Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Immersive"

Dragonborn definitely makes amends for the underwhelming Dawnguard to an extent. You've got new weapons, monsters, armour, ingredients & even a decent clutch of new voice actors. Solstheim is a great new place to explore & any Morrowind players will recognise the atmosphere & building architecture of that game. I'm certain they've remixed the Morrowind music for this dlc which is a nice touch.

I guess the thing that many people will be dying to try is the dragon possession & ability to ride them. Well in my opinion this aspect of Dragonborn is a major disappointment. I'm not that fussed in truth as I'm satisfied with most other things this dlc has to offer, but I had hoped for full control of the dragon, not the on the rails style. It's fun for maybe 5 minutes & yes it feels a touch glitchy.

Bugs & issues have plagued the console version of Skyrim & it's dlc's from day one & it's no different here. My PC can run this game now but it's too late. Already hammered Skyrim 200 hours plus. There are performance issues in this dlc that are bordering on the unacceptable. I can't see any visual upgrades so why is the frame rate struggling around the 30 fps mark & stuttering very badly at times. The dlc doesn't tell you when it's autosaving so you think the game has crashed like it often does. I'm seriously not going to get into detail about any more of the bugs & glitches here because it would take a while.

The main quest line in this dlc is fairly short but there's so many cool meaningful side quests to discover that I reckon a good 20 plus hours are here. I've done about that but have quite a few more area to discover & a few side quests still to do. At 1600 points for 20-30 hours, that's a good deal even if you pay £40 for the main game & get 200 plus hours. Better value than Dawnguard for sure. EA scum & Bioware have released a 2 hour dlc for Mass Effect 3 for 1200 so this is serious value in comparison.

I have to say though I'm sick of Draugr enemies. I was hoping to take a break from them but they're very common in this dlc. Some of the new enemies are so damn cool though. Seekers & Lurkers in particular are very impressive. High level characters should get a decent challenge out of these new beasts.

All in all this is a great dlc & worth the septims. So much new gear to take back to Skyrim, great new enemies & as always with Skyrim, top notch atmosphere. Hope they can release some kind of update to fix performance. I'm certain they did for the main game because I remember that game ran like a tortoise with no legs when it first came out on console. Thanks for reading.