The Elder Scrolls series has ruled over role-playing games for many years.  Bethesda Softworks' latest expansion to the series, Skyrim, has taken role-playing to a whole new level with a whole new set of mechanics released originally and a whole new set released in the first and second DLCs, Dawnguard and Hearthfire.

Spoiler Alert!
Dawnguard featured a story in which the player chooses whether to become a Vampire Hunter or a Vampire Lord.  On the Vampire Lord track, the player can become an extremely powerful, magical creature.  Becoming a Vampire Lord greatly lowers the difficulty of the game as Vampire Lords start the game with a high-powered cache of spells and magical abilities.

Heartfire did not exactly introduce a new story.  Instead, it allowed the ability to buy land and to build a custom home on that land.  The home, in theory, can be a mansion with everything a quest enthusiast might need from brewing stations to enchanting tables and weapon racks.


Dragonborn, the most recent add-on, took Skyrim to a whole new level by introducing a feature which many modders have attempted and few have succeeded in creating.  Dragonborn allows the player to travel to a new zone entirely.  This zone, according to sources, exists within Morrowind and was last featured in the Bloodmoon Expansion of Elder Scrolls III.  Pretty much, in a nutshell, the player travels to Solstheim in Morrowind.  In Solstheim, there's a bunch of stuff that happens and the player is led into a feud with the original Dragonborn (the first one, ever).  You power yourself up and take down the beast-mode dragonborn, Miraak, by finding loads of books and achieving enlightenment.  Yawn.

Now, to what people really care about.  Dragon taming and riding was brought to Skyrim in the latest expansion.  Unfortunately, it is a command-based (like using command mode on a follower) functionality.  However, even without the ability to free-fly, it is still sort of fun burning villages and invading outposts with a scaled, flying lizard.

Dragonborn, in all honesty, introduces a whole new world for players to explore - literally.  With the new world, Bethesda has brought us dragons to help us traverse the new world as well as weapons to help survive in the new world.  With new shouts, new weapons, new mounts, and an absolutely captivating quest line, I can't find a reason to not get this add-on.

Dragonborn is currently released on the Xbox 360 Marketplace as a DLC for the original game, Skyrim.  Dragonborn currently costs 1600 Microsoft Points ($20.00).