The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon

released on Jun 03, 2003

The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon is the second expansion for its RPG of the Year, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for PC. Bloodmoon takes you to the frozen Island of Solstheim where the Empire is establishing a new mining colony - a venture being threatened by the prophecy of the Bloodmoon and rumors of werewolves. You have a choice of stories to follow and have the opportunity to defend the colony, take control over how the colony is built up, and eliminate the werewolves. Or, you can decide to join the werewolves and become one of them, opening up a whole new style of gameplay.


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The new silly voice lines carried this DLC for me

Great idea with werewolves! I even bought the CD! 

While Morrowind is hailed as one of Bethesda's best the DLC is something that I've heard relatively little about in comparison. This was always a bit odd to me considering the reverence ones like The Shivering Isles from Oblivion and Point Lookout from Fallout 3 get. Having finally played through Bloodmoon this really isn't as shocking anymore because this might be one of the most excruciating experiences I've played through in a long time.

Before that though I'd like to discuss everything this expansion does well. Solstheim as a hub is pretty rock solid, providing an interesting changeup compared to Vvardenfellwith its own set of wildlife and strange goings ons to deal with (fuck Spriggans). The big optional quest line involving the trade company is also a really fun one, with Carnius Magius being a pretty fun antagonist that manages to make himself one of the most morally reprehensible characters in all of Morrowind (fuck Bureaucrats). Lastly is how much of the DLC feels like a prototype of Oblivion, with the bigger emphasis on voice acting and setpieces reminding me a lot of similar moments to it (FUCK KRISH YOU STUPID FUCKING BLUE GREMLIN).

With all that out of the way I'd like to take a moment to compare base game Morrowinds combat loop with Bloodmoons. While calling Morrowind a pacifists dream is complete horseshit you can get through a good chunk of the game without killing, and that design is complemented well with mobs being spread out pretty fairly. Bloodmoon says FUCK THAT and decides to make simply getting around Solstheim an excuritaing experience by spamming areas with dozens of mobs that love to constantly respawn or break whatever quest you're on because fuck you. After completing the Raven Rock questline I just ended up running from most encounters because I couldn't be bothered to give a shit, with the final encounter being cheesed with invisiblity because they blocked levitation (which I find really funny in retrospect). Besides that another odd quirk is related to the Raven Rock questline, with a mandatory and borderline arbitrary wait requirement to continue things (which gives enemies more time to respawn FUCKING THANKS TODD). This just feels like massive padding for an already short expansion and just makes the experience that much worse.

Here's hoping Tribunal can pick up the slack because Bloodmoon is a painful experience that I can only recommend to those looking for an excuse to play more Morrowind. A disappointing expansion to Bethesda's magnum opus.

4/10

Morrowind's expansions have an inflated reputation thanks to the quality of the base game. Bloodmoon clocks in as the better of the two in my experience, but only barely. The terrible final dungeon does a lot to squander the good will it builds up over the course of the main quest.

The landscape of Solstheim is probably the most lackluster aspect of the experience. It feels hastily put together and lacks hardly any of the geographic diversity of Vvardenfell. There is little in the way of landmarks and the majority of the map is flat, open plains only really distinguishable by whether they're grassy or snowy.

This follows the Tribunal trend of vertical difficulty progression only cranked up even more extreme. The werewolves in Solstheim make the Sixth House look like a bunch of street punks and trash weapons found on goblin-like enemies rival some of the mid-high tier gear from the vanilla game. This can occasionally lead to interesting combat scenarios for your jacked out high level character, but mostly it just means things feel a bit spongy as you wander the barren countryside beating up lone boars.

Elements of Nord culture are explored reasonably well here, as much as you can expect for an expansion. Quest writing and design however feels stylistically different compared to those in Morrowind. Voice acting is used far more frequently. Both of these feel like a further prelude of things to come in Oblivion. It leaves the experience feeling very out of place among the rest of the content you did prior.

Once again the implementation here is awkward. We have more new textures overwriting original assets by mistake once again and now every single NPC is eager to tell you about Solstheim. At least it's not as remotely intrusive as Tribunal's assassins.

Not a bad time, but also not really worth playing more than once. It feels like they overextended themselves in trying to make a new, big landmass and having this as the gameplay conclusion to the game makes for an odd finale. Taking the two expansions as a whole it feels like resources would have been better spent focusing on a single, larger expansion that delivered more on the narrative elements of Tribunal and extrapolated them outward. But hindsight is 20/20 after all.

otro pedazo de dlc de morrowind, mucha nieve, nuevos enemigos, nuevas misiones muy divertidas y bastante mas faciles que las del dlc de tribunal (siempre que se obtenga las espadas del dlc de tribunal para facilitarse todo) se conoce a un principe daedrico interesante y se puede conseguir la lanza mas rota del juego ademas de armaduras hermosas exclusivas de esta zona. seria un 10 si no fuese por el bug del boludo de korst wind eye y porque no aporta la misma calidad de lore que su expansion hermana tribunal, aun asi el lore de nordicos estuvo muy bueno.

Bloodmoon falls short of its predecessor, Tribunal, in terms of originality and overall enjoyment. The setting lacks excitement, leaving players unengaged and bored. The inclusion of the werewolf mechanic proves to be a monotonous and uninteresting addition, failing to captivate or enhance the gameplay experience. Unfortunately, Bloodmoon feels like a total mess, requiring considerable effort to complete due to the lack of enjoyment it offers. Overall, it fails to live up to expectations and fails to deliver a satisfying expansion to the Morrowind universe.