How would you end Mass Effect 3?

[Mike Richards]

So it seems like more or less every person who played the game is pissed off to some degree about the ending. Now I haven't seen the ending yet so I can't say for sure what I'll think of it either way, but I will say that a lot of the discussion sounds pretty exaggerated to me. It's fine to be unhappy with something, but criticizing is easy when you don't actually have to have a solution. So what would you have done differently?

And don't just say "Something that explains more" or "Wasn't as stupid", I want real honest answers. If you had the chance to sit down at the game's script, what would you write?

 

[Vault101]

what I want to know is HOW it happned

was there one creative "genious" involved that pulled a geroge lucas? was it time and money?

I heard that it was changed because of a leak...which is stupif because if people read it its their own fault

 

[pure.Wasted]

Easiest question in the world. I don't even have to get creative. All I have to do is pull up content they had and cut.

Mass Effect writer Drew Karpyshyn revealed his original intent for the ending of Mass Effect 3, which involved the concept of Dark Energy, which was hinted at in the previous two games, such as on Haelstrom during Tali's recruitment mission, when she commented that the planet's sun was an advanced age for no scientific reason.

The Dark Energy was a force that was going to consume everything. According to Karpyshyn, "The Reapers as a whole were 'nations' of people who had fused together in the most horrific way possible to help find a way to stop the spread of the Dark Energy. The real reason for the Human Reaper was supposed to be the Reapers saving throw because they had run out of time. Humanity in Mass Effect is supposedly unique because of its genetic diversity and represented the universe's best chance at stopping Dark Energy's spread."

The original choice was between killing the Reapers and trying to find a way to stop the Dark Energy threat with what little time was left before it consumed the galaxy, or, "Sacrifice humanity, allowing them to be horrifically processed in hopes that the end result will justify the means."

That. With an epilogue (dramatized, preferably, not just text on screen) detailing what happened to all the surviving characters and give us glimpses of the different races and places we've seen. Since both choices leave lots. Just no humans in the second.

And the two hour Earth segment leading up to it would have played less like a corridor shooting gallery, and more like the Suicide Mission from ME2, with all of your decisions, esp. ones regarding squaddies, coming into play for the most dramatic pay off in the series.

 

[White Lightning]

Shepard, Anderson, and The Illusive Man are all talking just like in the current ending but suddenly... an indoctrinated Blasto appears.

 

[Savo]

Easiest question in the world. I don't even have to get creative. All I have to do is pull up content they had and cut.

Mass Effect writer Drew Karpyshyn revealed his original intent for the ending of Mass Effect 3, which involved the concept of Dark Energy, which was hinted at in the previous two games, such as on Haelstrom during Tali's recruitment mission, when she commented that the planet's sun was an advanced age for no scientific reason.

The Dark Energy was a force that was going to consume everything. According to Karpyshyn, "The Reapers as a whole were 'nations' of people who had fused together in the most horrific way possible to help find a way to stop the spread of the Dark Energy. The real reason for the Human Reaper was supposed to be the Reapers saving throw because they had run out of time. Humanity in Mass Effect is supposedly unique because of its genetic diversity and represented the universe's best chance at stopping Dark Energy's spread."

The original choice was between killing the Reapers and trying to find a way to stop the Dark Energy threat with what little time was left before it consumed the galaxy, or, "Sacrifice humanity, allowing them to be horrifically processed in hopes that the end result will justify the means."

That. With an epilogue (dramatized, preferably, not just text on screen) detailing what happened to all the surviving characters and give us glimpses of the different races and places we've seen. Since both choices leave lots. Just no humans in the second.

And the two hour Earth segment leading up to it would have played less like a corridor shooting gallery, and more like the Suicide Mission from ME2, with all of your decisions, esp. ones regarding squaddies, coming into play for the most dramatic pay off in the series.

This would have been a fantastic ending. It has the background in the previous two games to justify it and to me sounds like an excellent way to explain the reapers.

The way I see everything else is this: The game would have boiled down to basically the ultimate renegade or paragon choice, which I see as a fitting end. Then, you would have all these little variations within each ending based on your choices throughout the game. We would get to see where all our beloved party-members ended up and how our smaller actions affected things. If we created peace between the quarians and geth, perhaps we would get a cutscene showing them socializing; just little things like that to remind us of our choices.

It still isn't the same as having radically different endings like Bioware promised, but it sure is a hell of a lot better than current ending. People would be happy with an ending like this.