Mass Effect Writer Reveals Discarded Ending Ideas

[HellbirdIV]

I don't understand why we couldn't just play the whole thing at face value.

Reapers want to eat us because we are delicious, and we stop them by preventing them locking down the Mass Relays through the Citadel.

Boom, pow, lasers, spaceships, an all out Galactic War that leaves us exhausted, decimated - but alive. And the Reapers... Not.

Are we really a culture so obsessed with passing ourselves off as intelligent that logical story progression is shunned?

The "Shepard is actually an alien" sounds like a really funny joke ending.

What about an ending where Shepard teleports inside the core of Harbinger, only to find a tiny dog in a headset pulling levers and throwing switches, controlling the Reapers...

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

They should never have revealed Reaper motivations. They should have let them stay these mysterious ancient machines with motivations far beyond our comprehension. Everyone would have been happier with that.

 

[Kingjackl]

The dark energy foreshadowing in Mass Effect 2 felt pretty hollow to me; just a technobabble excuse for why you have to play through a level with shields that drain in the sun. I certainly never would have expected it to be the big hook that drives the plot of the trilogy.

I actually didn't mind the reason for why the Reapers are harvesting races, but I think making it purely about organics and synthetics was too limiting. It should have built on the idea that they're wiping out advanced races to stop them from threatening the weaker ones. There's plenty of evidence in the series to suggest that as the case; hell, the Protheans would have enslaved the other races if they hadn't been destroyed by the Reapers first.

Oh and that 'Shepard is an alien idea'? Yeah, don't think too much about that. Mass Effect 1 was pretty much a KOTOR clone without the Star Wars branding, it wouldn't surprise me if that was an idea that got thrown around in brainstorming. Live and learn, I suppose.

 

[nightwolf667]

So, no. The crap ending is on them, if you enjoyed it great, but don't go around trying to make a turd any less of a turd by saying "but look how special I was to get this gold-plated turd!". A turd is a turd, end of story.

An opinion is an opinion, and it doesn't make something a turd, is a more accurate statement.

For those of you that said Dark Energy was set up in Mass Effect, please remember that it appears in one optional mission in the second game. Plus, by the looks of Drew's ideas, it would require nonsense to be made up and retcons of ME1 to work, as it's not only organics who can manipulate dark energy, it's anything with an electrical current.

No, on it's merits as a story, even from a purely objective standpoint, when looking at how well it holds up to what it promises it's audience and upholds the themes of it's story is what makes it a turd. The part where the game's ending is hamfisted out of the "beginner's fanfiction" playbook is funny, but not all that relevant. The part where the ending remains contentious today and the part where, when it came out, there was a horrific backlash in people who were left emotionally unsatisfied by the game's conclusion is proof enough of it's failure. On a very basic level, Bioware fans really aren't all that hard to please.

The game's themes weren't about machines versus organics, while that may have been a theme in the first game, ME2 worked very hard to rectify that idea with EDI and Legion, proving to the player that machines and organics could get along just fine. The Quarian versus Geth plot in ME2 and ME3 only justifies that further when you can find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

The Bioware writers were already making up massive amounts of their science up in ME2 just to justify the plot (Genetic diversity anyone?), so they were going to have to make some stuff up to justify it? So what? They were already knee deep in psuedoscience anyway, what's a bit more piled on top? The Star Child ending is also psuedoscience, bad psuedoscience, and the fact that the entire sequence completely negates everything the player has (supposedly) been working for through the course of three different games and it doesn't even have the temerity (until the extended cut) to let Shepard argue back about any of it.

I played the game at launch, it was emotionally unsatisfactory then on a personal level and I did go back to study it at an objective one. The flaws there are obvious. You are still free to enjoy something that's bad, of course, but from a thematic and storytelling perspective, it just doesn't work. People will still enjoy it, but there are people out there who will enjoy anything.

 

[neppakyo]

So, no. The crap ending is on them, if you enjoyed it great, but don't go around trying to make a turd any less of a turd by saying "but look how special I was to get this gold-plated turd!". A turd is a turd, end of story.

An opinion is an opinion, and it doesn't make something a turd, is a more accurate statement.

For those of you that said Dark Energy was set up in Mass Effect, please remember that it appears in one optional mission in the second game. Plus, by the looks of Drew's ideas, it would require nonsense to be made up and retcons of ME1 to work, as it's not only organics who can manipulate dark energy, it's anything with an electrical current.

They've been retconning ME since ME2...

ME3 still was a subpar generic duck and cover shooter

 

[Casual Shinji]

Jesus he's got a big neck....

He strikes an astonishing resemblance to the "Son, I am dissapoint" meme, which seems remarkably appropriate.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Those sound like interesting ideas, but I'm glad they weren't implemented. The endings sucked big time and though interesting, those would have too. Why? Because they're all unrelated to us as the player, as Shepard, to our Shepard's in particular. Crazy twists right at the end are not good storytelling. The only reaction such twists and turns will garner is "WTF?".

For Mass Effect 3 to have gotten it right, it should've been relevant in the context of the world and challenges we faced. ie. The fight against the Reapers ought to have been won, lost or something else, with the result being a combination of our choice at the end, the result of the last battle and the choices we made from the trilogy's start.

But seriously, a ghost child? WTF?

 

[Diana Kingston-Gabai]

MEHEM [http://www.youtube.com/embed/9dolmJZ0ZvU] is the only ending we need. Made me want to play the trilogy all over again.

 

[eberhart]

So, we learned that apart from their "innovative" ending, they also had half-baked, copy-pasted and stereotypical ideas plus some stuff they decided to retcon/forget/ignore.

Um... so... thanks for the information, Drew?

 

[Korolev]

Those ideas sound good. I wish they had been used, especially the "Dark Energy" idea.

It wasn't necessarily the idea behind the original ending that I disliked. What I disliked was how..... abrupt the ending was. It felt very anti-climatic, short and the original, un-extended ending left the entirety of galactic civilization on a cliff-hanger.

Having said all that, for the millionth time I will say that ME3 was, on the whole, a great game. Not as good as ME1, not nearly as good as ME2, but it was still great to play and it was pretty damn excellent for 30 of its 31 hours. It's just....that last hour.... so anti-climatic.

 

[LetalisK]

And still the ending is dependant on the fact that organics and synthetics can't co-exists, despite the fact that THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THE QUARIANS AND GETH WERE DOING NOT 10 FUCKING MINUTES AGO. And you don't even get to point this out!

Exactly, it only started all of ten minutes ago. It's pretty naive to brush hundreds of years of being enemies under a few days of being allies because of a common enemy and think everything is going to stay copacetic. I don't know why anyone assumes that synthetic-organic relations are any less volatile than organic-organic relations, if not more so even, or that those alliances would even remain after the reason they were forged is gone and people can start focusing on their petty squabbles again.

 

[jurnag12]

Exactly, it only started all of ten minutes ago. It's pretty naive to brush hundreds of years of being enemies under a few days of being allies because of a common enemy and think everything is going to stay copacetic. I don't know why anyone assumes that synthetic-organic relations are any less volatile than organic-organic relations, if not more so even, or that those alliances would even remain after the reason they were forged is gone and people can start focusing on their petty squabbles again.

Valid points, but the Catalyst is presenting it as utterly impossible, while you've seen that it can happen, and you can't even point out to the Catalyst that it's perfectly possible for it to happen.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

how about making our decisions making like they hold some weight. any comments on that Mr Fancyneck

 

[LetalisK]

Exactly, it only started all of ten minutes ago. It's pretty naive to brush hundreds of years of being enemies under a few days of being allies because of a common enemy and think everything is going to stay copacetic. I don't know why anyone assumes that synthetic-organic relations are any less volatile than organic-organic relations, if not more so even, or that those alliances would even remain after the reason they were forged is gone and people can start focusing on their petty squabbles again.

Valid points, but the Catalyst is presenting it as utterly impossible, while you've seen that it can happen, and you can't even point out to the Catalyst that it's perfectly possible for it to happen.

The catalyst acknowledges that peace is possible, but then goes on to claim that any peace between organics and synthetics is only temporary. Which if you think about it is kind of a "No shit, sherlock" kind of thing to say since I daresay there is no alliance that will last for eternity. However, his point is that because those alliances are temporary(and imo arguably more fragile than organic-organic alliances due to the nature of prejudice) and because of an assumed innate superiority of synthetic life that eventually synthetic life will become the dominant form of life in the galaxy and completely displace organic life. I purposely put "assumed" in there because I always considered the idea that synthetics are naturally superior to organics to be more a product of the stereotypes, biases, and prejudices of the characters in the game than a cold hard fact. The Catalyst and Reapers claiming this doesn't dissuade me either since they kind of have an agenda in the whole thing.

Throw in the Leviathan DLC and it gets even stupider and it becomes readily apparent that organic life is more than capable of not only completely dominating the galaxy but also staying in that position until eventually making a mistake and wiping themselves out. Ironically, the only synthetic form we've seen that's even comes close to having the capability of wiping out all organic life is the Reapers themselves while organics have plenty of examples of attempting to crush the galaxy. That's why I think the motivation of "you'll hurt yourselves via creating synthetics hence why we're doing this" should have simply been "you'll hurt yourselves". Or never had a stated motivation, that would have been nice too. IMO, a cold machine slaughtering billions for reasons only they can comprehend is far scarier than a cold machine slaughtering billions out of a warped sense of guardianship.

 

[R Man]

...

Here's a controversial ending to the game:

Shepard shoots/convinces Illusive man to shoot himself and the platform takes Shepard upstairs.
A massive targeting system lights up and is awaiting activation from somebody. Shepard thinks back on the previous years and depending on what s/he experienced, s/he either deactivates the Reapers or blows them out the sky and saves Earth.

Shepard collapses as another platform rises as [Love Interest] comes up. They have a brief but caring exchange of words and Shepard dies then and there, having saved his/her home from certain annihilation(In case there's no love interest, Shepard dies with a smile on his/her face, knowing s/he did what s/he could). The others take it upon themselves to continue the war throughout the galaxy and save the other homeworlds from the remaining reapers.

Brief eulogy on the Normandy as the rest of the universe moves on, because as much as Shepard's a hero, s/he's only one person and has shown the galaxy that cooperation is what saved everyone and that they have to move forward together in order to persevere and survive the threats out there.

Small dialogues for each character that Shepard has influenced and how, brief dialogues for each race, each faction and key characters.

Roll credits and awesome song to commemorate the time and feelings you've invested in the game.

Tease next ME game.


There you go, a far better ending, if pretty bland, written in five minutes. No bullshit, no dooming half the galaxy to die because of blowing up the gates, no single-person-single-choice crap that goes against what they spent three games to explain and no controversy that would leave half the internet raging for months, even years.

As a twist, if you didn't have a love interest, you'd just die and not be strong enough to use the console, showing that everyone is in this together to the end and that going solo was a bad idea.

This ending would be much better than the actual ending. It probably would have been easier to make as well. I had a similar idea myself about 4 seconds after finishing the game. The crucible should be a giant transmitter that overloads the reaper senses, allowing the navy a chance to strike. Grade endings according to EMS.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

The dark energy thing sounds kinda neat, but really, I don't think the ending needed a twist. Reaper were never the focus, I'd have been fine with it if ME3 had been just about uniting the galaxy for a final showdown.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Those are all also terrible ideas.

Fuck, nobody was looking for a twist ending or a deus ex machina. Everybody wanted closure, why wasn't that the immediate priority?

 

[mad825]

Really, Here's me thinking they had all of this planned from the start but just ignore me.

 

[themilo504]

I need to buy mass effect 3 some days.

So you planned a trilogy but not the ending? That?s pretty stupid.

 

[1337mokro]

I need to buy mass effect 3 some days.

So you planned a trilogy but not the ending? That?s pretty stupid.

No you don't, just watch a Let's Play. Same experience, without having to buy it or screw yourself over with a really not that good game.

I find it extremely funny that all the discarded endings are better in every way even in plot consistency than the one they went with. The Shepard is an alien ending could have been replaced with the indoctrination one and really the only thing that changes is Shepard is an actual human in the latter.

Besides the dude's neck being huge what's more obvious is that this is a Mass Effect publicity stunt. They are probably going to release something or they are going to make an announcement about it. How do you stir the internet pot then? You talk about the possible ME3 endings that were all discarded for the God Child ending.

To address his point about somebody would have been disappointed anyway... you are correct, it's hard to do any ending and please everyone but really? Worse than the God Child? You could have just gone full out and ripped of Gurren Lagan where the reapers were Gaurdians trying to stop the end of the universe and now that they are defeated that task fall on Shepard and the other species, transition into ME4.

Now we have a thoroughly fucked up universe where almost nothing is consistent as it was before and tons of plotholes.