The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released on November 11th, 2011, and according to Bethesda on their blog, the journey has officially ended. This means that they will no longer be bringing new content to the table in Skyrim. It is a bittersweet moment for fans, as Skyrim became one of the defining games of this generation of consoles, the new standard for open world Western-style RPGs. In that year and a half since its release, Bethesda continued to support Skyrim through numerous means; including an editor and some advanced tools on the PC, Kinect support on the Xbox 360 and a bunch of expansion packs.
All of the work that they did only helped to make the Skyrim experience that much better and last that much longer for fans of the game. Those expansions had to live up to the hype that Skyrim was beginning to develop around it, which wasn’t always an easy task. It is time to look at the three major expansions that Skyrim saw and break down which ones were worthy additions and which ones we could do without.
Dawnguard
Dawnguard was the first expansion released by Bethesda for Skyrim and added in a whole new storyline concentrated on a powerful clan of vampires and the group who has sworn to defeat them, the Dawnguard. This was one of two “full” expansion DLCs that came out for Skyrim, intended to add a significant amount of playtime to the game with new main quests, side quests as well as a storyline that branches into two different directions. While Dawnguard was fun, it really felt like it was lacking in a few areas, mainly in adding anything new or exciting to Skyrim. It was a lot of the same with macguffins, fetch quests and added some new items and abilities into the game. All in all it was a mixed bag, bringing in more to do, but more of the same.
Hearthfire
The concept of Hearthfire was an exciting one; an inexpensive DLC that added new abilities, items and the ability to craft your own homesteads in certain areas of Skyrim. The ability to create your own homes as well as house orphan children really did add a lot to the game, as the player was able to customize where they lived (to an extent), much like they customize their characters. While there were a few nagging bugs that were introduced with Hearthfire, the lower price tag and additions to the game really made it a decent addition to Skyrim.
Dragonborn
Dragonborn was the kind of expansion pack that fans were waiting for. The Dragonborn DLC added a lot more than the other two packs did and really felt like it brought something new to the table in Skyrim. Sure, the quests were not going to vary all that much and you might find yourself crawling through dungeons that looked and felt similar to what you had done before, but that was kind of the name of the game in Skyrim. Solstheim really felt like a new and unique area in Tamriel and stood out from the rest of the game. The new quests and storyline felt different and it really ended up being a joy to play. Dragonborn was easily the best of the three.
Each Skyrim expansion had its own charm to them, but really, without a doubt I must say that Dragonborn was the only one that really added a lot to the game and felt like a true expansion pack. It is sad that the Skyrim journey is over, but exciting that the team will be hard at work on their next game, which can only get better than this great game was.
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