The Lost and Damned features a new main character and plot that intersects with the storyline of Grand Theft Auto IV; new missions that offer an entirely fresh way to explore Liberty City with new multiplayer modes, weapons and vehicles; and a diverse soundtrack with additional music - all with the incredible production values that are the trademarks of Grand Theft Auto.

This new episode, available Feb. 17 via download exclusively for those who own the Xbox 360 version (no price yet), stars Johnny Klebitz, a member of Liberty City biker gang The Lost.

"Johnny is a very different character than Niko, with a very different background," says Dan Houser, vice president of creative development for Rockstar Games. "I can't go into too much detail on the story, because we try not to give away too much plot before the game is released. But I can say that the story will show you a different side of Liberty City."

The episode, titled The Lost and Damned, requires players to have the full version of the Mature-rated GTA IV (ages 17 and older) and an Xbox Live membership to download. It's likely to carry an M rating, too.

"The story is not directly impacted by decisions you took in the main game," he says. But "tons of details and mysteries from the main story get explained, so it will add a lot of color to the main story."

[...] expects a $20 price and says Rockstar could sell 2 million to 3 million downloads. "I see episodic content as a natural progression of the quality of downloadable content."

Variety: On another topic, I have to ask you about the "GTA IV" downloadable content you're doing. Do you still expect that to come out this year?

DH: I'm not sure. It's going well. But we don’t know a date. We hope to be announcing that in the next few weeks. We're still figuring out a few things. We're more focused on quality than dates, always have been. But the development is going really good. It's shaping up to be something we're very proud of. That was our goal

Variety: Do you think you'll talk at all about what the DLC will be and how it will fit into "GTA IV's" story?

DH: We want to give people a rough idea so their expectations are roughly in line. We don't want them to imagine it's this enormous thing that it can never be...

Doing a big digital launch is something we've never done before. It's virgin territory, but at the same time, we feel very exposed because there's no case history. No one ever came out with major DLC for a major game like this before.

It's new territory for everybody. We're making it up a little bit as we go along. That's always fun, but it makes you nervous.