Rockstar has announced that GTA Online will be receiving a story-focused expansion, 'The Contract', featuring GTA V character Franklin, and set years after the events of the game's single-player campaign. Due for release on December 15, the story will focus on Franklin working in his new "celebrity solutions agency", and will feature Dr. Dre, who has composed new music for the game.
Announced on the Rockstar Newswire, the expansion (which, like all GTA Online updates, will be free) introduces F. Clinton and Partner, an agency that offers 'solutions' to the problems of Los Santos' elite. Your GTA Online character will meet Franklin through Lamar Davis, and will be tasked with taking the business to the next level.
As part of that story, GTA 5 radio host (and GTA Online co-writer) DJ Pooh will contact Franklin to mention a potential client - Dr. Dre. Dre has lost his phone, which is full of unreleased new music. You'll be tasked with securing the tracks and returning them to the legendary artist – and you can do this solo, or with a crew.
Rockstar teases that you'll be working with Franklin himself, Chop the Dog, and a hacker called Imani to travel from Franklin's old neighbourhood, to Los Santos parties, to FIB offices to retrieve the tracks. As you can see from the trailer above, it seems we'll meet other famous artists too, given that Anderson .Paak appears – and a guest appearance from Snoop Dogg on the soundtrack could potentially be hinting at another cameo.
As you might expect, those tracks will become part of the game, and Rockstar is teasing much more for music in the update. Today's announcement promises "an eclectic new radio station from some very special guest hosts, huge first-of-their-kind updates to existing radio stations including a ton of new and unreleased exclusive tracks from Dr. Dre and a heavy-hitting line-up of artists".
The update will also bring new weapons, vehicles, hit contracts, and more. Rockstar says we'll learn more about the music, and the expansion as a whole, "in the coming days".
It sounds as though this update is intended as something of an answer to the many, many years of requests for story DLC in GTA 5. It remains unclear how the expansion will be implemented in the fabric of GTA Online, however.
This is of course confirmation that Dr. Dre was working on new music for GTA Online, not GTA 6 as some hoped for. Aside from knowing it's in development, we've heard precious little about GTA 6 - although some think Rockstar snuck a screenshot of it into the GTA Trilogy remaster of San Andreas.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.