Defiance to get five DLC expansions this year

Alright, yes—our Defiance review rated the MMO shooter as middling, bringing nothing spectacularly new to the table.

rated the MMO shooter as middling, bringing nothing spectacularly new to the table. But hey, maybe that's something for the DLC to patch up? Trion's just revealed they've planned five installments of DLC for release in Defiance's first year of existence, and content aside, the planned payment scheme has got an interesting twist.

Writing on the Defiance blog, executive producer Nathan Richardsson admits that the MMO's been likened to a B-movie and is "about as deep as a bag of chips but great fun." C'mon, I bought a one-kilogram bag of corn chips last year that went pretty deep. Anyway, that's why he's hoping the planned DLC will flesh things out a bit.

Each DLC will have a free component, a paid component, and then a store update. Basically, this means that everybody will be able to access the DLCs' content—but only paid players can benefit from extras, like DLC-specific loot or abilities. He offers up the first DLC, Enter the Castithan, as an example: all players will be able to access new maps and gameplay modes, but only the paid players will be able to play as the new Castithan race (which I'm hoping is a cat race, as seems fashionable in the MMO scene nowadays).

There's no word on when Enter the Castithan will be out, or even if that's its official name (Richardsson admits that he's waiting till "marketing comes up with a better name"), but it's an interesting route to take with DLC. In the meantime, a major update is on its way—it'll tie in with the television show, in addition to fixing bugs.