Ever since the release of its announcement trailer, “Skyrim’s” latest DLC (downloadable content) “Dragonborn” has caused quite its fair share of hullabaloo in the video game community.
Knowing that “Dragonborn” would cost a hefty $20 and include a whole slew of new content, gamers frothed at the mouth at the possibility of new lands to explore and a new, all-powerful enemy to conquer.
Well, it’s too bad that the DLC was a letdown.
All information about “Dragonborn” touted that the DLC would take us to a new land, and I will admit that this is true. The land is new, only in that it is separate from Skyrim, and that it is called Solstheim.
Players of Morrowind should remember the name Solstheim, but to exclusively Skyrim fans, Solstheim is a brand new land—sort of.
While in some areas, Solstheim is strange and clearly a break-away from Skyrim, but the rest of the island is snowy, mountainous, and dotted with Nordic crypts and alpine forests.
Sounds a lot like Skyrim, eh?
Perhaps I’m becoming too hard to please, but travelling to Solstheim didn’t feel like I was leaving Skyrim. It felt like an extension of Skyrim, and not exclusively a new land.
Now, about that all-powerful enemy.
His name is Miraak, and he, according to legend, was the first Dragonborn. Instead of serving the dragons, he strove to conquer them and Solstheim, but was defeated at his temple and has retreated to the realm of Hermaeus Mora, the knowledge hungry Daedric prince, to gather power.
Miraak talks big, but all that toughie talk is a bunch of puff ‘n stuff. Instead of behaving (and fighting) like the first and “most” powerful Dragonborn, he comes across as more of a bully in big armor that happens to be friends with some dragons.
The final confrontation between the current Dragonborn and Miraak does not feel like a boss fight at all—Miraak  fights, more or less, like a dumb little bandit. His health depletes quickly and he runs away a lot, leaving his dragon cronies to fight you (even they aren’t much of a challenge).
Miraak’s death sequence is cool, but the reward after the fight is…a load of baloney.
Hermaeus Mora allows you to strip one skill tree of perks and allocate those perks elsewhere. This is cool, yes, but if you’re not keen on restructuring your character (which I certainly wasn’t), what’s the point?
I was hoping for some new armor or a new weapon or some flashy new spells as rewards—not the ability to restructure.
And dragon mounting? More like sitting on a dragon while it flies aimlessly in a circle.
You gain the ability to subjugate and mount dragons through learning each Word of the Bend Will Shout, which are gained through completing the Miraak quest line.
I was excited to learn that I could finally tame these mighty beasts, but “Dragonborn” only allows you to do so to a small—an upsettingly small—degree. While you’re able to tell the dragon when and what to attack, you have no control over where it actually goes.
You can fast travel while mounted, but you cannot direct the dragon to fly to any non-specific location. Essentially, you cannot really explore the land of Skyrim on the back of a dovah.
Total and utter disappointment.
However, “Dragonborn” is not without its positives.The other quests available through “Dragonborn” are interesting and reveal a pleasing amount of information about the new NPCs and life on Solstheim. There are also many new locations to explore and discover, as well as four new Shouts to master.
Players of Morrowind will remember the rieklings, but they were entirely new to me–and boy, was I excited when I discovered them.
Dragonborn also includes a fun hunt for the legendary pirate armor Deathbrand (this treasure hunt is possibly my favorite aspect of the DLC).
There are many other positives and negatives to “Dragonborn,” but I’ll leave deciding upon those up to you. All things considered, it’s a decent DLC, but is probably not worth the $20.

By: Abby Ray