Let’s start this review by saying the fact that I’m even writing this is an achievement. I purchased Skyrim for my PlayStation 3 around the time it came out in November 2011, now roughly 16 months later I am playing the first piece of DLC to be released on the PlayStation for Bethesda’s open world epic. The story of Skyrim and the PlayStation community is a well-known tale of delays, glitches, lag and lost files, it’s safe to say that for most PS3 players we never thought this day would come. Having watched our Xbox compatriots play through three pieces of DLC while we languished under vague updates and possibilities we assumed that we may never venture back to Skyrim and if we did then it would be a buggy mess. Thankfully though Dragonborn is a good enough piece of additional content that once you start playing you begin to forget the issues around its existence.

Dragonborn starts as most quests do in Skyrim by travelling to any new city within its borders you are approached by two odd looking cultists, they mock your claims for being the Dragonborn and mention the true Dragonborn, a priest called Miraak, they then, as any crazed cultists usually do, turn on you. They aren’t too much trouble to despatch and if you’re lucky in your place of encounter the fight will usually attract the attention of the town guards so that gives you added help.

Once the cultists are dead you find a letter directing you to a boat and a reluctant Captain, after a bit of persuasion, threatening or just plain old fashioned bribery, you’ll soon be setting sail for a new adventure. The Dragonborn DLC doesn’t take place on the mainland of Skyrim, but on an island called Solstheim. Solstheim is home to a mainly Dunmer population, they are refugees from Morrowind that crossed the border following the eruption of Red Mountain, a nice nod to The Elder Scrolls III there.

Your adventure on Solstheim initially feels very familiar, you have a main town to operate from, you’ll pick up secondary quests from villagers, and you’ll do (constant) battle with creatures called Ash Spawn who are the Solstheim equivalent of Draugr. All very safe and standard, but as you focus on the main quest things will start to twist, become slightly more complex and eventually descend into something that is very much out of this (Skyrim) world.

The responses to the other Skyrim DLC, Dawnguard and Hearthfire, have been quite mixed. Dawnguard was a good attempt, but didn’t really offer anything new, and Hearthfire was more aesthetics than gameplay, so it’s great to see that with Dragonborn Bethesda have pushed against what has become expected of their DLC.

One of the main issues for such a long delay in the PS3 receiving any DLC for Skyrim was that it simply wouldn’t work, or when it did it was horrible to play. Bethesda have spent the past 16 months being criticised for their response, or lack of, to the problems surrounding  the PS3 version so I’m pleased to say that apart from a few minor glitches, invisible NPC’s, frozen loading screens etc, Dragonborn is mostly bug free. It took me a while to pick up the controls, I did accidentally Fus-Ro-Dah a couple of friendly NPC’s on more than one occasion, but once I got back into the swing of things, or in my case the sneak and arrow of things, I was happy to be back.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim holds a very special place in my heart. It was the first RPG that I fell in love with, when I finished the game first time round I had clocked up over 150 hours of game time. The world swallowed me and I found myself immersed in an RPG like never before. Despite all the issues and criticisms over the year and a half since its release, Dragonborn has shown that the land of Skyrim is still worth exploring.

At the time of writing this review, all three pieces of Skyrim DLC, Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn are now available from the PlayStation store.

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