February 6, 2007 - After nearly a year of slipping out morsels of downloadable content for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Bethesda's first full-fledged expansion, The Shivering Isles, is nearing release. Though Knights of the Nine, the most recent downloadable content made available for Oblivion, was fairly sizable, The Shivering Isles promises much more. The new expansion delivers more characters, quests, items, armor and enemies with which players can entangle themselves. As a contrast to the world of Cyrodiil in which most of Oblivion took place, the realm of The Shivering Isles appears more twisted and fantastical. Though you'll still be defending a realm from destruction in the expansion, you'll be doing so at the beck and call of the Prince of Madness, Sheogorath, rather than for the honor of some dead emperor. We recently got some hands-on time with the expansion, and scoped out as much as we possibly could.

The new adventures begin with the appearance of a small island in Nibben Bay off the coast of Bravil. Once you've installed Shivering Isles on your PC or Xbox 360, you'll need to rest your character for 24 hours before the island pops up, at which point you'll receive a notice to investigate. Upon reaching the island we found a large stone gate in the shape of several twisted faces that frame a glowing portal. According to a nearby guard, people keep heading through only to return as batty, violent versions of their former selves. Naturally, we proceeded forward into the portal.

What we immediately found on the other side isn't the Shivering Isles, but an antechamber where a character named Haskill, Sheogorath's assistant, was seated. After seating ourselves on the opposite side of the table, he informed us that Sheogorath seeks a mortal champion to save his realm. Asking why wouldn't be appropriate, since apparently the Shivering Isles are a product of Sheogorath's fantasies, and their existential qualities are therefore beyond questioning. Whatever Sheogorath's fancies may be, it seems at the end of every era, a destructive force known as the Greymarch pummels the realm, forcing Sheogorath to rebuild from scratch. We soon found out someone named Jyggalag is ultimately responsible and, along with his Knights of the Order, becomes the main antagonists for the story.

The lands themselves are split into two halves: the bright and cheerfully warped Mania and the more somber, shadowy lands of Dementia. As Sheogorath will later describe them, The Isles are, "A wonderful place! Except when it's horrible!" But before we can proceed there, we need to take down a Gatekeeper in the first town of Passwall which you step foot in right after accepting Haskill's charge. A towering foe with a menacing blade for an arm, the Gatekeeper wiped out an entire group of well-armed and armored adventurers the first time we set eyes on him. Since he's got the key that allows access to the Shivering Isles buried inside him, we absolutely had to take him down to proceed. After a few attempts, it became clear a solo direct attack was sure death, so we instead wandered around Passwall looking for an alternate method of dispatching the monstrosity.

We first came upon Jayred Ice-Veins, an archer with a plan. If we raided the nearby Gardens of Flesh and Bone, we could fashion bone arrows of the same aspect as the Guardian's, and therefore do more damage, somehow. To the Garden we headed, picked the lock on the front gate, and had a battle against some fierce skeletal guardians to procure the arrows. With the new ammunition in hand, we headed through Passwall again and found another villager who, after a sufficient amount of bribery, spilled that the Guardian was especially vulnerable to the tears of his mother, who allegedly visits the monster every midnight. Sure enough, she showed up right on time and wept beside her horrific child, and, luckily, dropped a soaked handkerchief. We darted in, snatched the handkerchief, and applied it as a poison to our sword. The ensuing battle with the guardian was over pretty quickly, and with the keys to Dementia and Mania in hand, we proceeded into the world of the Shivering Isles.

Just like with Oblivion, it's an open world. You can head to the main city of New Sheoth where Sheogorath sits on his throne to follow the main quest or simply wander about, discovering hidden caves, ruins, and towns. The lands look significantly different from Cyrodiil. Dementia, for instance, is populated with mists, oversized spiked mushrooms, and jutting knuckles of rock. We chose to trek to the capital and check out one of the main quests from a little further on in the game, which involved a substance called Felldew.