Where to begin? Dragonborn is aesthetically great. That’s a good place to start, I think. The music is a three-way mix between the Skyrim soundtrack, a few new tracks and, best of all, some of the old Morrowind songs. Visually, Solstheim is distinct from Skyrim as I knew it would be. The south of the island ow looks more like Vvardenfell than the Solstheim I remember from Bloodmoon ever since the red Year, but more on that later. The north is mostly glacial ice, with a small band of snowy pine forests in between. The things that reappear from Morrowind like bonemold armor, Redoran bugshell houses and Telvanni Mushroom Towers look like graphically enhanced versions of the same visual style of it’s predecessor. Apocrypha, the realm of Oblivion the player will get to visit, is an infinite library that is visually distinct from all other locations in the series so far and is, in terms of gameplay, a lot more of what Oblivion should have done with it’s Daedric realms.

The lore books are good, adding some new info on Solstheim and finally explaining “Red Year” in detail. Also, we learn what the Dunmer people think of the Tribunal 200 years after the events of Morrowind. Really, the whole DLC, being both the first time a location appears twice since Arena and the second time a character has recurred in the series is a load of fanservice for Elder Scrolls lovers.

There are two main plots, the Dragonborn story which has a lot of awesome buildup and a lackluster-but-not-terrible ending and a villain whose character arc can be given the same description and the Telvanni plotline, where you work with the wizard Neloth. The latter is my favorite quest line in all of Skyrim and it’s DLCs. Both are interesting, but while the Telvanni arc is better written the Dragonborn story has a lot more gameplay rewards like several new Shouts and weapons. 

All in all, the best Skyrim DLC yet and I hope they top it with the next one, whatever that may be.

Hi guys! Despite the evidence of your senses, my blog is not strictly Elder Scrolls themed, but I thought I would do something nice for my PS3 and PC brethren by giving a spoiler-free review of the new DLC expansion for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which if you have been away from the internet since a month before E3 is called Dawnguard.

Let’s start with the integration into the existing game. I think that, with the exception of a few blips where vampire attacks on towns (a new feature I actually like) will happen before you hit the level to start the quests, the integration is smooth. There are new enemy types within old enemy types who will appear in pre-existing dungeons. My primary example is female Falmer and “Falmer Warmongers” who wear a new heavy armor variant. I am told that pre-existing vampire caves are also re, aha, “vamped” to include gargoyles and death hounds, two new enemy types that I enjoy fighting, but I have not yet seen this firsthand. Two new dragon types, revered and legendary, now appear at high levels. They use a new Shout, which you too can learn, that drains vitality. Both types look very visually interesting and are fun to fight.

So lets talk, now that the integration is done, about plot and setting. As the ad campaign stated, there are two factions, the Volkihar vampires clan that was formerly just a name in a book and the Dawnguard, an order of vampire hunters. The expansion invariably starts you off with the Dawnguard themselves. They are led by Isran, a Redguard so extreme in his methods of vampire hunting that even the resident extremists from the vanilla game, the Vigilant of Stendarr, think he’s what we would call “a bit weird for vampire hunting.” The first quest sets up the initial choice. After finding a mysterious vampire woman named Serana in a cave, you bring her back to Castle Volkihar where her father Harkon offers you the full power of a Vampire Lord. This “blessing” will wash your blood clean of lycanthropy, should you have it, and start you along the path of a night walker.

I, being the goody two-shoes that I am, chose the Dawnguard side, using a werewolf character. I do not know how different the two sides are, so I will not speak to that. However, the adventure truly begins, and I shut up because of spoilers, when Serana seeks you out at Fort Dawnguard itself to ask your aid.

The new locations are great. Fort Dawnguard looks like a huge, imposing and well-equipped stronghold when it is restored and Castle Volkihar is a dark and threatening place in the mists of the far north. You can almost feel the oppressive stuffy heat and stench of blood when you walk into the latter. 

Of the two “large” new worldspaces only one was given much attention in the ad campaign so it will be the only one I’ll name: the Soul Cairn, returning at last for the first time since Battlespire, is a dim and creepy place. The unsettling and spooky aesthetic is spot-on for the place where the Ideal Masters, mysterious and powerful beings, lord themselves over those who were foolish enough to try to trick them. As for the other new locale, I will say only that it is beautiful and sad, and that the new music drives the sadness yet farther. 

Now last but not least, character. Whatever you wind up thinking of Serana, she is an actual character with likes, dislikes, insecurities and flaws. This is important, because most of vanilla Skyrim’s followers were no more fleshed than every other NPC. That was enough for random aquaintances and passers-by, and some of the non-follower characters like Ulfric and Paarthurnax actually did have a lot of really good moments that happened off-screen, but if Bethesda is going to have character moments for NPCs and have follower characters those two groups would do best to overlap heavily. Just as long as the option to explore alone stays. Personally, I really like this development because it shows that Bethesda can tell a personal story, and have the follower’s story strongly effect that of your own main character, while still telling a great world-scale story that is heavily reliant on pre-existing series lore.

So I say if you have an xbox, get it immediately. If you don’t, I highly suggest that when it comes out on PS3 and PCs you get it. It is very close to Bloodmoon for Morrowind on my scale of “how much I like this Elder Scrolls expansion.”

So today is the ten-year anniversary of the release of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. That game has a huge place in my heart and mind, so I feel like it is a good day to really dig into my history with it. As all truly worthwhile anecdotes start, so shall this one:

No shit, there I was in the Gamestop. I was a kid, early-mid teens at latest. I was always big on, as I called them at the time, “sword games.” I was not even aware of the story genre of fantasy because the only non-video game fantasy I had ever seen was The Lord of the Rings (and The Hobbit). I had seen Morrowind, for the xbox, on the shelf any number of times for fourteen dollars. Every time for months that I walked into that store I would pick it up, read the back cover and slowly return it to the shelf before buying some mindless action title.

At last, one day, I bought it. I read the instruction manual in the mall itself as my mother and little brothers scampered around getting their things, thinking “wow, this looks cool. Oh, it has classes and stats, so maybe it’s like Knights (which is what my friends and I, lacking consistent internet, called KotOR).”

When I got home, I threw the game in my dusty, noisy behemoth of an xbox. After an interminable load made bearable by the little snippets of lore information on the load screen and great concept art of skeletons, lizard men and creatures out of dreams, I saw the trippy opening sequence.

I, having no context as to the world of The Elder Scrolls, was as confused as doubtless the character was. It was that sense of bewildered wonder as I (and my character), shaking off the dream, walked out of the boat and saw the world stretching away.

As the game went on, as I and the character together learned how things fit together in the political and mythic landscape of Bethesda’s world, things began to happen in my mind that I only recently came to understand. Reading the Sermons of Vivec helped make my mind more receptive to mythic patterns in real-world stories. The Heroes Journey became crystal-clear to me as I had the Nerevarine experience it step by step. Finally, and most importantly, the mind-bending and reason-stretching, yet entirely consistent, logic of the world of The Elder Scrolls caused me to fully realize that fantasy has no limits. I learned that, because even the world and sky are not related to what you know, to make a good fantasy story then you have to establish common humanity with the characters above all else. That the strangeness is not something that will drive people away but suck them in, never to leave. 

In no small part, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is why I am a twice-published writer today. I hope and believe that, as Bethesda continues their massive series, more young people will be inspired to artistic careers and to follow (or even find) their dreams.