The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim came out about a year ago on 11-11-11, and the first dlc, Dawnguard, came out June 26th of this year. On September 6th the second add-on came out entitled Hearthfire. Hearthfire allows the player to build and manage their very own home and adopt a child. These homes are much more customizable than the homes already in Skyrim and allow you to choose from a number of different options home. You can decide what you want your north, east, west, or possibly your south wing(depending on where you decide to build your house) of your house to be a number of different things ranging from an armory to a laboratory. Adopting a child is a very simple 3-step plan. First you need a house, then you need to purchase a children’s bed from a jarl’s(mayor’s) steward. Lastly, you need to adopt a child from from either the orphanage, or off the streets. After you’ve adopted a child and built your dream home, you finally have time to go off questing. Unless your house gets attacked by bandits, giants, or oversized rats. In which case you have to defend yourself and your children.

     Hearthfire is definitely on the smaller side when it comes to addons, but it is definitely worth the five dollars it costs. The option to build a house from scratch, and design yourself is what Skyrim fundamentally is all about: playing how you want to play. Although it doesn’t add much to do after you’ve built everything, there are no new quests from this addon nor new weaponry of any kind. It’s all about making a virtual family, which is interesting and new for an Elder Scrolls game, but it seems a little too much like Sims, at least that’s what everyone keeps telling me. I think it’s a fun little thing to play around with when you’re not fighting dragons and stopping the evil spiky black dragon from devouring the souls of all the living.

BOTTOM LINE:
I give The Elder Scrolls V: Hearthfire a 3.5/5. It’s fun, different, and a good appetizer while we wait for the next questline dlc for Skyrim to come out.