Skyrim: Dawnguard

By Matthew Murray

Of all the things that might be lacking in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , content is not one of them. Bethesda Softworks' best-selling single-player RPG is absolutely stuffed with places to go, tasks to perform, and monsters to fight, so even hard-core visitors to the continent of Tamriel will find it difficult to experience everything. Still, if you want to put a different spin on the game you already know, there's good reason to be drawn to Dawnguard, the first full-length Skyrim expansion pack. It gives you the opportunity to view everything from a very different perspective and complete quests that bring you even closer to the most terrifying creatures of the night, although it doesn't do much to fill out the larger game. If you're expecting an embellishment rather than a full-scale revamping, you'll probably have a good time?but getting your full money's worth might be trickier.

Breaking Dawnguard
Dawnguard gives you one undeniably fun way to improve your cool factor: It lets you transform into a vampire lord, complete with bony wings, unique magical abilities, and a blood-deep aversion to sunlight. You can achieve this transformation starting around character level ten or so (potentially around the halfway mark, or maybe a bit later, on the main Dragonborn storyline), which is when you'll start hearing rumblings about a mysterious organization called Dawnguard.

Your investigations into the Dawnguard first reveal that this it is a group of passionate and dedicated vampire hunters, and eventually they bring you face to face with the leader of one of the land's most prominent covens and confront you with the choice of whether you want to commit your life to the (literal) dark or light. Make one decision and you'll be on the path of eradicating the undead threat from Skyrim; make the other, and you'll develop abilities you've never before dreamt of and an insatiable hunger for blood. This is, in other words, the base Empire-versus-Stormcloak jumbled up with a faction or guild initiation rite, recast in some unfamiliar geographic locales, and outfitted with longer teeth.

A Smallish Expansion
I'd love to be able to say that Dawnguard has more meat on its bones than this, but it really doesn't. Oh, there are a handful of new elements: a couple of shouts and spells, extra crafting possibilities, two beautifully rendered areas (one, the Soul Cairn, is located on the plane of Oblivion), the crossbow weapon type and a wide selection of bolts to shoot with. A woman in Riften lets you modify your facial appearance (not your gender or race), in case you've grown tired with the way your character looks. And you can now fight (with both ranged and melee weapons) while you're riding a horse.

Overall, however, sweeping changes and additions are few, and many don't make a particularly strong impression. The nicest of these is a pair of new perk trees?one for those suffering from lycanthropy, another for vampire lords?that let you expand your skillsets in previously impossible ways. But aside from a lot of plasma sucking if you go the vampire lord route, that's about the extent of what you'll find?a specialized interface lets vampire lords fly across water, summon a flock of bats, or turn into a temporarily invulnerable mist, but deactivates the standard options (such as the map, inventory, and quest screen). This gives the implementation a jerky, unfinished feeling that won't make you want to stay transformed 24/7 (which is an impossibility given the interference of the sun, but no matter), and can come across as more a technical burden than anything else.

For the Serious Skyrimmer Only
Ultimately, Skyrim: Dawnguard lives up to its promise just a little too well. For those already in love with the base game, who wouldn't want an add-on that presents even more things to enjoy and several tweaks that jazz up game play? But $20 is a bit steep given the lack of world-shaking revisions?that's nearly half the price of the full game, and even if you end up liking what's here, it's tough to shake the feeling that you're not getting your money's worth in the same way you do with straight-up Skyrim. There's a certain forbidden appeal to stalking through the darkened landscape in search of nourishing necks, and if you've always wanted to visit Tamriel in a completely different (and terrifying) guise, this is undoubtedly your moment. But casual players won't find that Dawnguard seriously amplifies their thrills: This one's for die-hard Dovahkiin only.

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