Grand Theft Auto: "The Ballad Of Gay Tony" Is DLC Ep. II + Episodes From Liberty City (Xbox 360, Lost)

[MarqueseGilmore]

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Your Liberty City adventures will continue this Fall on the Xbox 360, as Rockstar Games has announced Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony as the game's second downloadable episode.

In contrast to Grand Theft Auto IV's seedy biker gang expansion The Lost and Damned, The Ballad of Gay Tony is said to focus on the glitzy "high-end night life" of Liberty City. The second Xbox 360 exclusive episode will put players in the role of Luis Lopez, confirming previous rumors, as his part-time hoodlum duties are supplemented by full-time work for nightclub impresario Tony "Gay Tony" Prince.

According to the official announcement, "players will struggle with the competing loyalties of family and friends, and with the uncertainty about who is real and who is fake in a world in which everyone has a price."

Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony is slated to release on Xbox Live this Fall for $19.99 USD or 1600 Microsoft Points

But This Is only half of Rockstar's GTA news. The other half could usher in a new approach to downloadable content.

Rockstar Games announced that the fall-slated The Ballad of Gay Tony and the February-released GTA IV episode The Lost and Damned will be released as a compilation disc for the Xbox 360 this fall.

The disc, entitled Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City, will retail for $39.99. Unlike the downloadable versions of each episode, the disc-based Episodes will not require a copy of the original Grand Theft Auto IV to play.

Requiring that players own the core game has been the tradition for post-release DLC of major console games. Rockstar's announcement today signals the first prominent experiment with a second approach, one that treats add-on content as a standalone expansion playable on its own.