Mass Effect 3 Ending Controversy

[Xanthious]

What happened to Sean Bean in Silent Hill?

He died! Sean Bean ALWAYS dies. If Sean Bean is on a tv or movie screen you can bet as sure as the sun will rise he's going to die at some point. They just figured this was a given in Silent Hill so there wasn't much point in showing it. Just in case you can't get enough of watching Sean Bean biting it on film and television here is a Youtube video documenting his many deaths.

 

[4173]

Alert: minor spoilers in this first paragraph.
I really hope you're joking. The core explanation for the reapers is "synthetics will always kill off organics; to prevent that we created a race of synthetics to kill all the organics every 50k years to stop the synthetics killing them." That doesn't even come close to making any kind of sense. And its core assertion is directly contradicted by Shepard's own experience (the Geth, EDI) that it's simply irresponsible that you cannot even protest that assertion when it's made.

Let me just put this in spoiler tags to be safe.

Spoiler

No. You're wrong. They only kill the advanced civilizations capable of creating such synthetics. That is a big difference, and it is literally said so by the Catalyst. And yes in the end the Reapers are wrong. This is also what the Catalyst says. Shepard being there proves them wrong. That is why Shepard decides what happens next. Again, all of this is said very clearly and almost literally so by the Catalyst.

EDI and the geth are only a small part of the reason the Reapers are wrong. The Reapers come every 50k years to prevent the AIs from wiping out everyone. They do so because then they give society time to bloom but arrive before the synthetics actually start the extermination. EDI and the geth are on good terms with organics near the end of the game, but there's no way to be sure that will still be the case in, say, 10k years.

As I've said a few times before on this forum, the main reason why the Reapers are proven to be redundant is exactly what the Catalyst says. Shepard is there and has defeated the Reapers. Who are, as shown repeatedly, the apex of synthetic evolution. If the galaxy can defeat them, they are not needed anymore. Since it is now shown any other occurence of synthetic can also be beaten.

In short, if people weren't so fixated on calling it a 'god-child' and actually listen to what the Catalyst has to say, a lot of this could've been cleared up a lot sooner.

Spoiler

That is a very interesting perspective, one I hadn't seen before. It doesn't make the ending much more satisfying, but it does make it a little less confusing. I don't think that is clearly presented at all. It comes off as the Catalyst wanting to create a new safeguard system to replace the Reaper cycle

The Catalyst is still acting really silly. The fact that Shepard made it to that point doesn't mean the Reapers are wrong. It doesn't prove that any other being could repeat it. Shouldn't the Reapers be happy, that organic life no longer needs culling? They're willing to risk the future of organic life on Shepard surviving Harbinger's beam, an event as flukey as possible. Shepard only beats them because the Catalyst lets it happen, activating the elevator, and telling her what to do.

I'm not sure what evidence there is that the Reapers are actually the pinnacle of synthetic life. That any future synthetic could be beaten is, again, a huge leap. Why don't the Reapers hang around and kill any troublesome synthetics, rather than wiping out organics every 50,000 years?

The Reapers are lax in destroying information. Sooner or later someone is going to find some archive earlier than normal, and bam! no more organics. That's why the term god-child is being thrown around. Either the Catalyst has some way of having perfect certainty in the future (god) or is a complete moron. We're never even presented a shred of evidence that synthetics will always wipe out organics. The Reapers themselves are counter examples. If they are the pinnacle of synthetics (as you said), and they are not killing everything organic, it undermines the threat entirely.

I'd been thinking about why I was so certain the "life is hopeless, death" ending wouldn't work well, ever since I finished the game, but I couldn't reach a conclusion. The length of the series is the answer. That would be like someone slashing your tires or burning down your house as a practical joke.

 

[Joccaren]

They should make an ending, I'll disagree with you there. Thankyou though for seeing our side. Its nice to see how the Escapist has come from its early articles where things basically said 'I haven't finished the game, but this is all just rediculous' to neutral articles as some of their own speak out about their displeasure with the endings. I've covered this in more detail in another post, but its nice to see some people in journalism on our side - especially after that whole Gamespot or W/E 'fired for bad review of game' stuff come to light.
Why I think they should make a new ending is that even if the satisfy no-one, don't provide a perfect ending for everyone - they will have improved the ending, and they will continue to make sales, and people may restart playing ME3 more. They will show fans 'Yes, we did listen, we are sorry. We know this won't suit all of you, but hopefully it fixes some problems'. If they did this, I'd turn from the Retake ME3 movement to defending Bioware. Sure, it may not be my perfect story - but a lot of people know it won't be, and are prepared for that. Granted a lot are also planning on not buying the DLC until peers do and review it for them, but unless the DLC is as horrible as the current endings, I'm pretty sure people will still buy it.
It will give people motivation to play ME3 again - something many, myself included, have lost for the entire ME series as the ending takes our choices, the reason we played, and throws them in the bin - allowing them to relive 90+ hours of enjoyment, and not be so dissatisfied by the end of that.

No-one is doubting that it won't be perfect. Perfect isn't what we're asking for. We're asking for an improvement. We get that improvement, we'll support Bioware. We don't, we'll let EA re purpose them into making generic shooters or something.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

What happened to Sean Bean in Silent Hill?

He died! Sean Bean ALWAYS dies. If Sean Bean is on a tv or movie screen you can bet as sure as the sun will rise he's going to die at some point. They just figured this was a given in Silent Hill so there wasn't much point in showing it. Just in case you can't get enough of watching Sean Bean biting it on film and television here is a Youtube video documenting his many deaths.

Me and my fiancee have a theory for this.

Every time he didn't die in Sharpe, he dies in something else.

 

[Joccaren]

Let me just put this in spoiler tags to be safe.

Spoiler

No. You're wrong. They only kill the advanced civilizations capable of creating such synthetics. That is a big difference, and it is literally said so by the Catalyst. And yes in the end the Reapers are wrong. This is also what the Catalyst says. Shepard being there proves them wrong. That is why Shepard decides what happens next. Again, all of this is said very clearly and almost literally so by the Catalyst.

EDI and the geth are only a small part of the reason the Reapers are wrong. The Reapers come every 50k years to prevent the AIs from wiping out everyone. They do so because then they give society time to bloom but arrive before the synthetics actually start the extermination. EDI and the geth are on good terms with organics near the end of the game, but there's no way to be sure that will still be the case in, say, 10k years.

As I've said a few times before on this forum, the main reason why the Reapers are proven to be redundant is exactly what the Catalyst says. Shepard is there and has defeated the Reapers. Who are, as shown repeatedly, the apex of synthetic evolution. If the galaxy can defeat them, they are not needed anymore. Since it is now shown any other occurence of synthetic can also be beaten.

In short, if people weren't so fixated on calling it a 'god-child' and actually listen to what the Catalyst has to say, a lot of this could've been cleared up a lot sooner.

More spoiler tags!

Spoiler

That is only partially correct. From all evidence in the game, the Reapers come AFTER Organics start to destroy synthetics, and then wipe out both. Evidence:
The Quarians were destroying the Geth until the Reapers interfered. The Reapers interfered to save the Geth and turn them on the Quarians from the looks of things.
Javik mentions a 'Mechaton War' or something, where the Protheans started winning and defeating the AI they'd created - until the Reapers showed up.
ME is all about patterns repeating. Every pattern in the game repeats every cycle - until Shepard stops the cycles in this one. Thus, we can conclude that Organics began destroying Synthetics in every cycle, only to be stopped by the Reapers and harvested.

Add to that that the ONLY reason the Geth are hostile in ME1 and 2 and 3 is because the Reapers made them hostile to Organics, and it stops making a lot of sense. Why not wipe out the Geth Reapers? Why turn them against organics, then kill the Organics? It doesn't make a ton of sense.

The Reapers seem to set up wars between synthetics and organics, then wipe out the Organics - and seemingly synthetics too since we haven't seen any Prothean AI. This seems more a 'lets make sure we have an excuse if we get caught' than a 'We must preserve organic life' sort of thing.

I don't mind if the Reapers have additional reasons for killing Organic life rather than defending it, but as is - they kill Organically advanced species to stop Synthetics destroying all Organic life - it doesn't make a ton of sense. As stated earlier, is the better option not to kill the Synthetics?

And yeah, agreed on IT. Its a bunch of things that fit together, but the length some fans of it go to is just stupid. "IT WAS ALWAYS BIOWARE'S PLAN, THEY ARE WRITING GODS! EVERYONE STOP TELLING THEM TO CHANGE THE ENDING, THEY'RE ALREADY MAKING IT, THEY JUST HAVEN'T TOLD US YET". Its stupid, and annoying, desperate and deranged. And then about 5 threads pop up each hour on BSN stating exactly this. FFS

 

[Joccaren]

It's a very nice mix of denial, wishfull thinking and self-reinforcement.

I'm not entirely sure what evidence you're basing this on.

Probably the 5 or so threads per hour on BSN that pop up claiming that IT was always Bioware's plan, and they've lied to us the whole time to keep it secret, and that we're all stupid if we don't realise it, and we'll see when they do release it, and we shouldn't ask them to change the ending because they're already doing this, and they've seen the light and forgiven Bioware - it seriously gets too much too fast.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I saw the title of this and rolled my eyes. "Great. Another journalist who's going to say we're over reacting, being crybabies, and basically dismiss us as entitled brats." So far everyone I've talked to has been let down by some degree because of the endings, but all the articles and opinion pieces I've read have been saying that we're being stupid.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that you understand. Personally, I would prefer my happy ending, but I would understand if it couldn't be done. As it stands though, these endings were just bad, both from a story point of view and a fan's point of view. And you pointed out the story parts instead of just the fan part. Raising more questions, plotholes, and not answering any questions in the ending is not art, it's bad writing. There were better ways to handle that.
And you touched on something that many critics of the fans' reaction seem to be missing: BioWare made an amazing game and story, and that's why we're so mad about the ending. We cared deeply for these characters because BioWare wrote them so well. They created a sense of belonging and family with them. To see it all end that way, with no closure and (to me anyway) an utter sense of depression and strife in the galaxy is just bitter.
I'm glad someone out there understands at least.

 

[Fearzone]

Nice write-up.

A lot of people have been talking about the indoctrination theory, to explain the ending. It's an interesting re-frame of all the information, and most of it sounds pretty good. The reason I don't think it has any merit is that it is impractical: not every console owner has a Internet connection and can download the "real" ending DLC. It would only be feasible if a fourth installment of Mass Effect was to be released. I'd be interested in your take on the indoctrination theory.

 

[BanZeus]

It's a very nice mix of denial, wishfull thinking and self-reinforcement.

I'm not entirely sure what evidence you're basing this on.

You can't disprove the "indoctrination theory" using evidence because the "indoctrination theory" isn't based on evidence: I believe that's the literal point of Nimcha's statement.

Indoctrination theory is fan-fiction that some people cling to religiously because they would rather believe the game lies to you for 30 hours than accept that the ending just blows.

 

[Scars Unseen]

I'd been thinking about why I was so certain the "life is hopeless, death" ending wouldn't work well, ever since I finished the game, but I couldn't reach a conclusion. The length of the series is the answer. That would be like someone slashing your tires or burning down your house as a practical joke.

Try reading 8-bit Theater some time. God help us if Brian Clevinger ever starts writing video games.

 

[Therumancer]

Mass Effect was defined as being a spiritual successor to "Star Wars: Knight Of The Old Republic" and going for the Star Wars vibe. The idea of the game is that while things are really bad, we have a bigger than life hero of the "Horatio Hornblower", "Honor Harrington", "James T Kirk" mould who is equal to those challenges and always manages to get things to turn up aces no matter how bad it is. Even Renegade Shepard is still basically doing the right thing for the right reasons, it's just how he goes about it.

I disagree. Well, I guess I agree that *some* Shepards will have been like that, but it certainly isn't the only personality out there. Or, indeed, the one BioWare thought of as 'Shepard' - and in an ending where your personal character's actions don't matter, that's pretty damn important.

Mass Effect 1, one character had to die and one had a chance of doing so. End of Mass Effect 2, BioWare intended for your squadmates to die. Seems to me like around 2 per playthrough was the average - hell, if you screw up enough, Shepard can die. Then you have the plethora of companions who can die in Mass Effect 3 - won't go into details, because of spoilers, but there are a LOT. Then, toward the end of the last game, Shep goes into full scale mental breakdown. I almost wanted an option to just 'flip out' during the conversations with my team in that section, because it would've fitted the character so well.

What I'm basically saying here is that BioWare decided to have only one ending (not defending them for that, it was a bloody stupid idea) and that one ending fitted their idea of who Shepard was. Who they pushed the player to make Shepard into. The problem here isn't as simple as the ending not fitting the game, it's about the ending not fitting the character. And it fitted my character to a T.

Again, I'm not defending BioWare. I'm just saying that the ending wasn't awful for everyone, and that's not just because of personal opinion.

I could debate all of that heavily, but it would go nowhere. Generally because I do not think the losses were the intent of the story, but rather a way of adding jeopardy and gamability to Mass Effect. The idea of being able to lose squad members for example was an incentive to replay the game and try and do it perfectly, which was quite possible.

Rather I'll point out that even if what your saying is true, you can't argue that trippy surrealism fits spiritually into a universe that has always been straighforward, painfully so at times. Mass Effect is a game that has always been grounded in it's own reality, not a game intended to have you question that reality, or to create any doubts as to the outcome of your actions or even if your actually taking any action at all (as can be argued as part of the indoctrination theory).

See, I don't think the ending can be justified as fitting within the spirit of Mass Effect at all. Sure, a potential "you lose" option compared to a "you win" option might fit, but that happy ending is still going to be the canon, with the possibility of losing being an incentive to do things right.

If you read what I said about all evidence supporting that this ending was intended to be a recent business move more than anything close to an intended ending for the series when it was first conceived, it's increasingly hard to defend on any kind of artistic grounds or as fitting within the intent of the game. Admittedly most of that is circumstantial evidence, but to be honest given that lawyers have apparently felt it was possible to go after Bioware for Fraud and false advertising in relation to what they did say, it's even more damning. Outside of a criminal trial (where Circumstantial Evidence doesn't hold much weight) even I can see how a case can be made out of this on that level if no other.... and whether EA wins or loses, the point is that even at Bioware we're seeing a divide among their own team in terms of what some are saying and might have believed, and what the actual writers were being told to do.

 

[rickthetrick]

I for one have zero respect for a company that held the real ending off for a cash grab DLC.
Artistic expression and creative vision my left ass cheek. They saw money and nothing else.
If one good thing came out of this, I'd say they would be wary to pull this crap again say like on Dragon Age 3.


Capthca: Know your Rights.....Lul

 

[Paragon Fury]

It's a very nice mix of denial, wishfull thinking and self-reinforcement.

I'm not entirely sure what evidence you're basing this on.

You can't disprove the "indoctrination theory" using evidence because the "indoctrination theory" isn't based on evidence: I believe that's the literal point of Nimcha's statement.

Indoctrination theory is fan-fiction that some people cling to religiously because they would rather believe the game lies to you for 30 hours than accept that the ending just blows.

How is Indoctrination theory not based on evidence?

It explains how everything Shepard experiences after Harbinger's attack on the Hammer Forces almost fits a textbook definition of indoctrination according to the Codex, and explains a great deal of the physical in-game evidence that points to the ending being fake or a lie being fed to Shepard to indoctrinate him and stop his resistance.

The other option is that the ending is so bad and so badly written the only way to make sense of it is to explain it through indoctrination theory.

I chose to be slightly more optimistic.

 

[LetalisK]

YES! Thank you Shamus! Finally, a video game culture personality that isn't just sucking off EA and Bioware and is willing to criticize THEM instead of lecturing or villifying millions of rightfully pissed off players.

 

[RevRaptor]

My whole problem is that mass effect 1 had a happy ending as did mass effect 2 as long as you didn't suck, then along comes mass effect 3 and it only has 3 sad endings. It just doesn't seem to fit with the first 2 games.
also I really hate how they punish you for not buying dlc, I spent the first 20 minutes wondering why the hell every one was referring to Shepard as a potential war criminal, I sure has hell don't remember doing anything that would cause that sort of reaction. Oh right it was all done in that dlc I didn't buy - lame

 

[Frotality]

well it WASNT the ending they had planned all along. SOMEONE had everything planned out, but they scrapped drew's plot (wonder why he left bioware, huh?) and concocted this... thing. it was a fool's game to try and change the ending that was built up to for 2.5 games in the first place, but deciding to completely disregard EVERY SINGLE GOD DAMN THEME of the entire series cannot be attributed to just being rushed for a new ending: that was an artistic choice, if a very, very, very, very bad one.

moreover, bioware has kind of already caved into fanfiction. they have listened to fans in all the wrong places, feeding their creepy obsessions with romanceable garrus and sexbot EDI, so a fanfiction ending would not be far off. i agree that changing the ending isnt a good idea: the damage is done. changing it is just damage control, and if they charge for it, then the shitstorm we have now will look like a little rabbit dropping compared to the hurricane of feces ransoming the ending will make.

its a lose-lose situation. bioware has quite effectively shot themselves in the foot.

EDIT: shot themselves in the "artistic" foot, i mean. their business foot will be healthier than ever before if they ransom the ending.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Before I start I feel I should say that I've never really gotten around to playing the ME games. I played about 2 hours of ME1 and got bored and never returned. But I have been discussing the ending with a friend of mine who loves the ME games, and hates the ending.

I put forward that, while the ending was poorly executed, the core themes and ideas behind it are perfect. It might have something to do with me liking older, sad, futile science fiction stories, and his experience with that genre being basically nil.

The complete subversion by the writers, where they created a story based almost exclusively on player choice, but then turn around and say "No. You are insignificant. You lost, and there's nothing that you can do about it." That is the best ending they could've done. It is the damn ballsiest move any developer could make and I absolutely adore it.

So as for your three points for a good story, Shamus:

I feel that with better explanation, but no closure or affirmation, this would've been the best videogame ending of all time.

You all thought they were writing a triumphant story about your hero, but it ended up being a pointless tragedy, and I love it.

I'm probably going to get completely flamed for this response, but fuck it, this is what I think.