Oblivion: Shivering Isles Review

Filed in archive Game Reviews on March 28, 2007

The latest expansion of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is here and IGN has got a review up. The Shivering Isles features a bizarre landscape split between the two sides - Mania and Dementia -filled with vast, twisting dungeons mirroring the roots of the trees they are buried within. You'll encounter more than a dozen new creatures including hideous insects, Flesh Atronachs, skeletal Shambles, amphibious Grummites. Throughout your adventure, you will discover all new items, ingredients, spells, and more, and have the talented craftsmen of Crucible and Bliss forge new armor and weapons just for you

This isn't the first block of expansion content released by Bethesda so far. Bits and pieces of downloadable content were made available fairly regularly after the game's initial release, culminating in The Knights of the Nine compilation, which added a quest line of its own. The Shivering Isles does much more than just tack on a new quest or dungeon by delivering an entirely new realm to explore. Ruled by Sheogorath, the realm is divided into Dementia and Mania halves, each governed by their own quirky leaders, the drug-addled Duke of Mania and hyper-paranoid Duchess of Dementia. Each half has its own visual characteristics, from the bright mushrooms and polychromatic hills of Mania to the bleak swamps and knotted trees of Dementia.