TL;DR – The Shivering Isles is the largest expansion for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion that was ever made and it is the only one that takes place outside of the normal world of Cyrodiil. This makes it the easiest one to recommend as it comes with a vast quantity of content which populates an entire realm for players to explore. It’s main quest line is as lengthy as the main-plot from the base game and it’s new areas, enemies and side-quests are interesting and provide some nice variety. It even gives you a range of powerful bonuses as you work your way through everything, to the point that I consider an essential piece of content of Oblivion fans. The only complaint, as always, is that it has a bunch of bugs so I would strongly recommend you save frequently!
Quick Note: As it’s 2023, I’m assuming that you know how Oblivion plays so I’m only touching on what’s in the content pack. If you don’t know how Oblivion plays, then it’s very similar to Skyrim. If you don’t know how either of those games play, then go play one of them (I think Oblivion is better, but it’s jankier).
Much like Knights of the Nine which I looked at last week, The Shivering Isles has an innocuous start that belies the sheer scale of content available once it’s been installed. Initially nothing changes within the land of Cyrodiil aside for the fact that you gain a quest which mentions that a gate has opened on an island in the Niben Bay just to the east of Bravil. Upon travelling there, you’ll find a guard dealing with the demented riff-raff that are occasionally spewed out after their visit to the Madgod’s realm turns them, well, stark-raving MAD. You’re then given the choice of entering this realm, or not playing through the content you’ve paid for, so you enter the gate. Once you do so, you’re then asked again by the Madgod’s custodian as to whether you really want to play through the expansion content, before agreeing and getting dumped into the mandatory tutorial section Fringe. This area is locked off from the rest of the Shivering Isles by a large wall with only 1 entrance/exit in the form of the Gates of Madness which are guarded by the Gatekeeper. The Gatekeeper is a big, tough monster who you see slaughtering a party of adventurers, so your character has to figure out a way to get past it without getting wrecked.
This opens up the first of many quests in The Shivering Isles which are largely linear (and often quite similar) but which do provide some ability to roleplay as there are often multiple different ways to achieve the same goal. In this instance, you’re able to decide how to fight the Gatekeeper and there are 2 main methods of doing so. You can either team up with a maniac hunter who’s obsessed with bones and help him break into a graveyard to gather arrows that are made to be highly effective against the gatekeeper, or you can grill the assistant of the Gatekeeper’s creator to find out his weakness, then gather a poison that you can apply to your weapon which is highly effective against the gatekeeper. In both cases you’re basically doing the same thing (i.e. making your weapon better against the gatekeeper so you don’t get beaten like a drum), but the way you do it is slightly different. For the former method, you need to do a bit of lockpicking but you do get a temporary companion whereas the latter method requires some speechcraft and sneaking. I personally did both and then realised that neither does much for hand-to-hand or mage builds, so I tanked the gatekeeper while my maniac hunter ally did the real damage. After the gatekeeper goes down, the real meat of this expansion pack begins.
Now unlike KotN, the sheer amount of quest content in this expansion means that it’s not feasible to go through the main plot line without turning this review into a modest novella. Suffice it to say, once you get the gates you have the option of running through the north of island, which is the realm of mania or going along the south of the island, which is the realm of dementia. As this expansion pack revolves around Sheogorath, everything is infused with the two-faced nature of the god of madness and as a consequence most of the content is split between these two aspects of his personality – the joyfully manic and the resentfully morose. There are therefore 2 sides to the island, two sections of the main settlement (Bliss and The Crucible), two groups of guards, two main groups of heretic humanoid NPCs, two rulers in the city and so on. Ultimately everything and everyone aside from Sheogorath belongs to one side or the other, with the Madgod himself being split right down the middle and even his manner of speaking veers from one side of his personality to the other. The manic side is brightly coloured, ecstatically upbeat, utterly insane and either very friendly or very dangerous (often both) resulting in garish areas and clothing. On the flipside, the demented areas are grim in both appearance and demeanour, riddled with paranoia and also very dangerous.
You’ll have plenty of time to get familiar with both sides of the Madgods split personality however, as regardless of your choices you’ll need to complete a series of quests which involve familiarising yourself with both sides of this baffling realm. You’ll need to learn what addiction feels like from the Duke of mania, then take part in an investigation to find plotters amongst the demented (which lets you have everyone tortured which is pretty funny). You’ll need to work with both sides of the guards, who are represented by the Dark Seducers (demented) and the Golden Saints as they fight the threats to the Shivering Isles (and each other). Finally you’ll need to explore both Mania and Dementia in depth as most quests require you to leave the city (cities?) and get trekking through the island to fight through various dungeons so that you can gradually work your way through the main questline. As mentioned earlier, a lot of these quests are relatively repetitive as most involve going to a dungeon, fighting your way through it and then rescuing someone or obtaining an item that you need. Then again, it does feel somewhat unfair to ding this expansion for having a lot of similar content as it almost always has a twist to the format or gives you the ability to resolve the mission in a slightly different way.
To give some examples of this, while doing the quest for the Duke of Mania you’re tasked with fighting your way through a dungeon but you need to keep gathering an alchemical ingredient otherwise you’ll be brutalised by withdrawal symptoms that are extremely severe. While rebuilding the gatekeeper, you’re tasked with clearing through a dungeon but get to choose which body parts the new gatekeeper will have, which is a nice bit of legacy building (not that your choices really matter). While setting up a distraction for unwanted adventures, you’ll need to clear out a dungeon that serves as an elaborate mousetrap but get to mess with a trio of adventurers at the end with a series of traps. Yet despite these little twists, most quests really do just boil down to going to a dungeon, killing the baddies and then proceeding to the next step. There aren’t many quests in the main mission that break free of this mould, and even when they do you’re often only being given a mandatory stealth section. The only two that are really different is the mission to find the plotters who are threatening the duchess of dementia and the aforementioned quests where you get to activate traps on an adventuring party (which is basically just pressing 3 buttons). There is also a mission where you have to favour one faction of the guards against another, but this is basically just a big fight with a lot of NPCs running around and focusing on each other while you help sway the balance.
So if you’ve made it this far and are getting the impression that I found a lot of these quests a little underwhelming, you’ll probably be wondering why I recommend this expansion pack so much? Well there are three main reasons I think you’d be remiss for skipping this one. Firstly, the areas and NPCs within them are quite amusing and visually impressive with each NPC being delusion al in a fun way while the zones and island itself are often beautiful to look at (within the limits of Oblivion’s graphical fidelity of course). Secondly the new items, spells and rewards are all well worth it and make it possible to make overpowered characters – as an example of this by the end you get the ability to summon three different powerful NPCs as allies for 120 seconds at a time. Finally the roleplaying potential of what’s contained within this expansion is quite potent, and you even get the ability to change the weather of the Shivering Isles once you’ve cleared the main story. There’s a lot of cool content here, especially the dialogue, but unfortunately it is let down slightly by the repetitive quest design. I actually thought that Knights of the Nine did a better job of varying things, as most dungeons only have a handful of different enemies and so you’ll be fighting the same enemies time-after-time-after-time. My suggestion would therefore be to enjoy the expansion for what it is, and try not to rush yourself as you will otherwise find the plot’s annoying habit of but wait, there’s more! to be extremely tedious. Perhaps fittingly for the realm of an insane daedric prince, nothing is ever simple and you will always be given just one more task until everything resolves itself in a twist ending involving the daedric prince of order, Jyggalag.
As for Jyggalag, he doesn’t make much of an appearance throughout the main plot but he is the primary antagonist and is the reason why you’ve been brought to the Shivering Isles in the first place. Essentially Sheogorath needs a champion who will help him withstand the “Greytide” which involves the minions of order destroying his charming realm of insanity under their dull, grey bootheels. The knights and priests of order are therefore recurring enemies and they can appear within the realm of the Shivering Isles in much the same way as gates of oblivion appeared within Cyrodiil, the only difference is that you can’t enter the crystals that spawn these enemies and must instead use 3 hearts of order to overload and thus close them. Unfortunately the forces of order aren’t particularly varied and as such they contribute to the feeling of repetition which sadly accompanies many of these quests. When you first encounter them, they’re pretty scary but by the end they feel like the bandits and highwaymen that plagued the roads and campsites of Oblivion.
But again, it feels remiss to whine about the main quest too much as there is a lot of content there (14 quests not counting the occasional ways in which they branch for future playthroughs) alongside roughly 20 side quests. There are also a lot of handy treasures scattered around, including water breathing helmets and other magical items alongside some new dungeons to fight through. Just be aware that some enemies in this expansion can inflict quasi-permanent debuffs to your main stats (like Strength, Endurance and so on) which will need to be cured with relatively expensive and rare potions. Just be sure to talk to everyone and you’ll get a healthy dose of the madness that surrounds this land like a fog, and be secure in the knowledge that once you clear through the main quest you’ll have gained a bunch of powerful items and spells. As such I’d say that this expansion is really about the new world and it’s inhabitants rather than the quests, which can be monotonous. To give some examples (I’ve been saying this a lot in this review huh?) you’ve got two competing blacksmiths in Bliss and The Crucible who get upset when you talk to the other one and who both offer the ability to turn new materials into unique sets of armour (Amber for light armour and Madness Ore for heavy armour) and weapons. There are two museums of curios, although only the one in The Crucible has a quest chain attached to it although the owner of the other one will ask if they can put you in suspended animation (no you can’t accept his humble request). And finally as you climb the ranks of this strange new realm, you’ll be constantly in touch with Sheogorath himself who veers constantly between manic merriment and demented irritance. He’s without a doubt the star of the show, and the way in which he makes you rile-up his man servant by constantly summoning him repeatedly is just one of the ways in which he makes the main narrative more amusing than it otherwise has any right to be.
To wrap up, The Shivering Isles is an expansion with a ton of content and character that gives you some very powerful gear, spells and summons. The quests themselves often give you a variety of options in how to proceed, but sadly are often just doing the same thing (i.e. killing everyone in a dungeon) which undermines the expansion a bit. Fortunately enough the dialogue and characters do a good job of keeping things lively and the new areas are visually impressive and contain plenty of attention to detail in spite of the relatively modest size of the expansion which clocks in at under 1GB. Ultimately the Shivering Isles is a meaty expansion pack that offers a lot for existing characters and for players who are able to enjoy the bizarre new realm that’s on offer. Those who are merely looking to push through the main quest line and who aren’t going to engage with the new zones, dialogue or characters will probably be a little underwhelmed but I think most RPG players will be satisfied with what’s on offer here. As a result I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this to Oblivion fans, although I would recommend that they pace themselves and stop to smell the roses giant mushrooms along the way.
