The Best DLC Creation Companies (And Why the List Is Shorter Than You’d Expect)

A shipped game already has its audience. DLC converts that audience into recurring revenue without spending another dollar on acquisition. According to Newzoo’s analysis of over 1,600 DLC releases, DLC boosts monthly active users by 11% on average across PC and console. For mid-sized titles, that lift reaches 22%.

Publishers know DLC is the revenue case. But when it comes to execution, the original team doesn’t sit idle. They’re already managing live bugs or preparing the next title. That leaves the question of who builds the DLC.

In practice, most external studios offer co-development support or porting. What’s harder to find is a team that can take end-to-end responsibility, treating DLC as its own product, with an entry hook, retention design, and post-launch plan.

That’s why only a small number of studios fit the criteria. In this article, we will be taking a look at the best DLC creation companies that have delivered real DLC work in shipped games.

What makes DLC hard to build internally

When a game ships, the team that built it doesn’t stop working. They move to the next project, fold into live maintenance, sometimes both. Either way, those people aren’t sitting around waiting for the next Jira ticket.

That makes DLC difficult to hand off. It has to feel like it always belonged in the game. New quests, mechanics, enemies, and rewards need to match the original game’s progression and balance. Because players notice when they don’t. 

In one Reddit discussion, gamers complained about DLC that “doesn’t really blend in with the rest of the game” or introduces overpowered gear that “completely destroys the sense of progression.” Nobody wants to read that in their Steam reviews.

To avoid such comments, studios need a DLC partner that takes full ownership of the project. A team can build polished assets and features, but without a deep understanding of the base game, the expansion can feel disconnected.

So who actually builds DLC? Here’s the list

As mentioned, not many studios develop DLC as a standalone service. Many who started with DLC work have since moved toward full-game co-development or live content pipelines. A few still carry DLC credits from years ago. Even so, every studio on this list has shipped DLCs, and depending on what you need, any of them could be the right call.

Pingle

Pingle is a game engineering studio founded in Ukraine. We work with AA and AAA publishers on porting, co-development, and live content. Our team includes more than 300 in-house specialists, 84% of whom are mid- or senior-level engineers and artists. Epic Games made us an Authorized Unreal Engine Service Partner, so UE projects we work on land in hands that know what they’re doing.

Our partnerships run long. We embed into a game’s content pipeline, learn how it works, and keep delivering DLC and live content. Sometimes for years on the same title.

Here are some of our DLC projects:

Insurgency: Sandstorm

NWI and Saber Interactive brought us in to port Insurgency: Sandstorm to consoles and enable crossplay. After launch, the studios needed a partner to own the live content pipeline because their internal team moved on to new projects. We stepped into that role, running a 50-person live team for three years and shipping six major updates, two original maps, and dozens of weapons, characters, and skins. One of those updates received a 98% positive Steam rating.

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Steel Wool Studios had twelve FNAF projects and one team that couldn’t clone itself. We built a dedicated 30-person team around the franchise and kept the same specialists across all 12 titles for two years. That continuity meant no one was coming into a project cold, and every new task was built on shared context across the entire series.

With that setup, we delivered DLC support, platform ports, optimization, and VR-to-flat adaptations. On average, each project was completed in 3.5 months. As a result, a $70M franchise expanded across every major platform with consistent post-launch support.

Pick our studio if you have a live game that needs a dedicated team for DLC and LiveOps, and you want a partner that takes full ownership of the outcome.

Note: Our model is built for ongoing partnerships. If you need a studio to own one DLC pack and move on, we’re probably not the right fit. If you’re looking for a team that stays for the long run, we are.

Certain Affinity

Certain Affinity is an Austin-based co-development studio founded in 2006 by ex-Bungie veterans. They’ve worked on nearly 20 engagements across Halo and Call of Duty, including co-developing Halo Infinite with Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries). Other credits include Doom, Left 4 Dead, and Hogwarts Legacy. Since 2024, they’ve operated as a Keywords Studios subsidiary.

Before full-game co-development took over, Certain Affinity built DLC for Halo and Call of Duty. Here are some of the most well-known DLC projects:

• Halo 2: Blastacular Map Pack → 2 multiplayer maps for Microsoft/Bungie.
• Halo: Reach — Defiant Map Pack → 3 firefight and PvP maps for 343 Industries.
• Halo 4 — Majestic, Castle, and Bullseye Map Packs → 8 maps across three packs for 343 Industries.
• CoD: World at War — DLC map packs → map development on 2 post-launch DLC packs for Activision.
• CoD: Black Ops — First Strike DLC → conception, level design, and art on 3 maps for Activision.
• CoD: Ghosts — Onslaught and Devastation DLC → map development and design support for Activision/Infinity Ward.

Pick this studio if your DLC is multiplayer maps for a major shooter franchise, and you need a team that has shipped that exact thing before.

Note: While Certain Affinity has a documented history of developing DLC for major franchises, its current public positioning emphasizes AAA co-development.

Virtuos

If a beloved game got remastered in the last decade, there’s a reasonable chance Virtuos had something to do with it. Founded in 2004 in Singapore by French executive Gilles Langourieux, they’ve quietly become one of the largest co-development studios in the world. Their fingerprints are on Demon’s Souls (PS5), Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, Bioshock: The Collection, Dark Souls Remastered, and Metal Gear Solid V, among others.

Virtuos has done plenty of remasters and co-development work, but scroll further down the credits and you’ll find DLC work too:

• Marvel’s Avengers — Black Panther: War for Wakanda DLC → Co-developed the full Black Panther expansion for Crystal Dynamics. Built Wakanda environments end-to-end, handled engineering optimization across PS4, PS5, and Xbox.
• Forza Horizon 5 → Created roughly 90% of the photorealistic vehicles in Forza Horizon 5, including DLC cars. The studio handled 3D modelling, UV mapping, texturing, rigging, and damage animations.
• Horizon Zero Dawn → Modelled 10 key mechanical creatures, environment props, and character clothing variants for Aloy. They returned for Horizon Forbidden West, creating 9 mechanical creatures, weapons, and further environment art.

Note: Virtuos doesn’t specifically highlight DLC work in its portfolio. Most of what they publish falls under art production, covering standalone and unified content creation.

Pick this studio if you need an AAA-scale environment and engineering work on a major expansion, and have the project size to match.

Sumo Digital

Sumo Digital was founded in Sheffield in 2003. Over two decades, they’ve built a portfolio that splits between their own titles and co-development work for other publishers. Yet, in 2025, Sumo Digital announced that they are shifting away from original IP development to focus on partner co-development and porting services. Today, Sumo is part of the Tencent company.

More recently, their work has also extended into DLC and live content co-development. One of the examples is Warframe. 

• Warframe → Co-developed content for Digital Extremes as an embedded partner in the Warframe pipeline. Contributions include Koumei (the 58th Warframe), the Shrine Defense mission, new weapons, deluxe skins, and The Teacher onboarding Quest. Digital Extremes retains the live-service loop while Sumo builds within it.

Note: Sumo Digital has been through a period of change recently. They laid off around 15% of its workforce in 2024, their co-founders retired in May 2025, and a further round of redundancies was announced in early 2026. That doesn’t reflect the quality of its work, but for long-term DLC projects, ask who will stay on your team throughout the project.

Pick this studio if you need a co-developer embedded in your content pipeline for ongoing season and update delivery. 

SkyBox Labs

If you’ve played Halo Infinite or Minecraft in the last few years, you’ve played something SkyBox Labs helped build. In particular, they co-developed post-launch season content for Halo Infinite alongside Halo Studios and provided new content updates for Minecraft: Tricky Trials. The Vancouver studio has been a co-development partner for Microsoft, Bungie, and EA since 2011, and has grown to over 235 people. 

SkyBox Labs doesn’t publicly highlight much recent DLC work, but its track record includes several noteworthy expansions:

• Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten → Created five new civilizations, four campaigns, new units, and maps.
• Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms → Built four new civilizations, new units, ships, and technologies.

Note: SkyBox has been part of NetEase, a Chinese Internet technology company, so publishers with IP security requirements should factor that in.

Pick this studio if you need live-season content for an established PC franchise, and your IP security requirements allow a NetEase-owned partner.

Double Eleven

Double Eleven was founded in 2009 by two former Rockstar Leeds programmers in Middlesbrough, England. With 400+ employees across the UK and Malaysia, they’re one of the largest independent studios in Britain. Pneuma Group, an investment firm owned by the studio’s own founder, acquired them in 2022, keeping ownership firmly in-house. 

Their DLC track record covers some well-known franchises:

• Minecraft Dungeons → Co-developed alongside Mojang Studios and Xbox Game Studios, including DLC content and all console versions. The partnership continued into Minecraft Dungeons II.
• Fallout 76 → Delivered post-launch content for Bethesda Game Studios from 2022 onward. Credited on multiple major updates: Nuka-World on Tour, Once in a Blue Moon, Skyline Valley, Milepost Zero, and Gone Fission.

Note: Fully independent, UK-owned. Their work covers both packaged DLC and live content updates, depending on the project.

Pick this studio if you need a reliable co-development partner for expansion content and live updates.

The studios above can build your DLC, but what happens after launch is a different story. 

How we scope DLC projects 

At Pingle, we follow the DLC Product Lifecycle, a four-stage framework that plans each expansion as a standalone product. We design your DLC with a reason to start, a reason to stay, a revenue logic, and a post-launch plan built in from day one.

Phase 1. Entry hook: Why would a player start your DLC at all?

Not what’s in it, that’s content. The right question is what brings a player back to a game they’ve already finished. It might be a narrative reason to return or a limited-time event that creates urgency. If the only answer is “because it’s new content,” the DLC doesn’t have an entry hook yet.

Phase 2. Mid-game retention: Why do they keep playing once they’re in?

A player who leaves after two hours ran out of reasons to continue. That’s why we think about retention from the start. Reward loops, progression, and pacing all work together to keep players invested beyond the first session. Launch week looks fine either way. The weeks after tell you who stayed.

Phase 3. Monetization pacing: When and how does revenue enter the experience?

Every DLC needs a clear revenue strategy. For paid DLC, that means choosing the right price and releasing it at the right point in the base game’s lifecycle. For free DLC, the objective is to encourage the next purchase, whether that’s cosmetics or the next expansion.

Purchases should feel like a natural next step in the player journey. Otherwise, the DLC drives engagement without generating meaningful revenue.

Phase 4. Post-launch LiveOps: How does the DLC stay alive after launch?

Before development begins, we decide which player metrics matter and schedule the first balance review. We implement LiveOps to deliver timely events, patches, post-launch content, and optimizations without disrupting players. Everyone knows what happens next before the DLC goes live.

That’s how we approach every DLC project. Then we roll up our sleeves and take full co-development responsibility for your DLC. If your next expansion is still looking for a plan or a team, let’s talk.

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