A new downloadable add-on to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been announced by Bethesda Softworks titled Hearthfire.

Unlike the first DLC release, Dawnguard, Hearthfire isn’t about offering a brand new storyline to follow. Instead, it’s all about offering something unique and intriguing to experience in your game, keeping it fresh and fun almost a full year after the game itself was first released.

Continue reading for the dirty details and to see a cool video showing off just what you’ll be able to do with Hearthfire.

Basically, the add-on takes a page out of the ultra-popular Minecraft and allows you to build your own house from the ground up, whether you want a one-room cottage or a massive multi-feature abode.

First you’ll head out to find the plot of land you want to build your new home, then purchase the deed. After that you can start building the house room by room using various material from the game. In addition to all of the normal rooms you’ll have, you can also add things like a garden, fishery, and cattle outside if you want to go for the farm thing. Inside you can have a greenhouse for growing useful ingredients and materials for alchemy and crafting, and a trophy room to show off some of your best defeated enemies.

If you don’t have the patience for the full process, you can hire someone to help get your place furnished. You can also have your own horses or even a personal carriage driver for travel. For entertainment, you can have your own personal bard filling the home with lovely music.

You can move whomever you chose as your spouse into the new home, and use the new adoption system to get yourself a couple of kids to really complete the family aspect of this role-playing game.

Lastly, it’s not all laid back and easygoing times in Skyrim as you build your new life. Skeever infestations and giants are some of the things you’ll have to protect your family from.

Hearthfire may not be for everyone, but for those seeking a more immersive RPG, it will better help in allowing players to disconnect from reality and embed themselves even deeper into this wonderful world Bethesda has created.

For those who think it looks stupid and cheesy (mostly those bottom of the totem pole YouTube trolls), that’s fantastic—you obviously don’t have to get it. There’s no need to light the torches and whine like toddlers that it’s not another expansion like Dawnguard. More of those are surely coming, this is just a fun little bonus for those who are interested.

You’ll be able to pick it up on September 4th for 400 Microsoft points on Xbox Live. No word yet if it’s exclusive to the Xbox or if it will be made available on PS3 and PC at a later date.

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[Source: Bethesda]