Spotlight: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn

Spotlight: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn DLC

First there came Dawnguard, with new areas, new perks for both vampires and werewolves, new weapons and quite an expansive story to add more value to the already packed Skyrim core experience. Then Hearthfire, which lets you build 3 very cool and distinct homes in Skyrim. Now is the turn of Dragonborn, the next DLC and probably one of the most ambitious adding a whole new area which is roughly the size of the Reach: Solstheim.

We won't spoil the plot but suffice it to say, you're drawn to the area via a mysterious assault upon your person and an equally mysterious letter. Once you get to Solstheim you'll find the land in turmoil and there is a great evil about to awaken. Events unfold which have several nifty tie-ins to the whole Elder Scrolls series and the addon is packed with content, new side quests and even some new items for those of a wolfish nature.

A new ring which lets you regenerate health in beast form is just one of the things on offer if you're a lycanthrope.

There are a lot of new NPCs to interact with, some new voices too and the game addon features a slew of new spells, new shouts and a particular shout which lets you tame and ride a dragon. You may not only tame and ride dragons in Solstheim but across the whole of Skyrim. This is a feature which is well worth the price of admission since you can fly the map using fast travel, order the dragon to attack targets and launch magical spells from its back.

There are also quite a few new monsters to encounter, Reiklings bring a goblin type race back from the past Elder Scrolls history and they have their own spear weapon. You can't use spears in this addon, but at least the enemy can poke you with them.

The new areas are pretty cool and there are lots of new dungeons and ruins to explore, we think there are at least 30 or so places to find and most of them can be explored in some way shape or form for loot and shouts. There's also a few new items and materials from these side quests and some hidden goodies to track down which will keep you coming back to Solstheim for more.

There are new armour types, such as Bonemold and Nordic as well as herbs which you can only find on the shores of Solstheim. The core story isn't as long or as involved as the one in Dawnguard, but the new area (which you can fast travel to and from at will) more than makes up for the brevity of the main flow.

The addon costs a whopping 1600 MSP and we think that's probably a bit too expensive for some tastes, the new content and additional material though is roughly about right for the addon and whilst we would have liked a longer main quest, we can't grumble at the sheer additional hours we can spend exploring the new area, fighting the new monsters and facing the might of the First Dragonborn.

This DLC comes highly recommended from us and it is a definite must buy!