Mass Effect Writer Reveals Discarded Ending Ideas

[Silly Hats]

This was on his blog months and months ago.

Still, I'm probably blissfully in denial when I say that I don't really care whichever happened. ME3 is still a great game.


Also, Drew's books - particuarly the Mass Effect prequels are really really good and I highly recommend reading them.

 

[PirateRose]

So basically they had written themselves into a corner and had no friggen clue how to end the series. I so called it. However, they were really determined to find some way that the Reapers were really trying to protect everyone and somehow Saren was right?

You know, I remember on the BSN way before ME3 came out, someone made a joke about the Reapers really were the good guys trying to protect people. What a silly and awful ending that would be everyone said, ha ha ha.

 

[uchytjes]

Honestly, that whole dark energy thing sounds like a really good idea if it was fleshed out correctly.

The Reapers, instead of being some kind of purge in order to prevent any purges from happening, actually don't want to die. But, because they aren't completely evil, they don't just kill off all organic life and allow them to advance and to eventually become immortal reapers themselves.

I'm horrible at actually fleshing out stuff, but I think it would've worked better than what they did. It asks "what will happen if an immortal being faces a known time at which he will die?"

 

[Eleima]

"I'm a little leery about going into too much detail because whatever we came up with, it probably wouldn't have been what people imagine it would be."

Still sounds better than magic space cupcakes.

 

[Zetatrain]

Umm...isn't most of this old news. I remember seeing the whole "dark energy" ending mentioned on this forum several times, or was that all just rumors and speculations and this is the first time its actually been confirmed by a Bioware writer?

 

[Annihilist]

Wow, all of these seem...kinda shit. Even worse than the actual ending - all contrived twists which make no sense and have no solid footing based on the context. My favourite ending idea is the one where the final choice is between killing the Reapers and watching galactic society crumble over time, or allowing the reapers to kill everyone and start the cycle again. Christ, no wonder the series disintegrated, if this is what their writers were kicking around.

All in all I was disappointed in Mass Effect 3 from the start anyway, pretty average game all around.

 

[VoidWanderer]

And this, ladies and gentlemen is why you don't change the lead writer for a game series.

God of War 2 and 3 could've had a better story if the guy from the first one had more control...

 

[Whateveralot]

Shouldn't the ending just be Shephard destroying the Reapers / driving them into submission / both, while killing Shepard in the process, leaving the universe wondering why the hell they where here in the first place.

The ending of the Reapers could just be a "We are protecting you from greater harm. Yourselves". After that, you can play as Capt. Anderson and watching the universe take shape after the decisions of Shepard.

 

[Cyanic]

Those are just as bad because they're just as absurd and overwrought.

Bunch of races build a thing to survive, battle everything in a last ditch effort, throw in the elusive man, queue ending. Done. No stupid crap that doesn't need to be over-explained because you can't accept a simple story and make it about the PLAYER decisions instead of your own stupid agenda as a writer.

Fans rejoice and the brand is even stronger.

 

[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

 

[DSK-]

Those don't sound too bad, obviously not fleshed out enough but not as terrible as a space ghost giving you a choice of which colour you like best and ignoring all of the decisions you made throughout all three games.

To be honest a Scooby Doo ending would have been better. Shepard pulls a mask off a reaper and look! It was old Mr. Jenkins from the sawmill all along! He was just trying to smuggle diamonds on to the Citadel. He wouldn't gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling Normandy kids.

Oh god that made me laugh! Thank you, that made my day

You know, I wouldn't at all mind Bioware making a Blood Dragon-esque, tongue-in-cheek RPG/game with such things.

 

[jurnag12]

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!
Star-Child: "Organics and Synthetics cannot co-exist"
Shepard: "Uhm...actually..."

 

[Megalodon]

The truth is ME3's ending would have been fine if they just let you pull out a victory there at the end, no "better" endings but "hey you still gotta die" in an attempt to be edgy, just a solid victory snatch. Everyone would have gone home happy and the themes of the entire series wouldn't have been completely bjorked. They set Shepard up to always be capable of doing the impossible, they stopped the Reapers not once, but twice, three times even if you count some of the ME2 DLC.

If you're going to have your hero die at endgame, it needs to be setup and telegraphed through the whole of series and not included as an 11th hour Mary Sue twist.

Karpyshyn's ideas aren't great, but they're still better than how they handled the ending of the game overall.

you do know of course that one ending is a cliffhanger, since you see someone wearing N7 armor severely damaged like how Shepard's was buried in ruble take a quick breath before the scene ends, implying that he survived.


I mean, that was my first ending. Wasn't even that hard to get.

I dont see how people coudln't of gotten it unless they were just too lazy, then they deserve the shitty endings they got.

Or didn't want to play multiplayer at release. It wasn't until the EC lowered the EMS score needed that you could get that ending without the multiplayer boost.

The truth is ME3's ending would have been fine if they just let you pull out a victory there at the end, no "better" endings but "hey you still gotta die" in an attempt to be edgy, just a solid victory snatch. Everyone would have gone home happy and the themes of the entire series wouldn't have been completely bjorked. They set Shepard up to always be capable of doing the impossible, they stopped the Reapers not once, but twice, three times even if you count some of the ME2 DLC.

If you're going to have your hero die at endgame, it needs to be setup and telegraphed through the whole of series and not included as an 11th hour Mary Sue twist.

Karpyshyn's ideas aren't great, but they're still better than how they handled the ending of the game overall.

Amen to this, if they had had the crucible be the giant anti-reaper space bomb it had been built up to be, therewouldn't have been anywhere near the level of shitstorm that there was.

 

[nightwolf667]

The truth is ME3's ending would have been fine if they just let you pull out a victory there at the end, no "better" endings but "hey you still gotta die" in an attempt to be edgy, just a solid victory snatch. Everyone would have gone home happy and the themes of the entire series wouldn't have been completely bjorked. They set Shepard up to always be capable of doing the impossible, they stopped the Reapers not once, but twice, three times even if you count some of the ME2 DLC.

If you're going to have your hero die at endgame, it needs to be setup and telegraphed through the whole of series and not included as an 11th hour Mary Sue twist.

Karpyshyn's ideas aren't great, but they're still better than how they handled the ending of the game overall.

you do know of course that one ending is a cliffhanger, since you see someone wearing N7 armor severely damaged like how Shepard's was buried in ruble take a quick breath before the scene ends, implying that he survived.


I mean, that was my first ending. Wasn't even that hard to get.

I dont see how people coudln't of gotten it unless they were just too lazy, then they deserve the shitty endings they got.

Yes, I know about that ending and frankly I don't really care. The Mass Effect Trilogy was billed as exactly that, a trilogy. It deserved a trilogy ending, a real one, not just a "hey, see look what we snuck in at the end if you played multiplayer a ton, ending". It needed a real one. When a game company bills it's story as a complete story and an ending to that story, then I expect a complete answer. A cliffhanger doesn't cut it, a cliffhanger that hinges on a readiness score that can only be gotten through multiplayer (or lots of post-release DLC) also doesn't really cut it.

Why? Because a cliffhanger isn't an ending and no, it's not the same as the Avengers' sneaking a sneak peek clip at the end of their movie of the upcoming baddie in the next round. Why? Because it's a franchise, it's not a trilogy. You bill it as a trilogy, you do start to look rather silly when you fail to deliver on the themes of that trilogy. This is a lot like if Star Wars: Return of the Jedi ended with an after credits snap of the Emperor floating in black space, before he suddenly opens his eyes. The story on it's own wouldn't have felt incomplete and the feelings we'd all have gotten from watching it would've been thoroughly soured. Especially if Luke's fate was in question and the series ended with Leia looking up mournfully at the sky going: "look at all the great things he brought us, it's so sad he won't be here now that we've finally found each other again." This is the same kind of thing.

On a simple level of storytelling it's a sign of utter incompetence and their own unwillingness to completely commit to the idea of Shepard completely being dead (after they'd already revived them to life).

This is like back when you could still find The Vampire Diaries books in a four-pack with the subtitle "The Complete Trilogy" emblazoned proudly on the front. It was as ridiculous for those books then as it is for Bioware now.

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.

 

[IronMit]

This is so stupid. What he says actually ruins the previous games.
His not talking about only endings...his talking about the entire point to the universe. The HOW and WHY. This stuff should be nailed down before the first game released.

You can end a story how you like but you can't invent the bad guy motivation at the final hurdle,
It would be like Luke Skywalker entering the emperor's throne room and the Emperor explaining the galaxy will blow up if the dark side doesn't take over.

 

[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