{"id":198349,"date":"2021-02-21T16:07:06","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T16:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/avowed-learn-skyrim-dragonborn-dlc-solstheim-living-lands\/"},"modified":"2021-02-21T16:07:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T16:07:06","slug":"how-avowed-can-learn-from-skyrims-dragonborn-dlc-game-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/02\/21\/how-avowed-can-learn-from-skyrims-dragonborn-dlc-game-rant\/","title":{"rendered":"How Avowed Can Learn From Skyrim’s Dragonborn DLC | Game Rant"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s final DLC “Dragonborn” has a very unique feel compared to the rest of the game, taking players to the isolated island of Solstheim first seen in The Elder Scrolls 3: Bloodmoon<\/em>. The Dark Elf and Nord-dominated island sits at the very edge of the series\u2019 known world, with small towns like Raven Rock etching out a living on what used to the the frontier of the contracting Empire. As well as being one of Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s most interesting settings, Solstheim also has a lot in common with the Living Lands, the setting for Obsidian Entertainment\u2019s upcoming first-person RPG Avowed<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Solstheim has some fantastic lessons to teach Avowed<\/em><\/a>. The setting has a unique relationship with some of the key tenets of the Elder Scrolls<\/em> formula, and is able to come to life even more convincingly that most of Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s holds. Here\u2019s what the Dragonborn DLC can teach Avowed<\/em>, as Obsidian develops what some fantasy fans are hoping will be Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s sort-of spiritual successor.<\/span><\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Avowed’s Living Lands Has One Underrated Advantage Over Any TES6 Location<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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As a frontier, Solstheim inadvertently overcomes some of Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s most common criticisms<\/a>. While hold capitals like Whiterun in the main game feel suspiciously small for cities, the tiny settlements of Solstheim feel more realistically sized considering how isolated their populations are. It\u2019s immersion-breaking when Nazeem assumes the Dragonborn has never been to\u00a0Whiterun’s Cloud District, which consists of one building usually no less than a hundred feet away.<\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast, the townsfolk of Solstheim frequently reference their isolation and the small size of their settlement, despite Raven Rock being bigger than some of Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s other settlements like Riverwood<\/a> and Rorisktead. Avowed<\/em> could create towns which are the same size as Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s cities, but seem far more convincing as hastily constructed frontier towns than ancient seats of power no bigger than a fort.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Solstheim is just a small part of Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s overall world, the fact that the open-world RPG formula’s immersion fits so well into the frontier bodes well for Obsidian\u2019s choice of setting. It\u2019s unlikely that Obsidian<\/a> would have been able to bring the large cities depicted in Pillars of Eternity<\/em> to life without significantly shrinking them down, while the Living Lands provide a setting which could avoid the open-world RPG genre\u2019s city scaling problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Raven Rock is one of Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s best towns<\/a> when it comes to environmental storytelling. Each of Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s towns has some level of intrigue – there\u2019s the feud between the Stormcloak and Imperial families of Whiterun, the chatter and tension surrounding the recent public execution of High King Torygg in Solitude, and the string of mysterious murders in Windhelm, to name a few.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Raven Rock throws players in at the deep-end by exploiting their own curiosity rather than making its main conflict clear from the get-go. When players go to sleep in Raven Rock, there\u2019s a chance they\u2019ll wake up at the Temple of Miraak<\/a>, having been working the stone in their sleep. After discovering a similar building\u00a0site\u00a0near Raven Rock, players will have the option to ask the townsfolk about the strange structures. The locals, however, seem unable to quite remember if they built the obelisks on the island, and if they did, why.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is one of Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s best\u00a0quest<\/a> hooks – it gets the player personally involved from the moment they first sleep on Solstheim without revealing its cards early on. Few places in the game come with such a well executed sense of mystery. In part, Solstheim relies upon a sense of existential horror which has historically come part and parcel with frontier living. It\u2019s an island of people etching an existence on the very edge of the unknown who live controlled by nightmares of what might exist beyond their civilization.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Living Lands could be a fantastic frontier setting if it also plays with the fear of the unknown in the same way. Players might find entire settlements mysteriously abandoned, for example, motivating them to find out what happened from a sense of insatiable inquisitiveness\u00a0rather than any in-game reward. Skyrim<\/em>\u2019s Dragonborn DLC<\/a> shows how frontiers like the Living Lands can be used in RPGs to inspire unique dread, but also inspire a unique curiosity which can be a key motivator in open world exploration.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Avowed Should Keep These Pillars of Eternity Features to Differentiate it From Skyrim<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Raven Rock\u00a0isn\u2019t just isolated. As a primarily Dark Elf settlement, the player is constantly reminded of their \u201cOutlander\u201d status even if they\u2019re a Dunmer<\/a>. Despite being an abandoned Imperial outpost, Raven Rock is undeniably Dark Elven. Its architecture, clothing, and the characters\u2019 accents are all reminiscent of Morrowind<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The world of Avowed<\/em> is full of interesting races. There are the more traditional humans, elves, and dwarves, but also the diminutive furry Orlans<\/a>, the mysterious Godlike, and the giant coast-dwelling Aumaua. Despite being far from their homes, the different settlements of the Living Lands could show how these different races try to preserve their cultures while facing down the seemingly endless expanse of a frontier that risks swallowing them whole.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this sense, the Living Lands have a chance to intensely reflect the entirety of Eora<\/a>, t<\/span>he name of the world first established in Pillars of Eternity<\/em>. The Living Lands are described as a “lawless land” where different communities are constantly at odds with one another that result in petty armed conflicts. That constantly changing composition of the setting’s inhabitants, however, shouldn\u2019t undermine the opportunity for the Living Lands to reflect the intensely different cultures from across Eora. <\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, those differences could be the source of many of the \u201cpetty wars\u201d across the landmass, while allowing players to interact with cultures that feel as alien as Morrowind<\/em>\u2019s, seeing the difference imprints those cultures leave on the unmarked territory of the frontier.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While Solstheim has a lot of lessons to teach Avowed<\/em>\u2019s Living Lands<\/a>, the unique success of the\u00a0frontier island as an RPG setting suggests that Obsidian may already be on the right track with its choice of location. What remains to be seen is whether the studio exploits all the unique opportunities its frontier setting presents, or if lets some pass it by.<\/span><\/p>\n

Avowed\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>is in development for PC and Xbox Series X.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Avowed Will Likely Take a Different Road than Skyrim with One Feature<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n

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The island of Solstheim from Skyrim’s Dragonborn DLC has some great lessons to teach Avowed and its frontier setting, the Living Lands.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":625,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"How Avowed Can Learn From Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC | Game Rant - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"The island of Solstheim from Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC has some great lessons to teach Avowed and its frontier setting, the Living Lands."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/625"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198350,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198349\/revisions\/198350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}