mission', and he'll be like, 'You see that room up there? That's my wife and she's f****** some bloke, and I need you to go and do...' and this little story will unfold from there just randomly," he said.

However, he went on to say that, "for the downloadable content in general, it's about seeing how people get turned on by the game, and then we will tailor the production".

Whatever's going on with DLC though, it's likely to have to wait for a while, as we understand Rockstar North staff have been given five weeks off in some cases to recuperate after finishing the game.

For more on GTA IV, check out our 10/10 review.