Is Dragonborn The Shivering Isles DLC Skyrim Fans Crave?

For many, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion served as an introduction to DLC. Bethesda had its misses (horse armor anyone?) but it also some hits, one of which being the beyond excellent Shivering Isles expansion. Shivering Isles wowed Oblivion players when it released back in 2007, and ever since Skyrim was released, players have been asking for an expansion that's on the same scale. So, is Skyrim's freshly-announced Dragonborn DLC the expansion everyone has been waiting for? There's still a lot we don't know, but what we do know suggests that it is.

Take, for instance, the fact that Dragonborn takes place on the island of Solstheim. The island, which lies off the northern coast of Tamriel, was already the setting of an Elder Scrolls expansion in the past: Morrowind's Bloodmoon. Right off the bat, we have our first evidence that Dragonborn will be a beefy expansion rather than a simple piece of new DLC – if Solstheim was big enough to take center stage is a previous expansion, it's more than big enough to be the setting of a true-to-form Skyrim expansion.

Next we come to dragon mounts. It's important to keep in mind that Bethesda hasn't confirmed dragon mounts for Dragonborn, but the trailer for the DLC sure seems to suggest that players will get the chance to ride and control a dragon. If players can do so, that's a huge feature – one that seems well-suited for an expansion but not a one-off piece of DLC like Hearthfire. That players can do something so epic is another thing that leads us to believe Dragonborn is the expansion we've all been waiting for.

In the trailer, we also get to see new enemy types, new weapons, and new armor. Naturally, that's a no-brainer given the fact that Dragonborn takes place in an all-new setting, but the fact that we're getting new enemies, weapons, and armor suggests that there's plenty of content for players to devour. We also have the price to consider – 1600 MSP or $20. That certainly isn't chump change, and even though Bethesda charged the same amount for Dawnguard, we're thinking that the studio wouldn't have an easy time getting away with charging much more. Therefore, $20 is about as much as Bethesda can charge for DLC, and it's given Dragonborn such a price tag.

Finally, we've got the introduction of a new villain. If this were some paltry DLC offering, we wouldn't be going toe-to-toe with the very first Dragonborn. We'll have to wait until more details are released before making the final call, of course, but at the moment, Dragonborn is looking like the big Skyrim expansion we've all been hoping for.