Importance of DLC?

[Casper]

I am considering getting this game but how important is the DLC? Are the new characters usable in the full game, or only in the missions added in the DLC?

[Bertie]

They're usable in all missions in the same way that you can pick from any of the other characters.

[Dippelinho]

Do the two DLCs come with their own "Steam Achievements"?

[Muse]

There's no new achievements for the DLC, but the new maps and characters have their own badges (in-game achievements). The DLC characters are fun and rather powerful, but not OP. Each DLC adds six missions, three of which take place on the DLC maps, and three on original game maps. You can unlock the new characters after completing maybe five or six of the story missions.

[Dippelinho]

Originally posted by Muse:

There's no new achievements for the DLC, but the new maps and characters have their own badges (in-game achievements). The DLC characters are fun and rather powerful, but not OP. Each DLC adds six missions, three of which take place on the DLC maps, and three on original game maps. You can unlock the new characters after completing maybe five or six of the story missions.

Thank god...

[Xengre]

I'd like to correct one point. Muse said they're not OP. This is true for the guy (Zagan or w/e forgot name) but Yuki is arguably the most powerful character in the entire game, and not by a small margin. She is laughable levels of power creep. She can pull off some pretty insane feats. However, she is actually "fun" to use due to her design and not brain-dead broken rolling over the game.

Yuki's passive makes the body of enemies you kill vanish. She has whats his name (the sniper guy from Shadow Tactics) pet Takuma with her and he is one of the strongest distractions in the game (perhaps tied with cannon lady's firecracker in basic use but it has some advanced tricks). The distract time can be both duration based (if Takuma is moved elsewhere it has a timer as they walk to it ti investigate) or if on Yuki it is literally infinite (the only infinite distraction in the entire game, too). This is particularly powerful with her second skill and on different terrain heights involving ladders/doors. Her other skill lets her set a trip wire of significant length that auto kills someone who walks through it and hides the body. This can be used along with Yuki's own attack to kill two people at once even on very different routes/positioning or significant distance (like 30 feet away, etc., something no one else can do). Alternatively, it can be used with other characters to setup complex multi-kills. With Takuma you can lure people around corners / out of line of sight and then they walk into it and die. Most brutal is you can set it at a door or ladder and kill someone as they use this exiting the other end which, with no lure duration, means you can lure guards extremely far off path (like 15-20 second lures, absolutely no one has such duration lures except her) until they reach you in a completely safe to kill spot through the ladder or door (of which you don't even have to be near due to trip wire). Using this method you can also safely kill two people right in front of each other as they climb up/exit door, one hitting the wire and one stabbed by Yuki.

Zaghan or whatever is way more balanced by comparison, but competent.

However, I should mention even if you don't get Yuki there are plenty of broken characters in this game. Most characters are crazy strong once you know how to use them properly, some just have a bit more of a learning curve before they explode in OPness (like the starting character navigator who is actually one of the strongest) while others like John are hilariously powerful from the get go. This game is far easier than the other entries from this dev and with most of the crew being overpowered its just a matter of severity of OPness here.

Worth mention is Yuki's quests and story are one of the more interesting ones, actually trumping most of the game's story/missions as some of the better content... Zaghan's not so much, but better than nothing.