What defines DLC today? Is it the steady intravenous drip of “premium” packages endlessly circulating content through a game’s established universe – replenishing singleplayer with missions and sidequests and characters; multiplayer with maps and modes and weapons at every stagnating pulse of excitement? Or is it something larger: the concentrated effort of a developer’s vision and resources, built through months of post-release toiling?
It’s a question with diverse answers befitting of a diverse industry. For the prodigious Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda’s response is Dawnguard, the first iteration of a slow-churned, “substantial” DLC agenda. But while the long-time-coming does indeed produce significant – and satisfying – additions to Skyrim’s gameplay and lore, Dawnguard isn’t immune from an underwhelming sense of untapped potential.
Keeping with the theme of Skyrim’s presentation, the “Dawnguard” questline occurs organically – no flashy cutscenes or tedious save shuffling required – through the game’s living universe. After downloading (and after the player surpasses level 10 – a mere hour’s task for newcomers), rumors begin percolating around Skyrim’s cities – along with a few bodies produced by actual nighttime vampire incursions – that a war is brewing between vampires, the cannibalistic occult, and the Dawnguard, a secretive group of titular vampire hunters. It’s not long before the dynamic is made clear: the vampire lord Harkon is plotting a resurgence of his species by using an ancient Elder Scroll to control the sun. Like the civil war between the Stormcloaks and Imperials, the player determines their allegiance and, eventually, the victor, but the new exigency lends an epic vigor to Skyrim’s storyline that wasn’t found before outside the main quest, while also expanding artfully on the game’s previously-established fiction.
Vampirism has been a crutch on gameplay as much as a curse on its characters in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Dawnguard is Bethesda’s attempt to revive the once-staid character choice – and the vampire quest branch feels far more inspired than its mortal analogue. While the main storyline recycles very similar paths for whichever side is chosen, side quests here venture upon more intriguing concepts and are tinged with the political intrigue surrounding the decreed hierarchy of Castle Volkihar, your new home. More importantly, joining forces with the ultraviolet-sensitive, Lord Harkon grants players the transformational power of the Vampire Lord – the vile apex of the species.
The Vampire Lord power introduces combat abilities far more lethal than anything imbued to the race before, with the lord capable of feasting upon foes during melee, casting potent spells in a hovering state, skirting across the ground in wing-fluttering sprint, and upgrading his nefarious talents through a brand new skill tree. The combat can offer a blissful reprieve from the fighting conventions of Skyrim Standard; unfortunately, it’s hindered by hastily designed controls: Environments are nearly unresponsive save for unlocked doors; peaceful human interaction is off-limits; and first-person view is curiously blocked out, exacerbating the navigational difficulties presented by the creature’s enlarged physique. Transforming in and out of the form at-will preserves the gameplay’s overall integrity and enjoyment (townspeople no longer attack the human visage of a vampire, making the choice highly compatible with your Dragonborn identity), but isn’t free from a vulnerable, often laggy two- or three-second delay.
Siding with the Dawnguard settles players into Fort Dawnguard – a picturesque, titanic mountainside castle near Riften that’s incrementally renovated into a lavish, yet battle-ready fortress as the quests advance. It’s a progression premise that’s ostensibly reflective of the group’s advancement – the amassing of a resistance – as our vampire-hunting leader, Isran, labors to find a solution for the undead scourge. The side quest structure never really deviates from this pattern of resource gathering, recruiting, and teambuilding, however, and the Dawnguard pathway’s accompanying perks – armored trolls, enhanced crossbow technology, and a werewolf skill tree for those who choose the game’s other transformative ability – don’t amount to the appeal of having a go-go-gadget Vampire Lord power.
As mentioned, Dawnguard’s settings and overarching narrative are nearly identical between the vampire/vampire hunter pathways – mostly minor story and dialogue tweaks are made to accommodate intersecting character subplots – and some fans will be dismayed by the lack of a true double-edged campaign. But the content Bethesda has implemented doesn’t always disappoint.
Level design begins with well-charted Skyrim staples – caves, crypts, dungeons, caves – but then journeys into sprawling, spellbinding destinations as the plot thickens. Our new companion, Serana (the detached daughter of Lord Harkon), is a beautiful, articulate, and deeply intriguing character with a keener AI sense to boot. Moreover, quests provide opportunities for new gear and weapons, such as Dragonbone items and the sun-powered Auriel’s Bow, and are replete with loot made copiously available by new enemies like Gargoyles and Legendary Dragons. Many of the new items can be reproduced at forges, generating fresh approaches to smithing skill mastery and material hoarding.
Attempting to address more qualms about the base game – our Skyrim review was glowing, but not without gripes – Dawnguard injects a few incidental updates to northern province of Tamriel that offer a modicum of new functionalities. With new dragons comes new dragon shouts, mighty additions to the laconic draconic language that even extend to summoning an Ancient Dragon into battle. Long overdue, horse combat holds up pretty well between arrow slinging and blade slashing, but unfortunately restricts the use of mounted magic. For players feeling fickle about their previously-created face, a mysterious character in Riften is now on hand to assist with any cosmetic changes. (Race and gender are off limits, though; DNA’s discovery is an epilogue to plastic surgery in Tamriel, too.)
Like its eponymous fort, Dawnguard has a few cobwebs lying around that players can’t help but notice. It’s nowhere close to the banner DLC status of Oblivion’s Shivering Isles, and equally distant – even though Bethesda has occupied itself with a spate of Skyrim patches in the interim – to the quality representative of a half-year effort.
With that, however, it’s still Skyrim; the ground has that same beautiful crackle beneath your feet. And anyone who invested triple-digit hours into the base game shouldn’t hesitate from chalking up 15 more, with an expansion that further contributes an epic quest line; sprinkles in a few arresting characters and fantastical destinations; and doesn’t skimp on richly verbose writing, generally rewarding combat and gameplay enhancements, and enough underlying grease to keep the wheels turning.
Worth the wait is highly questionable; worth the purchase is not.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dawnguard is now available for download on the Xbox 360 for 1600 Microsoft points. A release for the PlayStation 3 and PC is planned for the end of July.
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Our Rating:
3.5 out of 5
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they’ve sold over 3 million copies of this pile of horse s*** yet they couldn’t hire new voice actors, hire proper programmers to fix all the bugs/glitches or hire proper animators yeah very good studio indeed
and before you but hurt fans start, main missions shouldn’t be glitched and neither should faction quests which to this date have not been fixed (not to mention the recent patches on 360 have caused the game to suffer from severe lag and frame rate issues). and on that note htf is the game ‘expansive’ when the main story takes less then 7 hours to complete and the dungeons are all pretty much copy/paste of one another, explain that for me deer sheep.
on topic: the vampire lord form looks really cool, good to see at least some people in the studio have some creativity
Still have not encountered the over exaggerated glitches, bugs and lag you keep talking about. How is it expansive? Ask the people who’ve spent hundreds of hours on the game for which there are many. And yes, the Vampire Lord form does look cool.
Skyrim is an impressive game, it offers more content and depth than some MMO’s I could mention. The odd problem is bound to happen with such a large game. Though personally I haven’t experienced any major issues. I play on a 360 and have only had a few minor issues. Most have been resolved by reloading, going back to a previous save or clearing the cache.
The game is expansive because of the amount of content available to the player. Completing the main storyline in a game like this is just to keep you going in the right general direction. In a way the main storyline should almost be viewed as a side quest.
Every game is subjective but sales figures don’t tend to lie. I think if you personally view this game as rubbish, then you have to ask yourself why you don’t see what everybody else is seeing. Some games take a bit more perseverance than others. Some games just don’t suit you own personal taste no matter how popular they are overall. Some people just hate anything that is popular.
I do have my doubts about Dawnguard, having started I don’t get much of a feel for it. But then on the other hand I feel it’s worthwhile to support a developer that gives me games with a large amount of substance. Even if not everything they do suits my own personal tastes. We need more games like this and our expectations as customers should be for developers to provide more games with depth to them.
what do you mean by amount of content, the game world is as busy as the one in gta 4 in terms of side quests, exploration and screwing around. the only reason it would take hours for someone to complete is if they walk everywhere instead of fast travelling like a normal person.
like i said, there shouldn’t be any issues with MAIN STORY MISSIONS, faction quests or clan related stuff, i am unable to complete the warrior and thrives guild b/c of 2 glitches that i cannot undo and they wont fix no matter how many bloody people tell them the problem.
i prefer a good RPG over an action packed shooter any day hence why i loved amalur. this however is nothing compared to amalur in terms of scale (if amalur had no zone loading it would be way bigger then skyrim), quality (everything in this looks and sounds better then everything in skyrim period) and variety (there are barely any dungeons that look or feel like another).
bethesda solemnly relied on their reputation and sheep talk to sell this cluster of chaotic bs that is only a visual c*** tease (and that only for pc).
There is tons of content in Skyrim, yes some of it may be repetitive. I have rolled my third character and third different class, I am still finding new areas and new stuff in the game. You are never going to experience everything from one play through on a game like this, same with Amalur.
As for Amalur I enjoyed that as well though I had more bugs with Amalur than Skyrim oddly enough. I agree Amalur does certain things better, but then it is also pretty safe. It follows a tried and tested model. Skyrim they have tried to move away from things like traditional classes and base characters on the style you decide to play. So I think Bethesda are perhaps taking more risks.
I think most people know how Bethesda operate by now, at least with games like this one. If you expect an error free game from these guys, you wait for at least the game of the year edition. In their defence we have had a constant stream of patches plus some new functionality. So no they don’t get everything right, but at least they are trying.
Most of the problems with quests/faction related quests, tend to be down to the consequences of your actions. You can normally complete everything but you have to be careful to select the right choice. Unfortunately you might realise that too late with your current character.
I had the same thing with Amalur and The Hunters Hunted smashing the mirror quest. Something I had done previously screwed the quest. I restated with a new character and it played through fine without issue. Sometimes in our eagerness to explore, and kill everything, we can trip ourselves up.
how did skyrim try and stride away from the norm ? if anything amalur is the one hat doesn’t tie you down to a specific play style since you can wipe your skills at any time and choose another approach to combat. i know this b/c i had a warrior mage and a universalist, both played differently and both suffered in different parts of the game.
skyrim’s combat is not only hack and slash but if you can close enough attention it is almost turn based in the sense that you never clash swords with an enemy and can only really block BEFORE they attack not during.
@ all the fanboy rejects below
you are not contributing to this thread at all and all you’re doing is attacking me and not replying to my argument, so gtfo and go play one of your streamlined load of bs games that you so dearly love.
Jwaka, we get the point, so stfu.
STFU yourself fanboy. I like Skyrim but people like you make the fanbase embarrassing to be part of.
I will address your first statement, since the other 3 you made are nonsense. What happened to your gamer spirit? The idea of exploration and encountering the unknown. Traversing miles of land to reach your objective is satisfying and rewarding because of the experiences you’ve had between those two points. Why do you like Amalur so much? Is everything fed to you with a silver spoon or something? No need to travel and explore?
Did this guy just say Amalur is bigger and looks better than Skyrim?
Are you smoking crack? The world is way bigger in Skyrim and the visuals are 10 times better.
Amalur looks like WoW.
Amalur isn’t really that big. I have the game and beat it twice. Its really repetitive but that’s my opinion. I’m not defending Bethesda by any means, and you can’t even compare two different genre’s of RPG’s.
I prefer a RPG with realistic graphics and textures. So be default Amalur wasn’t my cup of tea. I got it because it looked like the makings of a MMO but turned it into a RPG. lol.
Honestly. The reason why Skyrim takes so long is because people actually enjoy exploring the world. I fast travel all the time. Game still took me 50+ hours just to discover everything. 10ish for main questline, 10ish for factions. and unlimited just for dicking around.
Honestly. Amalur took me at most 15 hours(And thats doing all the side missions. Even the chores around little towns). Everything was a chore. Combat was so repetitive I wanted to shoot myself in the face with a 12gage. The dungeons where small as heck. Didn’t even give the illusion that it was huge like Skyrim did. There’s like… 6? different monsters to fight? Fae, Spiders, Bandits, Wolves, Weird wooden things, and some flying bird things. xD Honestly I can’t remember.
But honestly… Amalur?
Dude no ones attacking you. You’re just being a d-bag for bashing on a game.
Therefore by the rules of trolling we have a right to bash the hell out of the game you so dearly love.
Piss and moan all you want. All you’re doing is proving to us that you have no PROOF that what you’re saying is indeed fact.
Skyrim doesn’t tie you down to a specific play style. You can change anytime you want. ANYTIME you want. Amalur you’re weapons don’t clash at all. Its you hit dodge run away hit dodge and run away.
In fact.. How does any game make any contribution to anything? In theory its all just taking a little bit of this game, adding it to this game, and give it this title. Anything that Amalur has contributed it’s taken from multiple MMORPG titles. WoW, guild wars, Warhammer, etc. Specifically the SCARY amount of likeness between WoW, Warhammer, and Amalur. Its scary as hell. lol
I disagree
Jeez, 8 months after the game’s release and you’re still whining about it? Go play other games, there’s plenty out there. Unless you expect 100% error-free perfection, like you seem to. Because then, you’re s*** out of luck.
Jwalka, its clear you’re just a flamer, and an unoriginal one at that, and one that happens to have awful grammar. I bet you got all of your arguments from /v/, because you sound like a gamerfag. Dungeons are hand crafted and only the textures are used over again, Amalur isn’t as original, and your newfag glitch complaints are getting old. No one has had those problems, you’re just being an over-dramatic s***. Leave.
Could you possibly hypocrite yourself more? God the fanbase for TES is obnoxious. Poor baby, someone doesn’t like the game we do? GET OVER IT. A giant pile of ad hominem attacks makes you look worse than those you attack.
Pathetic argument. We were simply defending ourselves from non sense, un necessary flame boy attacks. They don’t like a game we do? They should keep it to themselves.
b*******, no one is attacking you. The fact that you even believe this to be the case, is pathetic. The fact that you think Gamerant is some fanboy circle jerk haven for you, and other people like you, is pathetic. GROW THE F@CK UP.
Stop taking criticism of a game, personally. If you don’t like like another persons’ opinion on a VIDEO GAME. Don’t tell other people what they can and can’t post, to protect your delicate ego.
To clarify, no one is attacking you, by way of saying the game is bad. (I’m totally attacking you, for making the fanbase look like idiots)
YOU however, responded like a ten year old, who was told his favorite Pokemon sucks. You aren’t defending anything, but your own ego.
You’re attacking a person, on a personal level, for their opinion on A GAME YOU LIKE.
and you have the nerve to call something ELSE, pathetic?
Most of what you said was irrelevant angry gibberish.
How mad are you…. On a scale of one to ten?
Lost the argument, resort to simple trolling. Well done, consider me thoroughly in my place from this day hence.
Talking about acting like a child, attacking and cursing people out doesn’t make you any older or tougher.
No it doesn’t. Actually being older and tougher makes me older and tougher. Though I may or may not be either, depending on the person I’m talking to.
Irrelevant really. Also, your entire point is “no u” so forgive me, if I refuse to feed that lazy argument, any more than this one post.
So I’m guessing that if it wasn’t worth the wait for XBOX, then it’s DEFINITELY not worth the wait for PS3 and PC getting it sometime in the next month…
I am liking Dawnguard so far, but I must say, having tried Vampire Lord the drawbacks to being a Vampire almost outweigh the benefits. The controls in Vampire for are clunky, and the inability to interact with ANYTHING is a pain. And as said, you can’t ply in FP in VP form which sucks. Want to loot, you have to switch out of VP form and if you play in FP it doesn’t automatically go back into FP when you switch back. And switching forms takes about 10 seconds on average while you can’t do anything. The whole sun issue is workable, at least you don’t turn into a steam lump of bubbling fleash in sunlight, but VP form is useless as you don’t regen health/mana/stam in VP form in the sun. Frankly once I am done with the Vampire story I will most likely take the quest to cure my vampirism.
The Dawnguard faction is pretty fun, the quest are pretty much the same, just from the other sides perspective, but the keep is awesome, and the new kit is really nice. And the fact that the keep changes and upgrades as you progress is a nice touch and adds a sense of accomplishment.
I still haven’t tried the new Werewolf tree, but I have a toon working on it.
My only complaints were the shortness of the main quest and the lack of expanding on the level system which I was really hoping for because i’m level 81 and plenty of good perks but no points, I seriously wish they would take the Fallout NV approach w/ the levels my last complaint is it’s not worth 1600 it should be 1200
Jwalka, you talk insult Skyrim all the time, even on articles that aren’t about Skyrim. We get it. You don’t like it. But you’re the minority, as most people who play Skyrim like/love. The game came out 8 months ago, and you’re still acting like we’ve all been brainwashed to love Skyrim, and you’ve come to deliver the truth. It’s been 8 months. Just get over it. Girlfriends whose 3-year boyfriends dumped them are over it sooner 8 months.
**sooner than 8 months.
Really well written and excellent article.
Personally, i loved Skyrim, Maybe i’ve gotten lucky, but i havn’t noticed many of the quest-breaking bugs i seem to always hear people complaining about. I have to admit though, The Dawnguard DLC was good. I enjoyed the things they added, but i was a little dissapointed on the scale of it. I was expecting somthing more like The Shivering Isles expansion that was for The Elder Scrolls 4, somthing that added a whole new area. but overall i think it was still pretty good.
Hey guys, want to know what my favorite RPG is? Pokemon. Jwalka, got anything you want to say to that?
I regret spending 30 bucks on this. I chose to side with the Dawnguard first time around. They’re armor looks horrible. You end up siding with a vampire right off the bat who becomes your companion. Since she’s a quest npc she’s invincible.
I get bored after like 20 min. So far all I’ve been doing is retrieving dwemer bolt schematics & killing random vampires.
It does help me fall asleep though if I can’t seem to normally. One good thing about the xpac.
LMFAO!!! Yeah, WHATEVER!
You are obviously a troll. You obviously crave attention and you look to the internet for it, go outside and make some real friends.
Judging by your pitiful style of responding, you’re pretty special.
I get the impression that the reviewers had only played through the whole of the Castle Volkihar branch of the DLC and not the whole of the Dawnguard branch as well by the time of writng. Otherwise they would have made it clear that there is both an mid-point and end-point opportunity to be made a vampire lord by Serena in the Dawnguard branch as well. Best of both worlds.
I also think the review undersells the DLC. The crossbow is so satifying to use, something we’ve been missing ever since Morrowind. The upgrades to the weapon itself and also the elemental effects on the bolts are a great addition to the Dragonborne’s armoury. As much more of an RGP-er than a power-gamer myself, I took one of my less developed characters through the DLC. By the end he is fully pimped out and a total badass (modelled on the chararcter Blade).
The review didn’t mention other nice additions, such as the new spectral horse. Whilst a choice between this one and Shadowmere is welcome, the fact that the spectral horse can be conjured is a real bonus, comparable to being able to whistle for your hourse anywhere outdoors in Red Dead Redemption. Another nice feature, complimenting the werewolf skill tree, is the option to regain lycanthropy from the Companions even after curing yourself.
I think it is human nature to always want more, no matter how good something is. Yes, I would have liked more quests. Yes, using magic while on horseback would have be handy for my mage (though I’d prefer some kind of hovering/flying spell
)
But I would say overall this DLC really hits the mark and brings back attention to a game that many of us have spent whole days if not weeks of real time in our lives playing. Go buy it. Four stars ****
I must admit as I played through it from the Dawnguard perspective and it got better. I especially liked the part of getting Auriel’s Bow and the armoured trolls. But I was a little taken aback by the anti-climax ending, again. The ending does it no justice at all, it should have been more dramatic. But I thought the same about the main Skyrim quest line.
I couldn’t find that spectral horse even though I had the quest, I roamed around for ages and just gave up in the end. I had a rough idea of where it was suppose to be, but that whole area I found little confusing and it gave me a headache.
Overall it’s certainly worth the purchase and I look forward to playing it through again as a vampire.