The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn

Dragonborn is the third and final expansion for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and by wide consensus it is the one worth owning. The setup is classic Elder Scrolls: cultists ambush you in the middle of nowhere, you follow their trail to Raven Rock on the island of Solstheim, and within minutes it is clear that the entire local population has been mind-controlled into chiseling runes at monolithic All-Maker Stones. The man behind it is Miraak, the first Dragonborn in history, and he has been squatting in Apocrypha, the eldritch plane of Hermaeus Mora, Daedric Prince of forbidden knowledge, for millennia. He also steals dragon souls you earn on Solstheim, which functions as the expansion's most effective irritant and its best argument for actually finishing the questline. Solstheim itself is the expansion's strongest asset. The island splits cleanly in two: familiar Nordic snowfields and glacial forests in the north, and a blasted ashland in the south where Red Mountain's eruption has buried what was once Morrowind's coastline under grey cinders. Raven Rock, now a Dunmer city run by House Redoran, carries genuine political texture, a settlement in quiet decline, full of residents who have complicated feelings about their hosts. Tel Mithryn, the mushroom-tower holdout of wizard Neloth, is exactly the kind of weird Elder Scrolls locale that makes exploration feel like archaeology. There are over 90 new locations, 28 side quests, and a roster of new enemies including Ash Spawn, Rieklings, Lurkers, Seekers, and Werebears that morph mid-fight into something substantially more lethal. New armor sets, Bonemold, Chitin, Stalhrim, and Nordic Carved, plus the Deathbrand set for thieves and the craftable Stalhrim weapons give builds genuine new toys to chase. Apocrypha is where Dragonborn earns its most distinctive identity. Seven Black Books are scattered across Solstheim, and reading one yanks you into a tentacle-choked, ever-shifting Lovecraftian library where Seekers and Lurkers patrol winding stacks of forbidden tomes. The level design here leans into puzzles and environmental traversal rather than pure combat, and the visual contrast with Skyrim's comparatively grounded palette is striking. Each Black Book grants a passive ability or unlocks a new power on completion, which means there is real build incentive to find them all. The new Dragon Aspect shout, which supercharges all other shouts for a full five in-game minutes, stacks beautifully with existing shout builds. The perk-respec system, unlocked post-main-quest in Apocrypha, lets you spend dragon souls to reclaim perks and redistribute them freely, which is quietly one of the most useful mechanical additions in any Skyrim DLC. New follower Teldryn Sero is available in Raven Rock for a modest fee and is arguably the best companion in the entire game, capable of tanking, DPSing, and casting destruction magic depending on the situation. The headline feature nobody loves is dragon riding. The Bend Will shout tames any dragon and mounts you on it, on a fixed circular flight path, with locked-on targeting and animations that aged poorly even at launch. You can direct attacks but not free-flight direction, and the practical combat value is low. It is required exactly once in the main questline, and most players quietly shelve it immediately after. It is a genuine disappointment relative to what it promised, and on PC the bug list at launch was long enough to cause real save damage in edge cases, although patches addressed the worst of them over time. The main questline itself runs a satisfying 8-10 hours, but some players find Miraak a less compelling antagonist than Alduin; the threat feels distant until the final confrontation, and the Black Book segments can outstay their welcome if you sprint through them back to back. None of that undoes what Dragonborn actually delivers for a series fan: a dense, lore-rich expansion that ties Skyrim's events into the broader Elder Scrolls timeline, rewards players who remember Morrowind with genuine nostalgia callbacks including pieces of the original soundtrack on Solstheim, and builds a genuinely alien third act around Hermaeus Mora that no other Skyrim content comes close to matching. If you only buy one Skyrim DLC, this is the one. Monika, Scout Team