Mass Effect 3's Ending Was Intended To Polarize

[Misterian]

I'll just say this:

Bioware, what you did with Mass Effect was essentially create a sci-fi storyline that's basically the game industry's answer to cinema's original Star Wars trilogy (in a good way).

I don't think you should have to worry about the third game as a whole being forgetable, let alone worry about a regular happy ending in it being forgetable

 

[BuddhaGeek]

The simple fact that is being overlooked by those who are dismissing the unrest as simple "nerdrage" is that we don't necessarily want the ending to be fluffy or in any way "sunshine and bunny rabbits". A large complaint is simply that it not only provides no closure, but that in the context of everything we have learned about the game's universe, its characters, is nonsensical.

What has been for the last half-decade was an intriguing, emotional story that was shaped based off of our choices. It is one of the main selling points of the entire franchise: "All your actions have consequences". We were even told that the endings would reflect that, even going so far to say that there would be as many as SIXTEEN endings, all vastly different from the others and that it would not be "Choice A, B, and C". What we received was exactly that. All of our actions that we had devoted 120+ hours to ultimately meant nothing and ended with more questions than answers and more plotholes made in the final ten minutes than the entire series combined.

The gamers who dislike the endings are not making their voices heard without reason. They (myself included) feel betrayed because we have invested our time and our money into something only to have our faith shattered and our dismay spat on.

The idea of "entitlement" is a sentiment that seems to be specifically oriented around the gamer community. It's an idea that says that we are complaining about something we have no rights to, that we have no personal stake in the outcome of games we love and have devoted our time to purely because we were not part of its development. But, we are. It's a symbiotic relationship, one where they develop, we play, we love, and we invest our money and our time so that they may continue to develop and we can continue to play. To have Bioware take a "It's X, love it or get out" is a betrayal and an insult and one that is being countered.

So yes, I did not like the ending and I am glad that the voices speaking loudest are (for the most part) the most temperate. It needs to happen in all aspects and, hopefully, this will be a good start.

 

[CatComixzStudios]

Honestly, I did think the ending could be better.

I can accept Shepard and possibly his crew dying. It's the end of the series. It doesn't make me happy, but I can understand.

The mass relays being destroyed (and effectively handicapping space travel) grinds my gears a bit, though. Wouldn't that mean that all of the aliens that came to Earth would be pretty much trapped? But whatever, I'm sure they could find a way off Earth eventually.

One thing that does bother me though is weird ending with that grandfather and the kid. What in the hell was up with that? That made no sense to me. Could anyone explain that part to me.

The only thing that totally pisses me off though is that they don't really show the consequence of whatever action you choose. Mass Effect has always been about making choices and then living with the consequences, but in that case, you make the arguably most important choice in the game, and it doesn't show what it does. Nobody makes a big speech about how Shepard brought the universe together. How he took control of the Reapers/destroyed all synthetics/combined them and evolved all life. Without showing what your choice does, it doesn't seem as powerful.

However, I respect Bioware as an artist (being one myself) and I know how hard it can be to end something in a way that makes everyone happy. But it still should have followed its own ideals as a series.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Its just a bunch of people who have a sad that Shepard actually fucking dies at the end of her trilogy.

Sorry not everything is shit rainbows and vomit skittles in magic fairy wonderland, but sometimes shit just doesn't end that way.

That said; they ought to at least put something in to detail the outcome of the player's choices throughout the game. Other than that the endings were good; leave them alone.

This is why I thought I would hate the ending at first- But after looking at the synopsis for the choices- It can't please ANYONE
There is no right answer, everything screws the galaxy over to a terribly mudane point- Literally, there is no chance for anything in the future of Mass Effect. Bioware simply said "Fuck all of our fans- Let's just ruin the series."

 

[Therumancer]

Why? Why would you deliberatly make an ending this "divisive"...and not even in a good way? Isn't the whole point of media to get people to LIKE your media (all of it, including the ending) so they buy more?

Yes and no, comics writers learned a long time ago that pissing off fans is a way of getting them to spend money, since the merest hint that you might be about to "fix" things in some way can get people to spend money.

A good example of this would probably be the whole deal with Hal Jordan in DC comics. They didn't just get rid of that character, they did it in a really crappy way that slotted everyone off. Then for years and years they continually dropped hints that they might be about to bring Hal back and set it right, and eventually they did, but not before exploiting a carrot on a stick approach for an unprecedented amount of time.

I suspect to an extent that we might be seeing EA/Bioware experimenting with the idea. They know Mass Effect is popular enough where they were going to move enough copies to not need "Project $10". Creating an intentionally divisive ending that seems to be a cookie cutter of science fiction/fantasy endings that slotted people off almost as a formula (Lost, Battlestar Galactica, etc...) is a great way to experiment with the idea of being able to drag it out and hold it for ransom.

Sure, I could be wrong, and this wasn't planned for those reasons, but to be honest after how smashingly this kind of ending has gone over with other properties... I mean "Battlestar Galactica" probably has one of the most enduring hategasms ever after it's ending, I can't see anyone at Bioware genuinely thinking this was a great way to finish things off unless it was part of some plan.

In the end, I don't think the endings were as bad as some people do, and honestly I think they do make sense if your paying attention to the storyline, but I do think they are disappointing compared to what we should have gotten... people are right that we deserved more, but are overreacting in the extent to which they take it.

Time will tell what's going to happen. Right now I think Bioware's attitude about the whole thing is worse than the endings or any problem with the game. I mean either they screwed up and don't want to take responsibility after the huge backlash, or they are playing mind games with people for their own purposes (with the end result of turning those mind games into money)... neither reflects well on them.

The best way for things to turn out would be for that "The Truth" DLC to not be a rumor and be released for free as implied by the rumor. That would smooth things over a lot, but would at the same time still show Bioware to be a bunch of jerks who were jerking our collective chains.

 

[Antonio Torrente]

Since when did Hedeaki Anno joined Bioware? Because only that man could come up with that kind of endings.

Or did Bioware just have a Neon Genesis Evangelion marathon during the development phase?

Because this one of the most infuriating examples of a Gainax Ending [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GainaxEnding] since Neon Genesis Evangelion.
(btw the endings are already an entry on the trope page)

Hell the NGS ending is now looking better than the shit endings that Bioware gave us.

So is Mass Effect 3 going the Fallout 3 Broken Steel like recton DLC?

I hope so, because if Bioware don't fix this Dragon Age 3 will suffer and I'm pretty sure it won't sell well or won't reach the target sale EA have hoped for.

I am glad I am not the only one who thought of NGE with the bioware endings.

I confess it should be NGE not NGS sorry.

Anyway I hate endings like these in gripping and interesting stories that make you care for the characters, because they don't provide some sort of closure.

At least Anno will be fixing his NGE with Rebuild of Evangelion [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/RebuildOfEvangelion?from=Main.RebuildOfEvangelion] sort of.

Ok I will give you another game with very weird endings that depending on how you see it, provides at least some closure to the story.

I'm talking about Indigo Prophecy or Farenheit if you lived in Europe.
The game Qauntic Dream made before Heavy Rain so you could say HR is the spiritual successor.
(I'm not gonna provide a spoiler tag since it already an old game.)

During the last chapters the protagonist died while saving his gf and got resurrected, so basically he is a walking corpse.

What's weird and confused a lot of people is he had sex before the big battle with the main female character and somehow got her pregnant (think of breaking dawn which is even more weirder) and during all the epilogues depending on your progress during the game he is saying she's now carrying their baby.

So yeah even that provided a very big plot hole, but at least for me it provided some closure.

Back to Bioware and Mass Effect, what's with "The Truth" DLC rumor that's floating around?

Is this some sort of Fallout 3: Broken Steel DLC plot fix?

Will it be free?

I hope so.

 

[Setrus]

I for one think it's not so much the endings you get to pick as it is the epilogue that bothers people. You get three choice, each has their own merit and their own moral dilemmas, it gives a chance to roleplay as well as to make you bite your nails as you try to figure out what to do.
...
And then epilogue comes, and you're left wondering what the consequences were, what happened, and that's not what you wanted. I mean you can guess, but it's not what you wanted. And yes, the whole Normandy thing and such...didn't make much sense.

I think many would have been happier if the epilogue had been something like the one in Dragon age 1, something artistic yet informative that takes all your previous decisions as well as the final one into account.

 

[Velvo]

I loved the ending to Mass Effect 3. It was one of the more poetic conclusions to a game I've seen in some time. It seriously made me cry a little bit. I mean, I don't care to know exactly what happened!

What I care about isn't the ending, but the amazing and moving game leading up to it! Who the hell cares if the ending leaves a bit to the imagination? The journey there was still one of the most memorable experiences I've had in a game series.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

For all the ire its recieving Im at least happy to see it come to an END. Not a good end, but an end none the less.

 

[Antonio Torrente]

Back to Bioware and Mass Effect, what's with "The Truth" DLC rumor that's floating around?

Is this some sort of Fallout 3: Broken Steel DLC plot fix?

Will it be free?

I hope so.

Basically it's a rumor that Bioware had this planned from all along. That the end of ME3 was really Shepard fighting against indoctrination.

The actual content of this will be a scene after the player wakes up on earth and is actually given a proper ending. It supposedly also comes with all the multiplayer DLC that was leaked a while ago.

It's also completely free.

If any of this is true it's going to help a lot in the way of Bioware's image. I think to do it any other way would make a lot of people very, very angry.

So you are saying it's some sort of retcon of the stupid endings.

It's really Bioware's Broken Steel huh?

If it is true, when it will be released?

If this does help reestablishing Bioware's image and reputation with gamers, will it save Dragon Age 3 from a hypothetical failure of sales?

 

[Sesambrot]

Okay folks, I'm new to these boards, so be nice to me

I thought I'd share my thoughts on the topic...
While I haven't played it through yet, there was no way all the ruckus about the ending could have gone by unnoticed.
What I don't get in terms of certain arguments being brought up over and over again, like "everyone will starve to death" doesn't make much sense to me...
The thing is that I just recieved a codex-entry labled "Desperate Measures" which states the it was considered to use the relays as weapons against the reapers by blowing them up, which was dismissed due to the fact that the explosion of a mass relay, would equal that of a supernova, releasing enough energy to wipe out all life in a whole system like sol!
In fact this means, the destruction of the mass releays would have wiped out pretty much everything in their respective system, so you don't have to worry about billions starving to death, most of them are actually dead anyway. The only ones that could have survived are people/aliens on colonies which are in a different system than the relays (same cluster/nebula but different system).
That is aside of a lot of other things that actually don't make any sense...

Now about the "post-ending-dlc" I/we've heard about.
I've found indications for that in several places over the internet. Let's assume they put out a DLC that doesn't change the current ending, but extends it by releavling some sort of twist.
Wether that's timetravle, hallucination, or indoctrination remains to be seen. If that's actually how it's going to be I would assume that they had this planned all along, and it actually kind of makes sense from a narrative point of view. You couldn't do something like this with a movie, or a book, but in the age of videogames, internet and digital media, with DLCs and patches, it can actually be a great way to imerse people in a story and have them really care about it. In fact, if this was planned all along, the shitstorm that has been happening over the past few days would have been expected by Bioware.

I for one want to believe that Bioware isn't that stupid, they did a great job with ME1 and ME2 and actually as far as I have played ME3 it really seems to be even better than those two. I don't think they would be that stupid to ruin everything by completely fucking up the ending!

Now I really want to believe that they are currently holding back something, planning to supprise everyone, because to be honest, that is the only thing that keeps me playing ME3. I didn't touch the game for a whole day when I found out, until I had time to think about it.

The only thing I'm really concerned about right now is, will it be free, or will we have to pay?
In case it'll be free, I say this is the most epic, most awesome, example of trolling in the history of videogames and the internet ever, and actually something everbody should be able to laugh about in the end...
However, if people will have to pay additional ten bucks, which seems just as likely to me (considering EA is the publisher), this would be the most despicable and evil form of milking a franchise for money, as that would also most likely destroy it completely in the process.


Now about the ending itself, I think I just have to agree with everyone who thinks it's not what we deserve.
I for one don't need a happy ending as long as it's still a good one and makes sense.
From what I have heard so far the current ending is neither good, nor does it make any sense.

I think it remains to be seen if "The Truth" DLC is actually true or just stage three of this:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9476-Mass-Effect-3-The-Process

I know it's been posted before, so please forgive me

Sheesh, first post and already a wall of text lol
hope you guys didn't mind to read through all of it...

 

[survivor686]

The ending had potential, but suffered from sloppy execution. I would argue that majority of fans expected Shepard to die. But at least we'd at least get a preview of how their previous actions affected the galaxy at large.

Instead we get a bratty reaper-child-space baby hybrid, who might or might not be trolling us and using some rather bizzare logic to justify their actions(So...rendering organics into techno-zombies to prevent synthetics taking over, was the best idea?). Instead we get an ending with more holes than Swiss cheese and a cutscene that leaves us confused at best.

Worse all the endings are the same!

So yes its polarizing, in the same way a random dude shitting on your carpet polarizes you and the afore mentioned random dude.

 

[Antonio Torrente]

So you are saying it's some sort of retcon of the stupid endings.

It's really Bioware's Broken Steel huh?

If it is true, when it will be released?

If this does help reestablishing Bioware's image and reputation with gamers, will it save Dragon Age 3 from a hypothetical failure of sales?

It's not really a retcon, more like they planned this out from the beginning.

The rumor has it being released in April or May.

I think Dragon Age 3 will have to prove to gamers that the franchise is worth buying again. It did have a couple of pretty good DLC's for DA2, which certainly help with things.

We'll see I hope I'm wrong with Dragon Age 3 becoming a failure.

So April or May huh? Ok

Wonder how many DLC will be released.

 

[Emiscary]

I'm starting to wonder if Bioware has any option besides the free ending fix DLC moving forward.

I mean if they release in game DLC content (Take Back Omega! or some bull) the angry fans (myself included) will take it as confirmation that we ARE being patronized and ignored, then walk out on the company.

If they release an "alternate ending" for cash soas not to piss off the minority that are content with this gobshite (takes all kinds I guess) for money then all the angry fans will take it as confirmation that they planned to sell us an incomplete game from the get go. Some of us will probably spend money on that ending ("the ending was so bad I'd throw 10$ at it to make it go away"), but it'll spell the end for any brand loyalty people had to Bioware.

And if they try to claim the indoctrination theory is true, then we'll feel like they've been fucking with us from day 1. Thus retroactively making the entire bloody series an elaborate and expensive practical joke.

Sadly one of the above is almost certainly what's gonna happen. Pay attention to what the nerd griefers are saying: you're stupid to not expect disappointment from gaming.

 

[mavkiel]

Okay folks, I'm new to these boards, so be nice to me

I thought I'd share my thoughts on the topic...
While I haven't played it through yet, there was no way all the ruckus about the ending could have gone by unnoticed.
What I don't get in terms of certain arguments being brought up over and over again, like "everyone will starve to death" doesn't make much sense to me...
The thing is that I just recieved a codex-entry labled "Desperate Measures" which states the it was considered to use the relays as weapons against the reapers by blowing them up, which was dismissed due to the fact that the explosion of a mass relay, would equal that of a supernova, releasing enough energy to wipe out all life in a whole system like sol!
In fact this means, the destruction of the mass releays would have wiped out pretty much everything in their respective system, so you don't have to worry about billions starving to death, most of them are actually dead anyway. The only ones that could have survived are people/aliens on colonies which are in a different system than the relays (same cluster/nebula but different system).
That is aside of a lot of other things that actually don't make any sense...
...

1) Not everyone would starve to death. But Garrus and tali are pretty much boned. They cant eat what humans can eat. And if by some miracle the food there is edible for them, the human crew starves.

2)Blowing up relays -- What occurs in the ending is a channeled explosion. All that energy converted into your space magic color choice. So it isnt a catastrophic release like in the me2 dlc.

 

[Ross Fixxed]

I just finished it and thought I'd give a few opinions / questions:

1) The relays SHOULD destroy the area around them but I assume the crucible is purpose built to not do that.
2) Will life go on? Yes it seems, the kid asking to be told another story suggests one and now another generation can go on. Hurray!
3) The 'you are now a legend go buy some DLC' back to back with 'tell me another story' annoyed me as it seemed to be asking for more money to hear more story as you all have commented.
4) I was delighted my 2 team mates were alive on that planet the Normandy crashed on.... WAIT WHAT? This is the main thing that makes NO sense to me whatsoever (also how is EDI alive on Destruction ending?)
5) Is Shepherd talking to the kid like a little kid or is he totally wasted?
6) Wait... where did the Illusive man come from.
7) I'm actually happy that they created an ending, a definitive one that has cohesion to it, but I'm a little underwhelmed at the range between the 3. That said after such a long journey a lot of emotions specific to my character etc were felt watching the ending and this is very good. I just wish I wasn't left with so many questions that actually don't seem to make sense.
8) I was assuming he was indoctrinated as things went, so when the breath was drawn I though aha, here we go, last playable part... oh wait what? I just figured he got up and then went into the beam doing the same thing we'd seen in a way (another cycle?) but that part isn't even necessarily in the ending....


I really liked it. And after thinking about it for a bit I'm getting increasingly confused. I don't mind ambiguity in an ending, but now that I write out how I'm feeling there's a lot of things that aren't vague, artistic or ambiguous they just don't add up.

An amazing game, some truly beautiful and emotional moments. But a final feeling of ... SAAAAY WHAAAAAT?!

 

[Mrmac23]

What I care about isn't the ending, but the amazing and moving game leading up to it! Who the hell cares if the ending leaves a bit to the imagination? The journey there was still one of the most memorable experiences I've had in a game series.

The "remember the journey, not the destination" way of thinking only really works when the destination doesn't defeat the entire point of the journey and make the ending so unneededly bizarre that instead of leaving us with a sense of satisfaction that the 100+ hours we put into the story was worth it, it leaves us angrily trying to figure out what the hell just happened.