PC The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles Hands-On First Look

isa91

/MAVEN\
Jan 19, 2007
278
0
21
Last year's best role-playing game is about to get a lot bigger--25 percent bigger, to be precise. Next month, Bethesda will ship The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's first true expansion pack, Shivering Isles, which will add a sizable amount of new content to the already massive world of Cyrodiil. But wait, you're thinking, there have already been several content updates to Oblivion. What about last fall's Knights of the Nine? The previous patches introduced incremental new dungeons and quests, and Knights of the Nine was the largest, with an entire new faction to quest through. But all those minor updates took place in the game's existing lands. By contrast, Shivering Isles will introduce an entire new plane of Oblivion that's said to be roughly a quarter of the size of the original game, and it will be full of new settlements, characters, and quests and will include a lengthy new storyline and 10 new achievements to boot.
That storyline explains the appearance of a single new dimensional gateway on a hill just above the Imperial City. This door leads to the realm known as the Shivering Isles, an Oblivion plane whose residents are dominated by madness and plagued by an unexplained phenomenon called the Greymarch, which periodically exterminates everyone in the land. The isles are ruled by the daedric prince Sheogorath, who many players will have brushed up against tangentially in the original game. Ol' Sheo is searching for a mortal champion who can determine the cause of the Greymarch and stop it. That's where you come in. To complete the expansion's main quest line, you'll have to rise through the ranks of Sheogorath's mad high court to a place of honor and complete the task the manic lord has set for you.


The colorful land of Mania will provide a pleasant backdrop to half of your adventures in the Shivering Isles...
As soon as you set foot through the gate, you'll realize you're not in Kansa...er, Cyrodiil anymore. You're greeted in a plain dark room by Sheogorath's enigmatic right-hand man, Haskill, and once you accept his challenge to enter the realm, the room impressively melts away in a flurry of butterflies, revealing the otherworldly land of the Shivering Isles. The isles are actually split almost right down the middle into two disparate halves. The northern half, Mania, is brightly colored and full of gigantic, towering mushrooms and little sparkling, flying sprites flitting around. The other side is dark, cruel Dementia, home to repulsive enemies like giant spiders and hounds with no skin, and filled with the gnarled roots of trees stretching up from the ground like twisted, grasping fingers. Each side even has its own guards: the fair, armored Golden Saints of Mania and their malevolent counterparts in Dementia, the Dark Seducers. The two sides do have one thing in common: Sheogorath's word is universal law.
Before we even got to the two halves of the land, though, we encountered the formerly deserted village of Passwall, which had recently been reoccupied by a group of crazed characters who were waiting for Sheogorath's permission to pass through the final gate and enter the isles. A necromancer living in the town had created a hulking, Frankenstein's-monster-like undead golem to protect the gate, and the keys for this doorway were unfortunately sewn right into the monster's flesh. So we went through a relatively short but satisfying quest during which we had to obtain information from several townspeople (and specifically use our persuasive skill to make one of them talk), put a few clues together, enlist the aid of a traveling fighter, break into a local boneyard, and finally bring down the creature at the stroke of midnight to prove our worth, get the keys, and enter the realm itself.


...though the twisted Dementia will give a stark, unpleasant contrast for the other half.
We didn't make it all the way to Sheogorath's capital city in the short time we had to play--the Shivering Isles are a big place, after all--but in addition to the main quest line, the expansion will contain several sizable towns and numerous smaller settlements, not to mention plenty of one-off quests to go with them. We stumbled into a town in Mania humorously called Split, where every resident had recently been faced with a doppelganger of him- or herself. The townspeople were none too happy about this doubling up; most of them seemed keen on having you murder their clones outright, in fact. As you'd expect, the odd goings-on in this town will tie in to a quest series that will likely see you setting things right.
In another instance, we were caught with stolen goods by two Dark Seducers while exploring the dark wilds of Dementia, and we found that going to jail here was a more unpleasant experience than it was back in Cyrodiil. We were thrown into a dank dungeon cell and stripped of all our equipment and armor, and we had to fight our way out with only our bare hands (and a few choice spells) at our disposal. This wasn't a typical dungeon from the original game--it was filled with the knotted roots of the trees that mark Dementia's surface, which occasionally released poisonous gas that docked our stats temporarily. We also had to fight our way through a succession of grummites, armed troll-like creatures who recharge their health when in contact with a body of water. When we reached the top of the dungeon we finally retrieved our equipment and emerged from the depths. This seemed like a slightly harsher penalty for theft than we remember from the first game.


You'll have to figure out how to best this guy just to gain access to the isles in the first place.
The developers at Bethesda haven't made any real changes to the core gameplay systems or interface in Oblivion, and you can't blame them, since Oblivion landed on more than a few best-of lists last year. In the fashion of past Elder Scrolls expansions, they've chosen instead to simply provide more lands, quests, characters, and gear--in short, more content--to discover for those who have already made Cyrodiil a second home. On the Xbox 360, Bethesda will even make use of Microsoft's new achievement point allowance for downloadable content: Shivering Isles will contain 10 new achievements, most of which you'll obtain by playing through the main quest line and which will total 250 points. The company is promising around 30 hours of gameplay in the expansion, which will be available in a retail box for the PC version and as a download on Xbox Live starting in March.
 

Chandoo

Resi Evil 4 > Your fav game.
Jan 19, 2007
45,625
2,201
129
S.S Normandy
and one for the PS3 crowd who get a better looking playing version of the original classic with knight of the nine.
 

Chandoo

Resi Evil 4 > Your fav game.
Jan 19, 2007
45,625
2,201
129
S.S Normandy
haha , still believing in ign`s bullshit

shivering isles isnt even on ps3 , a year late and a dollar short.
since IGN's the only source thats done a hands on preview thats what we'll have to trust isnt it.
 

Chandoo

Resi Evil 4 > Your fav game.
Jan 19, 2007
45,625
2,201
129
S.S Normandy
oh and this is from the latest IGN interview, you know you shoulda really looked a bit harder before saying ign forgot to mention the shader thing, its right THERE.. spectacles !

Rumor: Everything that's getting amped up on the PS3 is going to transfer over to the 360 and PC anyway.
  • The shader function that re-renders low-res textures will indeed get to the 360 and PC versions, but that's it. The other optimizations are specifically available on the PS3. Why? Because it's awesome.
 

radd

Screww you guys, im going home
Jan 20, 2007
7,850
1
43
36
Karachi !
sup3rkat.spaces.live.com
lol , you really trust pr , dont you ? *cough*fightnight*cough*

the new shaders work a LOT BETTER on 360 , garnett has seen those and he has also seen the ps3 version. he stopped just short of calling ign stupid on the podcast.
 

Chandoo

Resi Evil 4 > Your fav game.
Jan 19, 2007
45,625
2,201
129
S.S Normandy
wtf does this have to do with IGN, the oblivion team guy is saying what you read above, not IGN.
 

radd

Screww you guys, im going home
Jan 20, 2007
7,850
1
43
36
Karachi !
sup3rkat.spaces.live.com
The shader function that re-renders low-res textures will indeed get to the 360 and PC versions, but that's it. The other optimizations are specifically available on the PS3. Why? Because it's awesome.
you think he`s serious ? hahahaha . ign obviously have a exclusive on this and theyre trying to get as much traffic as they can with it.
 

isa91

/MAVEN\
Jan 19, 2007
278
0
21
@ innocent
I am a fan but that was an accident my computer at school are wierd!

'Oblivion is one of the best games ever and iam super excited to get the expansion!
 
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  • XPremiuM XPremiuM:
    Meanwhile Ghost of Tsushima PC version is out now. Looks 100 times better than ASS Creed already.
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  • XPremiuM XPremiuM:
    Did y'all see the new Assassin's Creed trailer? They finally made a AC set in Japan & then they put a negro as the male protagonist. Ubisoft is taking cues from Disney, and it isn't gonna end well for them, just like Disney. Go woke, go broke!
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  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    First Fallout 4 update and now this 🤡
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  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    MS and Bethesda continuing their streak of massive Ls 😬
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    Hello
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  • NaNoW NaNoW:
    by closing down good studios
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  • NaNoW NaNoW:
    well he is breaking barriers
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  • iampasha iampasha:
    SolitarySoldier said:
    Phil keeps talking about breaking barriers to gaming, making it accessible on all platforms yada yada, while killing competition and creativity at the same time. the fact that i actually believed him for a second lol
    guys the biggest yapper in the Industry right now. All he do is yap
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  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    Phil should be held responsible for this shitfest too, just like Sarah, but it's highly likely that these decisions are coming from Satya. And this isn't even the end of it. More closures are coming.
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  • SolitarySoldier SolitarySoldier:
    if we are moving towards more and more popular trash across platforms that make billions for companies, I'm happy with all the barriers and exclusivity because at least that brings some pressure to create good stuff.
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  • SolitarySoldier SolitarySoldier:
    Phil keeps talking about breaking barriers to gaming, making it accessible on all platforms yada yada, while killing competition and creativity at the same time. the fact that i actually believed him for a second lol
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  • SolitarySoldier SolitarySoldier:
    "These changes are not a reflection of the creativity and skill of the talented individuals at these teams or the risks they took to try new things" ... seems to me that's exactly what it is
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  • SolitarySoldier SolitarySoldier:
    why make good games when u can just buy everyone and shut them down lol
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  • XPremiuM XPremiuM:
    I'm gonna say one last time, F*** Microsoft to infinity!
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  • XPremiuM XPremiuM:
    Microsoft deserves all the hate they can get. Seriously i can't explain how much i want to curse them out.
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  • XPremiuM XPremiuM:
    They could've sold the studios instead of closing them, but the nazi bastards just didn't want competition down the road.
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  • XPremiuM XPremiuM:
    F*** Microsoft, and F*** their fanboys.
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    What's the f*** is wrong with them? I mean really? Have they completely lost it? F***ing retards.
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  • XPremiuM XPremiuM:
    So i just found out that f***ing s***bag Microsoft shut down Arkane Studio (makers of the brilliant Dishonored series) and Tango Gameworks (makers of the iconic The Evil Within series), among some other studios. I just want to say a giant F*** Y**! to Microsoft. THEY'VE F***ED UP BIG TIME this time.
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    MS: Hold my trillion dollars
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    Sony: We can f**k up a totally good situation.
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  • XPremiuM XPremiuM:
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    XPremiuM XPremiuM: Meanwhile Ghost of Tsushima PC version is out now. Looks 100 times better than ASS Creed already.