#the skyrim characters were easy because depending on what mods you had your npcs could look wildly different

[mamahoggs]

i keep hopping back and forth on whether i think my first take on prompto is more accurate than my last…. why is this such a struggle

[muffintonic]

Alright, I think i’m done BOTW 2 spamming for today. Anywho, time for some thoughts in general!

1) I hated how the shrines in BOTW were so cold and dark compared to the bright and lively nature outside (I wish they had all looked like the Master Trials challenge where there were trees and stuff incorporated inside), so I hope if we’re forced to have dungeons they’ll be more like the Wind Waker ones. 2) I hope they don’t make us use the grappling hook or anything like in Wind Waker to move around the sky islands (I hated that mechanic). 3) I’m probably one of the few people who wanted less Zelda and more of the Champions in HWAOC since i’m only really attached to BOTW (and we saw a fair amount of Tetra in Wind Waker)/apparently Zelda’s been sidelined in all the other games, so i’m hoping in vain that we get more Champions material in BOTW 2. Also, Link could stand to have some more cutscenes centered around him as well (the few we got in some of the sidequests in BOTW were great). 4) I only really somewhat care about Riju and Sidon, so I won’t mind if the new gang gets sidelined in BOTW 2 (I still think Nintendo wasted the found family/band of brothers aspect on the dead characters--I love them so much and they’re all I want!! The problem is, they’re dead and I don’t really care all that much about their replacements!!! I dunno, maybe i’m hampered by the fact that I can replay the original champions’ memories whenever I want/read their diaries, but I can’t rewatch the new gang’s cutscenes AKA i’ve forgotten their characterization since they don’t talk to me much now that the game’s over). It’d be great if they have some weaving storylines in BOTW 2 that will get me more invested in them, but currently i’m not that interested. 5) Speaking of which, I know it’s 100% not going to happen, but goddang if I don’t want the Champions to have been returned to life. Nintendo totally squandered HWAOC by not making it a true prequel/canon to BOTW (the Champions Ballad confirmed that the Divine Beasts had trials in order to be synced to the champs, so the new gen use of them wouldn’t have happened without that + Mipha thought Link had changed in BOTW yet says in HWAOC that he hasn’t changed + some scenes like “Champion Revali’s Song” never happened at all/got replaced with alternative scenes that really changed some dynamics + basically all of Revali’s time-relative characterization from his diary/pre-100 years of solitude got thrown out + I feel like Daruk got totally sidelined), so i’m still craving that Champions content. Also, I feel like it’s totally unfair that Zelda came out of 100 years totally unaged while everyone else died. Life seems to really suck for people in the LoZ universe who aren’t chosen by divine powers. 6) They’d better keep it open world and non-linear. I can’t go back to being forced to backtrack/trudge through things, I just can’t. BOTW was everything i’ve ever dreamed about in a game (truly open world + non-linear + interactive + meaningful story + lots of outfits + beautiful landscapes) with Skyrim previously being the only thing that came close to what I wanted, so I really hope BOTW 2 doesn’t deviate too much from that. 7) I really liked Kass in BOTW, but i’m not sure what direction they’d go with him in BOTW 2/i’d be fine if he sat BOTW 2 out. I worked so hard to complete all his quests in BOTW so he’d go back home to his family, GODDANGIT, KASS. 8) Someone mentioned that since the first trailer had underground aspects, we’re probably going to be playing as Zelda with the Slate there, and I agree. They didn’t make a playable model for her in HWAOC for nothing. 9) I want to be able to stable the deer and bears and stuff, but I know that won’t happen. Being able to ride the moose and rhino things from the Hebra area probably won’t happen either, but I want to ride them!!! 10) I hope there’ll be at least a few new buildings and stuff in the towns/they’ve started construction on some areas in Central Hyrule, but I guess that’ll depend on how long it’s been in-universe since BOTW. Or maybe not, considering how there’s still Karson and Hudson even though Bolson retired from Bolson Construction--insta-towns like Tarrey Town could totally be feasible if they wanted! 11) I have one foot in the camp that believes there’ll be time shenanigans in BOTW 2. HWAOC totally threw me off with it being an alternate timeline, so i’m not sure whether we’re going to be experiencing that again or time travel itself, but I definitely won’t be surprised this time around if Nintendo goes that route again (and it would be super interesting to see the Link from 10,000 years ago). I’m not entirely convinced that the Link we see exploring the sky in the second trailer isn’t our Link, mainly because he seems to still have on the blue boxers from BOTW. 12) I also heard that maybe this will be the last LoZ game ever since something something Demise something Skyward Sword something something lore from games i’ve only vaguely looked into (i’ve only ever played BOTW --> Wind Waker --> HWAOC)??? If so, it kind of sucks that I came in just when they started making games with playstyles palatable to me (I had to look up every single thing when playing Wind Waker, but BOTW let me solve things according to MY logic/I missed being able to explore in HWAOC), but at least it’ll end on a super high note/I won’t experience later disappointment, I guess. If BOTW 2 involves breaking the reincarnation cycle for the Triforcers, I would be really surprised. (On a related note, Nintendo making Ganondorf good would also be a 100% shock to me, but it would be great to end on that as a subversion. Yes, I want them to bring back the semi-complicated Ganondorf from Wind Waker.) 13) I hope they don’t rush releasing it. I heard they pushed back BOTW originally (I got it in 2019), but it came out fantastic for it! I know COVID’s been affecting things, so I really hope they’re treating their staff right and are mindful of crunch. 14) I want even more outfits (there seem to be at least two new ones, if the variant of the Hylian Tunic crossed with Link’s Champion’s Tunic counts). Give me all the outfits!!! Also, I hope we get even more hair variations in addition to the hair down option (which is all i’ve ever wanted since I saw the mod that altered the Ancient Helmet). 15) I wonder if we’re going to get a bonus for having both BOTW and HWAOC save data. 16) I wonder if we’re going to be keeping the Champions’ skills. I’m going to miss being super overpowered, if not. 17) I hope Nintendo doesn’t cave in and make surfaces climbable in the rain. Having that limiter is more realistic and Link would otherwise be too overpowered with a super climbing ability. 18) I liked BOTW’s scattered music that got more noticeable in populated areas because it was fitting for the post-apocalyptical/nature aspect. Hearing your footsteps in an open field and the buzzing of insects was super nice and prevented me from getting music fatigue (which i’d probably experience since whenever I play BOTW it’s for 5-10 hours at a time). I hope Nintendo either keeps that or makes audio options. 19) I heard that BOTW 2 is going to be super dark or something, and i’m okay with dark, but not GRIMdark, so I hope it doesn’t go that far. From what we’ve seen in the second trailer it still looks beautiful, but I hope it doesn’t do that thing that some games do where after the midpoint/a certain story point all the scenery permanently changes to be dark and scary (that’ll seriously hamper post-game playability for me if so). 20) If they expand on the Zonai, that would be super cool! Doubly cool if the time travel shenanigans involve them/ancient Link being one! 21) I kind of want windstorms to be a weather feature. We had lightning, heat, and cold, but no wind! No, I don’t count the wind geysers and the occasional breeze in Tabantha. 22) I want a chest in my house to hold more weapons than just the gear mounts. BOTW only had enough mounts for the champions’ gear, but it also had rare items like the Kite Shield and Forest Dweller’s Sword that you can’t get anymore once you use them up! 23) I want to be able to stable my horses at my house. What’s the point of that little area if you can’t stable your horse there! 24) Speaking of Link’s house: where is Zelda going to live? If the castle’s not reconstructed, it’d be neat if Link adds an extension to his house for her. 25) I hope they open up part-time jobs (think Mabinogi) as an option to earn rupees. Having to hunt for Luminous Stone deposits or feed Trott to make money can be such a chore. I think some of BOTW’s minigames/sidequests might count as those, but those minigames were either frustrating if your goal is to earn money (since most of them cost money to play in the first place and the mechanics weren’t always easy), or didn’t earn that much in general. 26) I wonder if Kilton is going to have updated items since the monsters seem to have changed. 27) I want to be able to dive underwater (mainly so I can explore the beautiful reefs over at Lurelin). A dive meter like the one from Super Mario Sunshine would be cool. Also, it’d doubly be neat if you had a separate stamina wheel for swimming and could permanently upgrade your swim/diving stamina (the speed+ swimming items just consumed your stamina faster, which was a pain)! 28) It’s definitely too late for this, but it’s a shame that the Hylians have so many face/body/hair and outfit variations, but the Zora, Rito, and Gorons don’t. The Gerudo were kind of okay with the hair and body variations, but the other races seemed to have a serious copy-paste problem. I guess technically some of the more important NPCs (ones with quests/cutscene triggers) had different coloring, but they were severely lacking in clothing variation. Also, the only old Rito was the elder??? At least the Gorons and Zora had some old folks besides their leader walking around. Very weird, but I don’t think BOTW 2 can fix any of this. 29) I wonder how they’re going to do the final boss battle, considering how epic/cinematic the BOTW 2x battle was. What can top fighting (on horseback, no less) a giant, flaming boar made out of malice? 30) I wonder what the Yiga are going to be up to, considering how Ganondorf seems to be somewhat kicking in BOTW 2.

[zydrateacademy]

Review: Conan Exiles

Quick disclaimer; I’ve only played single player with some interest in coop. I’ve yet to attempt open servers. As a result, I probably haven’t run into the more annoying stock of communities like purges and raids. I’ve played alone, modded, and at my own speed; that may color how I see this game. I’m okay with this. Let’s talk about Skyrim for a moment. Yes, it’s relevant. Do you all remember the first five to ten hours you played it? You were still weak, dealing with iron and steel swords and slashing your way through new caverns and dungeons while scrounging every bit of material you could for your smithing skill. Everything was new and different, and every new playthrough with a different race or weapon type. Then something happens. Several hours in, your smithing and sneak is 75+, you’re level 40 on Expert Difficulty one-shotting every bandit in every dungeon because you took a couple of very specific perks that make the entire game a cakewalk. Or you used alchemy to hilariously boost your stats in the several hundreds or thousands and now your armor rating is at a complete maximum and you’re doing sixty times melee damage on sneak attacks. At a certain point, Skyrim gameplay becomes less about mechanics and just about exploration. However, Exiles basically takes those first few hours and expands them across the entire experience. I get a bit of a Skyrim meets ARK and a lesser used comparison is that I’m honestly getting an Assassin’s Creed: Origins vibe, if nothing else certainly the aesthetics. Large sandy dunes and mountains with spotty greenery and oases, and I’m pretty sure I have an identical screenshot of climbing up a red mountain. My exile and Bayek would probably get along.

For whatever reason, I find Exiles to be a bit more accessible than ARK ever was. I think it’s perhaps the single player admin menu which if ARK has I have never found. Through it you’re able to manipulate things to an insane degree, like ten times the amount of experience and resource gain, as well as modifying how much damage you do and enemies take. I went through a largely unaffected run (though I did bump my experience up to 2X) the first time around and that sucked me in for several hours. In future games, I made it a little easier on myself with quality of life workshop mods including upping armor durability and reducing boss health pools. That last one might sound like a cheat, but when they have up to 30,000 health and I’m alone in the world, lowering it down to 10,000 or something makes the experience a LOT more bearable. I’m not saying ARK does not have these features (it does have workshop support) but it just wasn’t nearly as compelling as Exiles, which does in fact have a story contrary to what some reviews claim.

You start the game creating your character and get a randomized set of “crimes” which can include anything from punching a camel to lewd acts with corpses. It ranged wildly and there’s quite a list that can be quite comical, though the game itself is largely void of humor. Conan himself shows up to remove you from the cross and the game dumps you in a desert road, entirely naked and scrounging for fibers, rocks, and branches; all the things you’ll need to quickly craft a set of clothes and basic tools. The story doesn’t really hold your hand, nor does it tell you what to do. There are runestones dotted around the land that give you snippets and clues. The idea is that you have a magical slave bracelet that’s holding you in what is literally called “The Exiled Lands”, which is the whole area of the map you’re in. Go too far, and you’ll find a green shield that will automatically kill you. What’s involved in this is finding a large variety of bosses and McGuffins that will eventually remove the curse of the bracelet and allow your exile to leave.

That’s the basis of your presence in this strange world. What happens after that point is really up to you. Since you can hardly take on an undead dragon right out of the gate, you pretty much engage in the usual ARK/Minecraft flare. Build a house, hunt animals for hide, and generally spend a lot of time working your way up.

Eventually I found that I had the most fun when I had a decent set of medium armor and a good stock of weapons that I could repair on the fly and that allowed me to make various expeditions outside the comfort zone of what people call the “newbie river”, the southern-most landscape that offer you the most resources within a reasonable travel time. I eventually made it to the Hinterlands where I was able to harvest heavier leathers for better armors, which in turn allowed me to travel farther and take on more intimidating enemies. As you’d expect, you have to manage some resources including hunger, thirst, heat and weight. Thirst can be fairly easy to manage if you’re hanging around the southern portions of the map. Hunger isn’t too bad, and weight I’ve modded out entirely, which I’ll justify shortly. Beyond that there’s a full listing of RPG elements with various perks and stats you can acquire as you level up. In an unmodded game you can only max out a couple so in multiplayer or co-op games you may want to split roles between survivors, gatherers, and combatants. The most fun I’ve had in this game is just the unrestrained exploring, which for me has only been with the help of some workshop mods. I got an insane encumbrance mod early in my career because once I acquired a legit “decent” set of armor, my weight was at 70% regardless of how much stuff I tried to store away. Even in my most purist playthroughs, that mod will always remain. I am less irritated with weight in the likes of Skyrim because I typically have fast travel and stores to sell my crap to, but here I do not have that convenience. Fast travel in Exiles is possible but more of a mid- to end-game perk once you explore enough of the map. There’s a bunch of obelisks you can purify and then travel to through a map room, of which I haven’t done a lot of research and I’m not sure where to find that. As it stands, everything you need you have to get on foot. No horses, no mounts, just hauling all the ass.

The lack of fast travel is indeed a late-game annoyance. Alongside that are a variety of bugs that you’ll come across for a post Early-Access game. I’ve found that engaging in combat within certain variables will have me and the NPC I’m fighting just... sorta flail at each other for a bit. Neither of us take damage, and I noticed that it is because we had some buildings and terrain above us. I lured them out and now we both took damage again. Speaking of, the combat leaves a lot to be desired. It gives me Origins vibes again with some blocking, dodging and health bars. However there’s absolutely no lock-on and hit detection is very wonky when I try to do some light attacks right next to a crocodile only for them to miss entirely. I had to back up and try again and it would work. This happens about twenty percent of the time, depending on my attack. Conversely, a heavy spear attack always hits my enemy.

Some enemies also have knockback effects. I’d be fighting basic bird type enemies and they’d reel in, walk towards me and I’d be knocked over. Apparently they’re “charging” but they don’t go faster than walk speed and thus are difficult to detect. Maybe that’s my fault but it’s just a bit annoying. I also find base building to be vaguely irritating and I find myself doing the ol’ Fallout 4 thing of turning on god mode (in this game, admin mode), getting unlimited resources and at least starting with the basic shape of the building that I want. I’ve only resorted to that once in my ~5 playthroughs and my next semi-purist play will try to be a little more conservative and patient. Patience is really the key here if you want to get the most out of the game. I’ve tried rushing towards the revered “Star Metal” for the endgame gear but found myself perfectly content with some normally crafted heavy stuff, or light armor if I want to dodge enemies more often. Exiles is kind of a slow burn at first but once you find an established area with decent walking distance to most forms of resource, you’re probably in good shape. My experience shined when I was in expedition mode, treating every corner as a new experience. Maybe in a few hundred hours nothing in this game will be new to me, but for now all I can do is stare wide-eyed at the world before me.

[breegullbeakreviews]

Summary: As was foretold in the Elder Scrolls, as civil war breaks out in Skyrim over claim to the throne, the Dragons have returned to bring about the end of time. Only one can stand against this threat and wield the power of the Voice against the Dragons, and that is the Dovahkiin: Dragonborn.

The Ancient order of vampire fighters known as the Dawnguard have returned. Just in time too it seems as the family of powerful vampire lords, the Volkihar’s, seek to bring about another prophecy foretold in the Elder Scrolls, to end the sun itself. Fight to stop the family or join them and bring about eternal darkness.

As the Dragons return, it seems you are not the only Dragonborn. Journey to the southern coast of Morrowind to do battle with the original Dragonborn who seeks to bend all to his whim.

Overall: Skyrim Special Edition is worth $60 if you’ve never played it before or if you have an itch to play it again. It’s an RPG you can play casually or dive in deep into the world and all its lore. Outside falling into the chosen one trope at every turn, it’s a fantastic game that everyone should check out if they haven’t already.

Changes: Skyrim hasn’t been rebuilt from the ground up. This is the same game in terms of assets and the buggy unstable programing that holds this game together. So then what’s changed?

Well the biggest change is that the game has now been moved from being built on 32 bit PC architecture to 64 bit PC architecture. Basically the game has access more of the consoles memory than the previous version. Also it isn’t running on the PS3’s cell processor so it functions on a PlayStation console day one. This means the game can support more things on screen without dropping the framerate. A lot of the graphical improvements seen in Fallout 4 have also come to Skyrim like those Volumetric God Rays along with improved water and snow shaders along with plenty of improvements that go beyond my complete understanding. Basically the game looks prettier and runs smoother. Also console mods but I’ll hit on those later.

Sadly some of the little things didn’t make it over. On Xbox 360 there were Kinect voice commands for shouts, sorting, and quick swapping weapons. While I know Xbox has downplayed the Kinect as of late, the PlayStation Camera is still a big deal and I’d have loved to see these come over. At the very least add these sort functions into the item storage. While it seems they automatically sort alphabetically now, but I’d like some options.

Narrative: This isn’t my first trip to Skyrim. I was exploring the snowy mountains and grassy valleys from day one back in 2011. I was so hooked in fact that by the 31st of December I had wrapped up all the base game achievements on the Xbox 360 version of the game. That being said I was only 17 when I first played the game, and despite having played the game before I noticed some things I hadn’t my first go-round.

Firstly with the Civil War. Despite it being a side questline it’s the first thing thrusted into your path as you play the game. In the years preceding the game after the events of the Oblivion Crisis the Worship of the Nordic Divine Talos was banned as part of the White-Gold Concordat, a treaty to end the Great War between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion. Skyrim’s people became quite angered by this banning and the Stormcloak Rebellion began when strict enforcement of this law began.

Whether you avoid this side quest line or not the game makes it constantly apparent the divide the war has caused. From the major things like destroyed idols to the little things like locals saying “by the eight” instead of “by the nine” or vice versa depending on where they stand on the worship of Talos and the war. Even if you avoid it entirely there is a late quest in the main quest line where you need to get a temporary truce between the two. Even beyond this there is some political long game that isn’t too hard to follow if you just listen to the dialogue. The only downside to this questline is that there is no way to end things peacefully.

The Thieves Guild is probably the height of the base games narrative chops. It’s a tale of betrayal, secret orders, and deception. I don’t want to spoil things, but every major guild questline ends with you as the leader of the guild so I can say that there is some shaking up of the power structure within the guild.

The Companions Guild is unexpectedly about the supernatural. Spoilers, but the higher ups in the organization are Werewolves. While the younger members of the organization are fine with remaining beasts, the elder leader wants to cure himself of this curse so he can go to Sovngarde instead of Hircine’s Hunting Grounds. It’s not a particularly meaty story, but it is fun.

The Dark Brotherhood is another great story as it’s again about an organization down on its luck. This is the last remain group of the brotherhood in Skyrim and they’ve turned away from following the ways of the Night Mother. That is until the Night Mother’s coffin shows up with the keeper in search of the next Listener, and you’ll never guess who that is. While it’s sadly padded by lesser contracts, the story here is good.

The College of Winterhold is the last major Faction of Skyrim. Its questline is pretty lame. On your first lesson you stumble upon an ancient artifact of immense power and evil McEvil-face wants to use if for evil so you need to stop him. Its direction is always obvious so it’s a super boring story that drags on.

Gameplay Loop: Skyrim is an RPG, but like all games it’s got a loop of actions you’ll be doing. You do quests that eventually lead to dungeons where you’ll obtain a bunch of loot. The loot you’ll then either sell, store, or craft into better loot to sell or store. It’s a simple loop that sadly can go off the rails pretty hard. Once your speech skill gets high enough you’ll need to go from town to town to sell all of your junk because vendors don’t have enough gold to let you simply go to one vendor. And don’t think putting things off is a good idea either. As I type this I’m currently several thousand pounds over encumbered as I ride horses from town to town selling all of the gear I crafted with all of the material I had stored over the past two weeks. This affair can last hours and it really breaks up the action, but storing everything isn’t ideal either. Early on this isn’t much of a problem, but it will become one rather quickly.

RPG Elements: I’m not a super hardcore role playing guy. I turn the difficulty down to super easy and pick the perks I think are useful. If you use a skill it works toward leveling it up. You can’t just spam things without them being in a useful context, but it’s not hard to work the system to your advantage.

Certain skills level well with one another. Wear a mix of light and heavy armor to work on both at once. Conjure your weapons to get some work in both conjuring and the weapon you conjured. Plus you can use a perk to capture souls from people killed with conjured weapons to use for enchanting which you can perform on all of your crafted weapons which you can sell to buy more crafting materials and soul gems while boost your speech skill and oh god it’s an endless cycle.

Combat: As I said I play on easy. That being said due to not just dragons, but how broken stealth is, Archery is ridiculously over powered. Unless you play as certain races, magic in combat is really pointless, and I never found myself using potions. Now it’s true I should probably have the difficulty higher up if I want the challenge, but the thing is I really don’t I’m here to explore a cool world and could care less about the combat.

What’s here can get complicated if you let it, but it’s simple enough to grasp if you are just looking to get past it and explore. You have a lot of options, but as long as you focus on one you’ll be fine.

Dawnguard: Dawnguard is the best worst DLC of all time. Everything about it I should love, but its general lack of polish just kills it for me. Dawnguard triggers at level 10 so you can start it super early on, but once you get started you’ll be dealing with vampires attacking towns and possibly killing NPCs. There are two brand new areas that are super cool, but neither of these areas has an overworld map, meaning you’ll need to navigate them with the crummy local map. These areas also have just a single fast travel point to reach them and then you’ll need to wander from there.

You can become a werewolf again if you’ve cured yourself, but only once, which really sucks because being a werewolf was vastly improved with the DLC. Being a Vampire Lord just isn’t fun. You’re constantly too big to get through doors and changing back requires navigating through the favorites menu, which you’d only be told about if you initially sided with the Vampires as that’s the only way to get a tutorial on being one. Now a large chunk of these were fixed with mods, but the fact that they didn’t think to fix these outright for the Special Edition release is to some degree baffling.

Now let’s get to the positives. The story is great. The plot to end the sun so that vampires can rule is a great idea. The fact that not all vampires are on board with the idea is even cooler. It’s easily the best story in the game. Serana is the best companion in the game, and not just because she’ll constantly do other characters story related animations due to some bug. She’s just a generally cool character. As I said the new areas are super cool. The fact that one locks you out after you’re done unless you’re a vampire lord is incredibly aggravating, but while you’re there it’s awesome. The improvements to being a werewolf make it feel less like a curse and more like a blessing. There is also a new side quest that ties in in no way to the vampire plot line that ends with a choice of 3 unique artifacts.

I seem to be in the minority on the fact that I don’t like this add-on because of its faults, but with all of the polish seen in Dragonborn, it really feels like Dawnguard was rushed out the door way to quickly considering the price tag on the two was the same.

Hearthfire: Hearthfire is the house building expansion. 3 of the holds previously without homes to buy will now sell you plots of land in which to build your own home. While not as elaborate as Fallout 4’s settlement mode, the streamlined aspects work to the benefit of the game. For $5 this was probably the best DLC for Skyrim. As soon as the game starts you can experience the new content. Even if you haven’t built your own house, every house already in the game can now add a children’s room so you can adopt children.

Building houses is a mixed bag. You first build a small house, but after building that you can build a main hall and remodel the small house into an entryway. From here you can add a cellar and 3 wings. Each wing has 3 choices: a tower, a high roofed room, and a room with a rooftop patio. Due to the nature of how construction is handled, combinations are limited. Each wing’s 3 choices can only be one type of room. For instance the East wing will have a library tower, a high roofed kitchen, or a rooftop patio having armory. You can only build one on that east wing and you can’t build one of these in a different shape or on one of the other 3 wings. Now with 3 plots you can get all 3 wings built between your houses, but it’s not ideal.

Each plot has its unique items. For instance one home has the choice of a fish hatchery and another your own personal beehive. Slowly building up your own homestead as you play is fun, but it’s the internal furnishing that is the problem. You can choose to blindly build your way down the list, but the game doesn’t show where the item will be built and in some cases if it locks out another choice. You can’t delete things once built so when you build the wrong table or put a Dragon Skull where you wanted a Dwarven Centurion you need to either reload or you’re shit out of luck.

Dragonborn: Dragonborn brings the players to a small island off the coast of Morrowind where the original Dragonborn, Miraak, has plans to return to Tamriel. The plot involves a Daedric plain and of course dragons as you seek a way to stop Miraak.

The new area is massive. It’s roughly half the size of Skyrim, but I’m not actually doing any math. Problem is it has about as many interesting points as Fallout 4, which is very few. Quests are mostly concentrated in the main town you dock in with a handful of other quests originating in one other small town and a research area. It’s also a very barren map as it needs to keep the same feel as Morrowind which means a barren environment. There are trees and stuff, but it doesn’t feel as varied as Skyrim.

Dragonborn is a big add-on, and it’s certainly worth the $20 it cost at launch, but it being a separate continent really makes it feel separate from the rest of the world. It is both literally and figuratively a separate thing.

Mods: I have this game on PS4. Mod support is fine. You aren’t going to get certain things which sucks, but its fine. I spent about an hour playing as a Skeleton before I got bored. On PC I’m sure mods are great, but without the ability to go crazy with the size, mods are just mods. What I want is essentially unofficial DLC and I don’t think we will see that anytime soon.