Some great additions to the core gameplay, but an utterly lackluster story make for an even expansion.
(Replaying all of Skyrim again, so be prepared for random reviews that have no context to anything that's current or probably relevant at all...).
I think for a DLC that was like, 'we're taking Elder Scrolls and fully diving into the gothic vampire shit so you can basically play the Van Helsing fantasy', this was weirdly unfocused. Like, all the cool castles and blood magic are there, and as someone who's a sucker for some Nosferatu-ass vampire content, I'm in when it comes out the gate with vampire lords, underground crypts and creepy skeletons. But while the vampires are the main threat here and the first quarter is entirely about them, eventually the game gets bored and is like, why don't we just take a detour and force you to spend a couple of hours at a time exploring giant areas that have nothing to do with vampires at all.
The Soul Cairn is just a big chunk of un-fast-travellable land with nothing interesting to really do or see outside of some random ghosts being like "help me with my generic task for no reason other than we want this area to seem more interesting." And while the Snow Elf area is a lot better, especially as the Falmer are arguably the coolest bit of lore in the game and it actively expands on that, it too just outstays its welcome and becomes this vast, relatively unremarkable stretch of snow and ice. My favourite bit is when the game realises it needs to pad time a bit, so the priest character that is actively pushing the story forward just goes "yo, sorry, I'm blind now," so you can do another quest just to fill the next hour or so.
It kind of feels like this was more a stopgap before they released the Dragonborn expansion than anything particularly meaningful, and while it's not bad, I think it's just one of those things that exists in the game and you don't really have to play it. I like the crossbow though. When it came out, it was worth getting just so you could make your stealth archer build even more ridiculously OP by basically giving them a wooden gun.
I think for a DLC that was like, 'we're taking Elder Scrolls and fully diving into the gothic vampire shit so you can basically play the Van Helsing fantasy', this was weirdly unfocused. Like, all the cool castles and blood magic are there, and as someone who's a sucker for some Nosferatu-ass vampire content, I'm in when it comes out the gate with vampire lords, underground crypts and creepy skeletons. But while the vampires are the main threat here and the first quarter is entirely about them, eventually the game gets bored and is like, why don't we just take a detour and force you to spend a couple of hours at a time exploring giant areas that have nothing to do with vampires at all.
The Soul Cairn is just a big chunk of un-fast-travellable land with nothing interesting to really do or see outside of some random ghosts being like "help me with my generic task for no reason other than we want this area to seem more interesting." And while the Snow Elf area is a lot better, especially as the Falmer are arguably the coolest bit of lore in the game and it actively expands on that, it too just outstays its welcome and becomes this vast, relatively unremarkable stretch of snow and ice. My favourite bit is when the game realises it needs to pad time a bit, so the priest character that is actively pushing the story forward just goes "yo, sorry, I'm blind now," so you can do another quest just to fill the next hour or so.
It kind of feels like this was more a stopgap before they released the Dragonborn expansion than anything particularly meaningful, and while it's not bad, I think it's just one of those things that exists in the game and you don't really have to play it. I like the crossbow though. When it came out, it was worth getting just so you could make your stealth archer build even more ridiculously OP by basically giving them a wooden gun.