DLC: The optional extras

⚠️ Word of warning ⚠️
If you have an ongoing game and then buy and install Shadow Government, odds are that at some point, your game save will break beyond repair and you’ll have to start a new game from scratch.

My first/tutorial game in Chicago bugged out so I could no longer talk to anyone (the dialogue window was completely blank) after installing Shadow Government. A new Chicago game started after Shadow Government was installed has been running fine, so either wait until you’ve finished a game to install it, or make your peace with your original game save breaking at some point.

The other DLC are either self-contained or work in conjunction with what’s already there and don’t seem to cause any issues.

Enhancing your City of Gangsters

There are four additional modules and five nationalities you can pay to download to get more out of the game. Getting them all in a bundle (especially in a sale) is highly recommended.

If you’re only looking at getting one or two, here’s a short summary of what they do, and if they actually add anything useful to the gaming experience aside from more maps.

Atlantic City

While the casinos aren’t very different from regular gambling houses, they do change things up enough to warrant getting this DLC. You can only add the casino features and get the benefits from it in Atlantic City itself, but it’s still different enough to keep you entertained. The vehicles I’ve yet to see for myself, so can’t say much about them – but the truck sure looks swell.

The option to import booze is fun, easy to understand and make use of, and feels like there’s a point to doing it. At least if you compare it to the Canada functionality on the Detroit map, which is slow, convoluted, and overly expensive to be of any real use. It’s just a shame you can’t sell the imported booze in your speaks.

Bourbon Bootlegging

I was hoping there was more to this than a new map, but that seems to be all there is to it. Aside from having two new alcohol productions and an exclusive Moonshine recipe on a new map, it doesn’t add anything else, nothing else to sink your teeth into.

You have an extra map to play with, but that’s all. It’s as vanilla as the Chicago map, but with added corn as an added resource. Which is fine, fantastic if you’re really into Cincinnati, but I wouldn’t get it on its own. It’s something you get if you’re buying all the DLC as a bundle, or the Deluxe Edition of the game. It could easily just have been a part of the base game.

Criminal Record

Whether you get this in a bundle or on its own, it’s definitely worth it. The office isn’t that interesting as a new addition, because all it does is to act like a virtual in-game trophy cabinet of sorts. It doesn’t actually do anything, but it’s nice that you get it on all maps.

The reason you get this DLC is because of the new Captain roles. Without it, you have two options. This opens it up to seven, which means you have more options (and more fun options, let’s face it) than in the base game, and the new Captain roles and their schemes work on every single map in the game.

The only downside is I really think this should have been a part of the base game, because it adds so much more fun to the game play and feels like there’s more of a point to promoting people to Captain.

The good thing is that even if you add this DLC later, your game save shouldn’t break. The only “problem” I had with the save I transferred from Epic to Steam was that I was too late in the game to make use of the new roles. I just didn’t have the time to get any unassigned captains the prerequisites needed for the new roles – and I couldn’t get a Lookout because I had already explored the whole map with someone who was already assigned to a different captain role.

Philadelphia itself isn’t much different from any other map, except you start the game with a crew of two: your boss and a captain. You can also run two schemes at the same time instead of just one.

Shadow Government

New York is the biggest map in the game, for starters, and … well, it’s New York. Home of the original Five Mafia Families, the National Crime Syndicate, Murder Inc, and all that. Getting the New York map was actually the only reason I bought it in the first place, but I soon realized the politics bit could come in handy.

While you don’t have to do anything about the elections if you don’t want to, they add a fun element every couple of years, and the benefits are enormous. Killed a cop’s relative and they won’t be bribed? Get a politician to get them off your back. Want a free building? Get a politician to give you one. Tired of paying bribes to cops? Want some free barrels of booze? More Movement points? Cheaper supplies?

You want to show your city who’s boss, and Shadow Government will definitely help you with that. It’s the biggest DLC with the most amount of new stuff to sink your teeth into, and while you can of course play the game without it, it’s just a lot more fun to have it because it adds another level of complexity to the game play.

The 5 Nationality Outfits

New map: None, but you can play with them on all maps.
Functionality (all): national flag for your crew, new clothes for portraits, some mentions of nationality exclusive missions, but those seem to be few and far between.
Cautions: None as far as I know, everything is self-contained.
Verdict: Fun, but not essential.

To use one of these mini-modules, you just have to pick one of the five nationalities when you start a new game. If you don’t have the DLC, you can still be e.g. Italian, but it doesn’t really do anything. Functionally all nationalities in the base game are pretty much the same, so it’s only with a DLC you get some noticeable differences.

Note: If you start a game and then add a nationality DLC, you will still get the flag, but you won’t get any starting specials. I tried it with German, and didn’t have the two starting skills I should have had from the DLC, nor the one that would have allowed me to set up a German Lager op.

You can buy each nationality separately (I bought the Italian one separately on Epic), and they’re pretty cheap to pick up, but getting them in a bundle is definitely worth it. They do add a little extra something something to the game play.

The English Outfit

The German Outfit

The Irish Outfit

The Italian Outfit

The Polish Outfit