Bethesda’s creation club has had a very tumultuous time since it launched. It has had a few hits and a few misses on Fallout 4, but when it comes to Skyrim Special Edition, it has mostly been misses. With Skyrim receiving a new update to Creation Club, I felt now was a good time to try and review the new add-ons and give my thoughts.
First up is the Saturalia Holiday Pack, which is basically a bunch of christmas themed items made lore friendly. Nothing really stands out here except getting reindeer as mounts, but that isnt much itself. You can get Santa themed gear which is nice, and the cost is only 3 dollars. This is basically a cosmetic purchase made lore friendly, but isnt really worth it.
Wraithguard and Sunder is another add on included as part of this update and I have to say that this mod is very disappointing. Yes it adds the two tools of Kagrenac that were not in Skyrim, but the quest to get the items is extremely lackluster and not fitting. There is a new dwarven location (not a full ruin) to find the items in, with puzzles to solve, but it is an extremely minor amount of content really. Wraithguard and Sunder are very powerful pieces of armor and weaponry respectively and are much better than anything in the vanilla game, but I dont see the price of 5 dollars being worth it at all.
Elite Crossbows is the last of the very dissapointing add ons. It adds an elven and ebony crossbow that do more damage than the enhanced dwarven crossbow. Once again there is a dissapointing quest to get the weapons and even if the weapons are good, they are not worth 3 dollars on their own.
Now onto a middle of the road item.
Civil War Champions is one one of the creations that caught my eye. This mod has you join either the stormcloaks or imperials as a champion to face off against an opposing champion. You will receive new unique armor and weapons that have better stats than anything in the vanilla game, and the unique armors look great. The imperial armor is the Imperial Dragon Armor from Oblivion, but with a new look, and gives a unique sword and axe.(named Dragon;s Oath and Akatosh’s Talon) The stormcloaks on the other hand get armor that more closely resembles medieval germanic armors and is called Stormbear, and looks absolutely amazing. The axe gained here is Tsun’s judgement but the sword is just called Stormbear sword and is rather disappointing.
To get the armor and weapons, you will have to volunteer to be either side;s champion and fight the opposing champion. Killing the other champion gets you their armor and weapons. It isn’t bad and a lot of work was clearly put into this, but it costs 6 dollars and I just do not see it as worthwhile for that price. I like that there is an actual quest of sorts that makes sense, but I just wish more had been done with it, because there was potential.
…….
These last two additions are why I wrote this review. They are not perfect and price is an issue, but these two mods show that the creation club is getting slightly better and is capable of actually giving good content.
First of these is the Vigil Enforcer Armor Set. This will cost 6 dollars, and adds 4 armor sets to the game. The stats are the same, but they all have different cosmetic looks. These armor sets are for roleplaying as a vigil of stendar and give excellent defense. Each armor looks fantastic and gives a nice variety of looks and appearances.
The reason I like this addition is that the quest associated with the mod is actually good. It is not a simple quest at all, and adds some new areas and has you gain each armor set as you continue instead of all at once. Rather than just following some letters, you must track down and defeat a daedric cult (located in said new area), and actually is fun to play. This is the first creation club add on for Skyrim that actually feels worth buying and it took a while to get here. I still feel it is a bit too expensive though, but this is a definite improvement over what has come before.
Lastly is the biggest addition ever to creation club. Forgotten Seasons costs 12 dollars and introduces an enourmous new area called Runoff Caverns that contains the biggest dwarven ruin yet, with area the size of 4 or 5 Dwarven ruins put together. The ruin is where the Dwemer were conducting weather control experiements, and the lore is handled extremely well here. Each section of the ruin has a unique interior climate such as winds and storms, and it is all detailed beautifully. I need to stress that last part, because this is one of the best looking mods I have ever seen period. Blackreach is a beloved area in the vanilla game, and it feels like the creators set out to make a new Blackreach with its own unique identity.
The area has seven main zones and multiple self contained dungeons within the ruin that each relate to a season. and the season relates to the hazards to avoid and puzzles to solve. These areas have their own climate as I mentioned above, and their own unique enemies. The amount of content here is far beyond anything else, and will add hours of playtime and enjoyment. There are new items to gain, and new armor pieces with new enchantments. This feels less like a dungeon and more like a minor expansion set in a dwarven land, complete with its own lore. You can even get a Dwarven mount as you progress, and I am sure I missed several things here still. And I didn’t even mention the new perks, which adds a lot also.
I said above that Vigil Enforcer Armor Set was the first add on that seemed worthwhile to buy, but Forgotten Seasons is the first add on to actually fulfill the promise of being micro dlc. I dislike calling it micro dlc though, because there is more content here than in Hearthfire. I must now also remind you all, that Hearthfire is an official DLC made by Bethesda themselves. This is the only one I will whole-heartedly say is recommended to buy. The price may seem a bit high, but this actually does feel like a real piece of DLC and not just a minor add on that gets labelled as such. In fact, if I were to include this in a ranking of Elder Scrolls DLC, I would easily rank this above hearthfire and Knights of the Nine.
The creation club is not perfect and has a long way to go. Forgotten Seasons though, has given me hope for the idea. It has shown there is still potential, but the lousy additions need to go. They are a waste of money, and distract from what is actually something worth paying attention to,