Just Cause 4: Expansion Pass – Daredevils, Demons and Danger

The Just Cause 4 Expansion Pass: Daredevils, Demons and Danger grants players access to three major expansions for the base game: Danger Rising, Dare Devils of Destruction, and Los Demonios. This pass propels series protagonist Rico Rodriguez into a series of new, over-the-top adventures across the fictional South American nation of Solis, offering early access to each new content drop. Players can expect a significant extension of the explosive, physics-based sandbox gameplay, featuring new missions, weapons, vehicles, and challenges that escalate the chaos to even greater heights.

Just Cause 4: Expansion Pass – Daredevils, Demons and Danger: Review

Introduction

In the pantheon of open-world power fantasies, the Just Cause series has carved out a unique and bombastic niche, defined not by nuanced storytelling but by the sheer, unadulterated joy of physics-based chaos. When Avalanche Studios and publisher Square Enix released Just Cause 4 in late 2018, they promised a new level of anarchy set against the extreme weather systems of the fictional South American nation of Solís. The Expansion Pass – Daredevils, Demons and Danger was the promised continuation of that chaos, a trio of DLC packs designed to push the game’s signature systems to their absolute limits. This review seeks to dissect this compilation not merely as additional content, but as a critical artifact that reflects the ambitions and inherent contradictions of live-service game support in the late 2010s. Our thesis is that this Expansion Pass represents a studio doubling down on its core ludicrous identity, delivering amplified spectacle at the expense of meaningful evolution, ultimately serving as a microcosm of the franchise’s enduring strengths and persistent weaknesses.

Development History & Context

Developed by Avalanche Studios AB (under its Fatalist Production AB moniker) and published by Square Enix, the Daredevils, Demons and Danger Expansion Pass was a product of its specific moment in the industry. By December 4, 2018, the season pass model had become a standard, though often contentious, pillar of AAA game monetization. Just Cause 4 itself was launching into a crowded marketplace, competing for attention amidst a sea of live-service games and narrative-driven epics.

Avalanche’s vision had always been clear: to create a “playground of destruction” where systemic gameplay and emergent chaos trumped all. Just Cause 4’s big technological leap was its Frontier engine, designed to handle complex global weather systems like tornadoes, sandstorms, and blizzards. The Expansion Pass was the logical next step, an opportunity to build new content atop this technological foundation. The constraints were likely twofold: first, the need to create content that justified a separate purchase beyond the base game, and second, the challenge of innovating within the established, and some would say repetitive, Just Cause gameplay loop. The vision, as evidenced by the titles of the three included DLCs—Dare Devils of Destruction, Los Demonios, and Danger Rising—was to segment this chaos into distinct thematic silos: stunt driving, supernatural horror, and high-tech espionage. This approach allowed the developers to experiment with wild new ideas without the need to cohesively integrate them into the core narrative of Solís, a common tactic in open-world DLC design.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

As a compilation of three distinct narrative experiences, the Expansion Pass operates in the realm of side-stories and thematic vignettes rather than a continuous plot.

• Los Demonios: This expansion leans heavily into supernatural horror, a stark departure from the pseudo-realistic paramilitary conflict of the base game. It introduces a demonic invasion, recontextualizing the core combat loop against a backdrop of occult terror. The narrative is undoubtedly thin, serving primarily as a vehicle to introduce monstrous new enemy types and a sinister, otherworldly aesthetic. Thematic depth is traded for a campy, B-movie vibe, asking the player to accept that Rico Rodriguez, the quintessential revolutionary mercenary, is now also a slayer of ancient evil. It’s a premise that highlights the series’ willingness to prioritize fun over coherence.

• Dare Devils of Destruction: This content pack focuses on the stunt-driving subculture within Solís. The narrative here is perhaps the most minimal, framed around a rivalry with a stunt-driving team called the Dare Devils. The “story” is simply a sequence of increasingly outrageous vehicular challenges. Thematically, it celebrates the over-the-top spectacle that is the series’ hallmark, exploring the idea of destruction as a form of performance art. The dialogue is expectedly cheesy and full of bravado, perfectly in keeping with the tone of a game where subtlety is a foreign concept.

• Danger Rising: Positioned as the capstone experience, this expansion returns to a more familiar espionage thriller trope. It introduces a new high-tech threat, complete with advanced weaponry and gadgets like a ballistic shield and a deployable drone. The narrative aims for a slightly more serious tone, involving a shadowy new enemy organization. However, it remains a perfunctory framework designed to contextualize the acquisition of new toys and a fresh set of missions. The themes of corporate warfare and technological escalation are present but underexplored, quickly overshadowed by the next explosive set piece.

Across all three narratives, character development is negligible. Rico Rodriguez remains the stoic, one-man army, and supporting characters exist solely to deliver mission briefings. The overarching theme of the entire Expansion Pass is escalation: taking the core premise of Just Cause 4 and dialing it up to eleven, whether through supernatural forces, vehicular insanity, or technological one-upmanship.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

The Expansion Pass is fundamentally a delivery mechanism for new gameplay mechanics, vehicles, and weapons. It operates as a classic “gameplay-first” DLC suite.

• Core Loop & Progression: The foundational loop remains unchanged: accept a mission, traverse the open world, and create immense chaos. The pass injects new objectives into this loop. Los Demonios introduces missions focused on destroying demonic hearts and battling towering boss monsters, requiring players to adapt their tactics to enemy types that are more aggressive and resilient than the Black Hand soldiers of the base game. Dare Devils of Destruction is a pure arcade experience, layering in time trials, stunt jumps, and destruction derbies that prioritize vehicular mastery. Danger Rising’s missions often revolve around using new high-tech gear to infiltrate and dismantle advanced enemy facilities.

• New Systems & Gear: This is where the pass truly shines for fans of the formula.

  • Los Demonios: Grants access to a demonic version of Rico’s wingsuit, a new “Bavarium Splitter” weapon, and the ability to commandeer a fearsome demonic hoverboard.
  • Dare Devils of Destruction: Introduces a suite of customized stunt vehicles, including the “Snapdragon” sports car and the “Gargantua” monster truck, each equipped with special abilities for causing maximum mayhem.
  • Danger Rising: Adds a strategic layer with the “Ballistic Shield” and the “eDEN Spark” drone, offering new defensive and offensive options in combat. The hoverboard from Los Demonios also makes a return, now upgraded with boost and weapon functions.

• UI & Integration: The new content is seamlessly integrated into the game’s world map via new mission icons and radio calls. The UI remains the same functional, if occasionally cluttered, system from the base game, now simply tracking a new set of objectives and rewards. The progression is isolated to each DLC, with new gear unlocked sequentially by completing its specific missions.

The major innovation here is not in reinventing the wheel but in adding wild new spokes to it. The gameplay is an amplification of the base game’s ethos—more, bigger, faster, crazier. For critics, this could be seen as a failure to innovate meaningfully. For fans, it’s a curated selection of the series’ best and most ridiculous ideas.

World-Building, Art & Sound

The Expansion Pass uses its new content to paint different thematic layers onto the existing canvas of Solís.

• Los Demonios has the most significant visual impact. It introduces a grotesque new aesthetic: pulsing organic growths infesting the landscape, eerie glowing runes, and a sinister red and black color palette that contrasts sharply with Solís’s vibrant biomes. The sound design follows suit, swapping military radio chatter for demonic roars, unsettling whispers, and the otherworldly hum of demonic technology. It successfully creates a distinct and memorable atmosphere of invasion and horror.

• Dare Devils of Destruction leans into a bright, garish, almost carnival-esque style. The stunt courses are marked with flamboyant ramps and neon signs. The soundscape is dominated by the roaring engines of custom vehicles, the screech of tires, and the explosive crashes of failed stunts. It builds a world within a world, portraying Solís as a haven for adrenaline junkies.

• Danger Rising opts for a sleek, high-tech aesthetic. New enemy installations are clean, metallic, and futuristic. The sound design is crisp and electronic, featuring the buzz of drones, the whine of energy weapons, and the satisfying thump of the ballistic shield deploying.

While the base world of Solís remains unchanged, these expansions act as thematic filters, demonstrating the flexibility of the game’s engine and art team in supporting radically different tones without leaving the same geographic space.

Reception & Legacy

Critically, the Just Cause 4: Expansion Pass exists in a curious void. As evidenced by the source material from MobyGames, there is a notable absence of formal critic reviews at the time of its release. This lack of critical engagement is itself a telling data point; by 2018, formulaic expansion passes for open-world games were commonplace and often elicited muted responses from the gaming press unless they were truly groundbreaking.

The legacy of the Daredevils, Demons and Danger pass is intrinsically tied to the mixed reception of Just Cause 4 itself. The base game was criticized for technical issues and a perceived lack of innovation over its predecessor. This expansion pass was likely viewed by many as “more of the same,” which for disappointed players was a negative, but for dedicated fans was exactly what they wanted.

Its influence on the industry is negligible on a macro scale, but it serves as a perfect example of a specific type of post-launch content strategy: the thematic DLC pack. It didn’t seek to extend the story meaningfully but to explore tangential, often ridiculous, ideas that the main game couldn’t accommodate. In this, it preserved the series’ identity as a unabashed power fantasy focused on moment-to-moment fun over narrative cohesion or mechanical depth. It stands as a monument to a era where the value of DLC was measured purely in hours of new gameplay and cool new toys, a philosophy that has since begun to shift towards more narrative-driven expansions or live-service models.

Conclusion

The Just Cause 4: Expansion Pass – Daredevils, Demons and Danger is a fascinating artifact. It is neither a revolutionary step forward nor a cynical cash grab; it is the pure, undiluted essence of the Just Cause series bottled into three separate vials. It represents Avalanche Studios operating with a clear understanding of its audience and its own strengths. The pass succeeds unequivocally in its primary goal: to provide more outrageous tools and scenarios for creating chaos.

However, its failure to address the core criticisms of Just Cause 4—technical performance, narrative depth, and mission variety—means it could only ever be a complement to the base experience, not a redemption of it. Its place in video game history is secured as a quintessential example of its genre and era: a compilation of content that proudly prioritizes exhilarating gameplay spectacle above all else. For the right player—the one who finds joy in the simple act of unleashing a tornado of demonic hellfire from a weaponized hoverboard—this Expansion Pass is an essential purchase. For those seeking a evolved, nuanced open-world experience, it remains, like Rico Rodriguez himself, thrillingly and unapologetically off-target.