Shivering Isles is still the best expansion any TES game has ever done

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

I'm replaying Oblivion for the first time in like eight years and just finished the Shivering Isles questline, and man, I forgot how insane it is. Skyrim's DLC are solid—Dawnguard has Serana, Dragonborn has Miraak and the whole Apocrypha vibe—but Shivering Isles is just on another level entirely.

The thing that gets me is how much the expansion commits to the bit. You're literally in Sheogorath's realm, and instead of the game treating it like a gimmick, everything about the environment and the questline reflects that. The split between Mania and Dementia, the way NPCs are just unhinged in specific ways that match which side they're on, the fact that Sheogorath himself is the quest-giver and he's constantly messing with you—it all works because the writers actually understood the Daedric Prince they were writing about.

And then there's the ending where you become the new Sheogorath. Like, that's not just flavor text. The implication that you're locked into that role forever, that you've basically been tricked into an eternal position serving a Daedric Prince—it's dark as hell and the game doesn't apologize for it. Compare that to Skyrim's Daedric quests, which are fun but mostly feel like "go fetch this thing for a Prince and get a cool artifact."

I get that people love Solstheim and the Dragonborn stuff, but Shivering Isles actually feels like you're visiting another plane of existence, not just another province. The architecture is weird, the landscape is hostile in ways that don't make sense geographically, and the people are genuinely unsettling. That's what an Elder Scrolls expansion should do.

 

[EbonyWarrior]

Shivering Isles is legitimately incredible, and you're right that it commits harder than anything Skyrim's DLC did. The Daedric Prince stuff actually feels dangerous and consequential in a way that Dawnguard and Dragonborn kind of... don't? Like, those are good questlines, but they're still fundamentally about you being the hero. Becoming Sheogorath is the opposite—you get tricked into cosmic servitude and the game is like "yeah, that's your ending, deal with it."

That said, I think you're being a bit harsh on Dragonborn. Apocrypha itself scratches a similar itch to Shivering Isles—it's genuinely alien, the landscape makes no sense, and Miraak as an antagonist is way more interesting than most of Skyrim's villains. The whole thing leans into the weird cosmic horror angle in a way Dawnguard doesn't even attempt. It's just that Shivering Isles had the advantage of being a full expansion with way more dev time and resources, so it gets to explore that vibe for way longer.

What really gets me is how much personality the Shivering Isles has compared to Solstheim. Solstheim is cool but it's still basically Skyrim with Dunmer settlements. The Isles are genuinely wrong in every direction—the trees, the sky, the logic of how things work. That's what I miss about the older TES games. Morrowind was like that too, with Vvardenfell just being architecturally and geographically bizarre in ways that made exploration feel dangerous. Skyrim's more grounded approach works for what it is, but man, I'd kill for another expansion that leans into the cosmic weirdness like Shivering Isles did.