The contrast becomes starker the further north you travel, as the temperature plummets and the treacherous weather throws up walls of biting snow. As such, dry rolling hills stretch into the horizon, dotted with clusters of buildings hewn from the shells of giant creatures while creeping vines encroach on sand-blown roads. Exploring the island is its own reward Solstheim is a hybrid land, part Morrowind, part Skyrim. Similarly to Fallout 3’s Point Lookout expansion, Dragonborn presents Solstheim as an entirely separate map, complete with a smorgasbord of new caves, mines, forts, towns, abandoned shacks and haunted barrows. He’s also the first ever Dragonborn, which he believes gives him exclusive claim to the title and is the reason his cultists are trying to tear your sacrilegious guts out. Once you’ve retraced their steps and arrived in Solstheim, you’ll discover that Miraak is an ancient entity believed to be vanquished, who has the denizens of the island enthralled in a terrible spell. Killing them will reveal that they follow someone called Miraak and have travelled on a ship from Solstheim, a vast island between Skyrim and the Dunmer homeland of Morrowind (the fan-favourite setting of The Elder Scrolls III). If you’re a fair way into the game, it will happen almost the instant you step inside a settlement. This will happen randomly at a certain point after you have completed the “Horn of Jurgen Windcaller” quest in the main story and been named Dragonborn. The main quest in Dragonborn begins when the Dovahkiin (that’s you, in case you slept through 80 hours of the main game and missed it) is accosted in the streets by mysterious cultists in silly masks.
But Bethesda are claiming that the third DLC, subtitled Dragonborn, is their greatest Skyrim add-on yet – and in fact, they’re absolutely bang on the money. And as for Hearthfire, well, as much fun as it is to construct a mansion in three hours flat as a post-game, wealthy level 50, it doesn’t really add much of anything, and when undertaken alongside the main game, is a fairly exhaustive, stressful affair. Dawnguard was big, offering a dual questline that topped out at around 10 to 15 hours along with a handful of side-quests, new gear and deeper skill trees for all you vampires and werewolves, but it lacked character and consistent pacing and felt no different, no more exciting or exotic, than the main game. Yes, we are aware that once upon a time Bethesda released that “horse armour” nonsense and caused the internet to topple on its axis for a whole Friday afternoon, but they’ve since learned from such rookie errors and their run of DLC has been well above average for years.Īdmittedly, the Skyrim DLC has been a mixed bag so far.
No mean feat, as they say.Īs with their full games, Bethesda have cultivated a reputation over the years for producing quality DLC, perhaps only rivalled by the likes of Rockstar and Gearbox. Clocking in at anywhere between 20 and 200 hours depending on how invested you choose to become, it even managed to keep Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 out of the Christmas Number One spot.
Say what you will about Skyrim (and it’s likely PS3 owners will do just that), but even with the carnival of bugs and glitches and patches, it’s a staggering example of world and game design. But with Skyrim, the fifth game in the acclaimed The Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda surpassed everything they had ever achieved. Whether it’s the capital wasteland of Fallout 3, New Vegas’ titular fallen pleasure capital (it may have been Obsidian’s game, but it was Bethesda’s template all the way) or Oblivion’s stunning Cyrodiil, their worlds are immersive and deeply atmospheric, even upon the barren, post-Apocalyptic tundra of scorched Washington. Very few developers have a talent for creating game-worlds like Bethesda.
Game: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dragonborn DLCĪvailable on: Xbox 360 Only (coming soon to Windows PC and PlayStation 3)