One of the first video games that I really fell in love with was the original Half-Life. Valve Corporation’s first-person shooter blew me away with its fantastic artificial intelligence, and I ended up exploring every inch of the Black Mesa Research Facility. It took six years for an equally stellar sequel to be made, but thankfully I didn’t have to wait nearly as long to get more of the action I craved.
I only had to wait one year to experience more Half-Life due to Gearbox Software developing an expansion called Opposing Force. This title showed the events of the first game from a different perspective, as I was no longer playing as Gordon Freeman, but a U.S. Marine that was viewed as an enemy in the original game. It did just enough different to provide a fascinating and fresh take on something I had largely seen before (especially since very little changed from a gameplay perspective). Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it wasn’t uncommon for these types of expansions to come out for popular titles (Half-Life even ended up receiving two additional ones called Blue Shift and Decay). These types of sizable expansions eventually fell out of favor, as yearly sequels became a regular occurrence and it became more feasible to ship smaller pieces of content as DLC. That seems to be changing, though, as one of gaming’s biggest franchises is set to release a physical-based expansion.
Enter Uncharted

Upon completing Uncharted 4, I felt lik...