Dawnguard is Bethesda’s attempt to revive the once-staid character choice - and the vampire quest branch feels far more inspired than its mortal analogue. Vampirism has been a crutch on gameplay as much as a curse on its characters in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Like the civil war between the Stormcloaks and Imperials, the player determines their allegiance and, eventually, the victor, but the new exigency lends an epic vigor to Skyrim’s storyline that wasn’t found before outside the main quest, while also expanding artfully on the game’s previously-established fiction. It’s not long before the dynamic is made clear: the vampire lord Harkon is plotting a resurgence of his species by using an ancient Elder Scroll to control the sun. After downloading (and after the player surpasses level 10 - a mere hour's task for newcomers), rumors begin percolating around Skyrim's cities - along with a few bodies produced by actual nighttime vampire incursions - that a war is brewing between vampires, the cannibalistic occult, and the Dawnguard, a secretive group of titular vampire hunters. Keeping with the theme of Skyrim's presentation, the "Dawnguard" questline occurs organically - no flashy cutscenes or tedious save shuffling required - through the game's living universe. But while the long-time-coming does indeed produce significant - and satisfying - additions to Skyrim’s gameplay and lore, Dawnguard isn’t immune from an underwhelming sense of untapped potential. For the prodigious Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda’s response is Dawnguard, the first iteration of a slow-churned, "substantial" DLC agenda. It’s a question with diverse answers befitting of a diverse industry.
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