Mass Effect Writer Reveals Discarded Ending Ideas

[Dragonbums]

Honestly, the Escapist has to find the weirdest or ugliest photos of the people they are talking about in their articles. Geez, like, what is that lighting? Makes him look like he's up to something sinister with a deadly smile.
Don't even get me started on the Miyamoto photos....

Back to OT: The one with the biotic abilities sounded really interesting. However considering the dude was fired for ME3 it wasn't going to happen.
I mean, it's embarrassing really.
Never did I think I would live to see the day where FANFICTION and Tumblr bloggers procured universally better endings than the canon series.
Shit, would of been slightly better if star kid was just plopped out of there.

 

[Mathak]

There was at one point some ideas that maybe Shepard was actually an alien and didn't know it

So guys...and then, at the end, the players find out Shepard was Blasto all along! Genius!

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

It really seems like when they started designing the trilogy they had no idea of how it would have ended

writing 101, write the beginning and end first then you write the story of how to get there

They pretty much admitted that. They knew, knew is a pretty strong word, they were hoping it was going to be a trilogy. I mean, when ME1 hit shelves it was brand new and original. They didn't know if it would succeed or fail. Then it became a massive success and they were caught with their pants down.

 

[spartandude]

It really seems like when they started designing the trilogy they had no idea of how it would have ended

writing 101, write the beginning and end first then you write the story of how to get there

They pretty much admitted that. They knew, knew is a pretty strong word, they were hoping it was going to be a trilogy. I mean, when ME1 hit shelves it was brand new and original. They didn't know if it would succeed or fail. Then it became a massive success and they were caught with their pants down.

actually no, when they announced Mass Effect 1 they said it would be a trilogy. so they really needed to have it done. but really this is just them messing up

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

...

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 is exactly why I'm not that bothered by ME3's ending; it wasn't this. First of all, I don't think they could have actually pulled off an ending like this, because there would be no way to account for what the Reapers were doing and why convincingly if Shepard just straight up beat them. They are supposed to be this incredibly complicated super race which even the entire of the combined geth conscious could not begin understand, and they state right from the first time you talk to one of them that their intentions are beyond anything we could comprehend. I honestly could not find any outright victory by Shepard to be believable in the face of that. Secondly, we all know that story and have seen it in various fashions in media probably dozens of times before and I have little interest in just seeing it again with a Mass Effect skin. Whats more, the ending that is in the game has generated a huge amount of debate, which a standard 'good guy wins yay' ending certainly wouldn't have managed. The 'synthetics vs organics' thing is admittedly a bit disappointing, it doesn't really fit the 'explanation that is beyond our comprehension' thing, though I'm hoping that's because there's quite a bit more going on than the star child let on.

All that said, the experimenting to find the perfect biotics explanation is pretty cool.

At one point we thought, well, maybe at some point Shepard gets his essence transferred into some kind of a machine, becomes sort of a cyborg and becomes sort of a bridge between organic and synthetic life.

Also demonstrates the Synthetic vs Organics idea had been kicking around for a while.

 

[zinho73]

I like the dark energy thing. Turning the Reapers into some kind of "good guys" trying to save the universe is right there with the theme of tough choices.

A potential choice would be to have the power to stop them but just let them eradicate everything, doing the "greater good". It would be grim but consistent and much less crazy.

 

[hermes]

All those idea sound as left field and ass-pulled as the one we got. Are you honestly going to argue that "Shepard is secretly an alien, but no one knew" is better than the Starchild? The whole essence transfer sounds incredibly similar to the control one; and "the dark matter" is just another name for exactly the same motivation for the Reapers.

To me, the ending + Leviathan is perfectly serviceable. It is a pity they put it as DLC (or maybe it was written reactionary, so we can't know for sure), but they wrote themselves into a wall by the end of 2 anyway, so I guess that was their best exit.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Yeah, I remember hearing about the Dark Matter one before. Was a bit mad because they were so planning in ME2 on that being a big thing in ME3, and then.....NOTHING!

The only mention of Dark Matter in ME2 was in Tali's recruitment mission where she theorizes that the star dying might be caused by it. And then it's never mentioned again.

If Dark Matter was the ending it would have come out of left field just as much as the star child, so it's not like it's much better.

Personally, the original ending would have been much better if they just replaced the Star Child with whatever teammate died on Virmire. At least then you would have a reason to consider the other options besides Destroy.

Maybe even have the Crucible hologram cycle between every teammate that's died in the 3 games. It would certainly tie the dream sequences in together.

True. That was the only time they talked about it, but they did go into a fair amount of detail about the "science" behind the whole thing.

Plus, they even had Tali do the whole "Oh, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about" thing. I mean come on. Whenever someone says that (one of the major characters no less) you know it's meant to mean "this is coming back latter".

As for the dark matter ending vs the original ending. I'd say the problem is that they just didn't explain the ending enough the first time. I mean, at the beginning of ME2 they have Shepard die(hardcore die), and then they bring her/him back to life. It's bullcrap, but they spent enough time explaining it that everyone was "okay" with it.
They talked about how it took a LONG time, a LOT of money, and they even show some of the super science at work bringing him back.

That's all they really had to do with the ending. Explain it more, and give us a few more moments of the crew. And they did.....Eventually.

 

[Reeve]

This was timely. It's PR for Mass Effect 4, obviously. Bioware want to get everyone's attention back on the Mass Effect franchise.

 

[Reeve]

[damn double post! Someone please delete this.]

 

[hermes]

Yeah, I remember hearing about the Dark Matter one before. Was a bit mad because they were so planning in ME2 on that being a big thing in ME3, and then.....NOTHING!

The only mention of Dark Matter in ME2 was in Tali's recruitment mission where she theorizes that the star dying might be caused by it. And then it's never mentioned again.

If Dark Matter was the ending it would have come out of left field just as much as the star child, so it's not like it's much better.

Personally, the original ending would have been much better if they just replaced the Star Child with whatever teammate died on Virmire. At least then you would have a reason to consider the other options besides Destroy.

Maybe even have the Crucible hologram cycle between every teammate that's died in the 3 games. It would certainly tie the dream sequences in together.

That is fairly close to what they did in Leviathan. I know a lot of people didn't play it because they were angry with ME3, but it really put a lot of the ending in perspective. You should check it out, at least on youtube since the info dump is impressive.

Its a pity they decided to make it a DLC, I think it would have worked great if they did it as a mission (I would even prefer them doing that and cut much of the Cerberus subplot as DLC), but you could also consider that they never intended to go that route and they wrote that DLC as another attempt to explain the ending, so we will never know...

 

[The Great JT]

Drew, nearly any idea would've been hated by fans, because fans are convinced their headcanon is what should be official canon and any deviation from that would be the "worst thing evar." Personally, I liked the ending. Yes, I liked the Starchild. I liked the "three color ending."

 

[Mikeyfell]

Why didn't they go with the Dark Energy thing?

At least that had some foreshadowing in the previous games, and even if it was still written like shit it would have had some basis in existing lore. As apposed (diametrically) to what we got, which was basically the equivalent of a writer snorting bleach and rubbing his balls on a page.

 

[MetalMagpie]

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

Yeah, I'd always assumed they didn't, because no one seems to do that sort of multi-game planning in the games industry. Or at least, no one I've come across.

It still amuses me that there are two games called Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2. Not only does one have a subtitle and one doesn't (for whatever stupid reason) but the one with the word "origins" in the title actually goes chronologically after the one numbered "2".

When they started out, they didn't know if they'd get the money for another Mass Effect game, let alone another two. And some people argue it's better to be free to "take on feedback" between each instalment. (Which presumably means working out which characters are unexpectedly popular and giving them more screen-time in the next game.)

Personally - if I decided I was going to make a trilogy of games - I'd bloody well work out the general plot to all three before I started! But I don't work in the video games industry. *shrug*

 

[Maxtro]

Next time they decide a story needs a trilogy to be told they should really have at least some sort of decent ending to work towards from the beginning. That's pretty basic storytelling.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: I've reason to believe that while BioWare said they planned on making Mass Effect, they weren't sure how to actually continue the story after the first game. It's pretty apparent (to me, at least) with ME2 that they seemed to be making shit up as they went along.

I got that impression too.

Wasn't the whole point of 1 to prevent the Reaper invasion?

So Sheppard and friends prevented the Citadel from turning into a mass-relay which would have let the Reapers warp in and start reaping. And in the end the Reapers were only delayed a couple of months?

I don't even remember what two was about.

 

[Still Life]

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.

I'm yet to read any analysis that is scientific in proving that the story and the ideas are, as many like to say, 'objectively' bad. I think you would be hard-pressed to find many stories within a more iterative-based style of writing (like screenplays) that have an infallible narrative. Some of the most celebrated works of story-telling have lots of quirks, idiosyncrasies and even strenuous leaps of logic.

I connected with the ending and I found that the extended cut largely cleared away the really obvious problems in conveying that ending, but those minor issues didn't erase the absolute blast I had playing the series and the interesting provocation that conclusion gave me. It wasn't perfect, but nothing ever is really.

I ultimately feel that where a lot people got upset was the lack of gratification so common in gaming and pop-culture story-telling, but I still don't think it makes the conclusion of ME3 and the rest of the trilogy objectively bad, from a story-telling perspective.

 

[PirateRose]

I need to buy mass effect 3 some days.

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

They planned to make a trilogy, but didn't really plan what happened in the trilogy. They just made it up as they went along and wrote themselves into a corner.