3 Years Later: Mass Effect 3 Ending Revisited [spoilers!]

[Mister K]

It was dissapointing, to be perfectly honest.
I liked Mass Effect 3, I liked the story, the characters, the gameplay... Basically the whole journey. But the ending could've been better.

 

[ever-vigilant]

It was disappointing, to be perfectly honest.
I liked Mass Effect 3, I liked the story, the characters, the gameplay... Basically the whole journey. But the ending could've been better.

That's how I feel to. While the ending was a let down for me I enjoyed everything that led up to it. I spent many hours with multiple characters ( 5 in total ME1 to ME3) and I loved it. If they make another game in the ME universe I'm still going to get it.

 

[Neonsilver]

I'm not sure how to describe how I felt about the ending back then. I was definitely disappointed by it. I think that I felt burned out is a good description. I think I prepared 3 characters in ME and ME2 to play through ME3, but after the ending I lost my entire motivation to play even the first and second game and I loved those games. The extended cut relieved me of some of the anger I felt about it, but it was to little to late. It might have been different if I had played it after the extended cut was released.
When I played it, I saved the geth and the quarians. If you do that during a playthrough the flaw of the childs logic and the lack of shepards ability to point them out, becomes even more glaring. You have a perfect example that organic and synthetic coexistence is possible, but you can't say that.

Today I sometimes think that the ending might have been the work of a genius. Not because it's that good, but because it's so bad that it distracted the players from the ridiculous idea of the crucible. I can't understand what the people in charge are smoking that they consider building the crucible is a good plan to defeat the reapers. First because they know that so far no other species managed to complete it and second because no one has actually any idea what it does. I would rather use the resources in building ships to fight the reapers instead of the crucible.

edit:

I remember reading on the Bioware forums from an Admin that the original ending script was leaked at some point during writing, and that it involved Dark Energy. Remember Tali's recruitment mission in ME2 on Haestrom? And the sun that was dying abnormally fast? Apparently that was supposed to play into how you beat the Reapers.
But because of the time-crunch to get the script finished, only one writer wrote a new ending and there was no time for it to be proof-read by the other writers. It was just sent to corporate, approved and rushed into development. That it was a literal first draft written in a hurry.

That at least was what the Admin said when people first started getting upset.

Wasn't the author of the first two games, the one that planed that ending, not removed from the third game? I also remember that someone who presumably worked on the game wrote in a forum that ... sorry don't remember the names ... the people who wrote the ending, did so, unlike the rest of the game, without any feedback from the rest of the team.

 

[enginieri]

I imagine that the only way to feel more dissapointed, angered and back-stabbed by an ending would be to make Neverwinter Nights 100 times more popular, 10 times more epic, one game longer and the ending of the actual Neverwinter Nights II were the ending of such trilogy (for those who never played it: /spoiler you defeat the evil final boss after 30 or 40 hours of game adventuring and partying.. and the cave colapses, half your friends are dead, the rest escapes, your character is never seen again.. /-spoiler)

 

[Asita]

Still not a fan. In addition to the tonal issue noted in the OP, there's also the major issue of narrative consistency and foreshadowing. As I believe I mentioned in a prior discussion, this is a story where the two greatest weapons at the antagonists disposal were 1) the element of surprise that allowed them to cripple the galactic war effort before the galaxy even knew it was at war by destroying their leadership and isolating the planets from reinforcements, and 2) is their ability to corrupt their opposition, to break their minds and turn them to their way of thinking.

The first advantaged was nullified in the backstory, as was laid out in the first game, and the second featured prominently in all three games as core aspects of the major antagonists. Benezia, Saren, the Collectors, Cerberus (as of ME3, at least in the knock-off sense), and even that Hanar "Regards the Works of the Enkindlers with Despair" all beautifully illustrated the concept across the franchise. It's also heavily implied that the Rachni of a few centuries prior also fell victim to indoctrination, leading to the Rachni wars of the backstory, to say nothing of the fact that every single hostile Geth you face in the main games (Overlord being the sole exception I recall) is also fighting on behalf of the Reapers who treat them as disposable tools.

This is an enemy who weaponized brainwashing, consistently creating other antagonists for the galaxy by converting others to their way of thinking. And that is not treated as a matter of charisma or having a sympathetic cause, mind you. That's consistently treated as "they will twist your mind until it rationalizes service to them as an intrinsic good", as was so aptly spelled out by Benezia in the first game[footnote]"The longer you stay aboard [Sovereign], the longer Saren's will seems correct. You sit at his feet and smile as his words pour into you. It is subtle at first. I thought I could resist, but instead I became a willing tool eager to serve."[/footnote] and further illustrated by the justifications of the aforementioned indoctrinated antagonists. Cue the finale and the villain turns the charm on Shephard and tries to get Shepard to embrace that same (apparently luddite) ideology in the last five minutes of gameplay, with agreement with that ideology apparently being the authors' idea of a "golden" ending...which is to say that instead of acting as a foil to the series' antagonists, the preferred ending has Shepard echoing and validating those antagonists.

And then we get the foreshadowing bit. As priorly mentioned, one of the greatest assets available to the Reapers was their ability to assassinate the galactic leaders and isolate the worlds before anyone even knew what was going on, an asset which they no longer had access to because of the Citadel being isolated from their control, Shepard being forewarned about them, and the galaxy having an abnormally high amount of experience with Reapers and their tactics before they could properly invade. From the get-go, ME3 has already set up the storyline as the Reapers' best laid plans finally falling apart, with both their regular strategy and their contingency failing, both eliminating key advantages possessed by the Reapers and giving the galaxy an unprecedented technological and tactical boost which helps to minimize the raw power difference that the Reapers are then forced to rely upon. ME3 was the culmination of the absolute worst case scenario for the Reapers.

Then the game starts and we start getting hints about what does and does not work against them, with certain key moments including the destruction of Reapers on both Tuchanka and Rannoch. Codex entries offer similar gems which suggest things were possibly going worse for the Reapers than it first appeared, with the golden ending for Rannoch (peace with the Quarians and Geth) noting that the Reapers were likely not to have even considered the possibility of the combined might of the Quarians and Geth armadas, much less likely to be prepared to deal with them. The Miracle at Palaven entry showcased the Reapers being outmaneuvered tactically and lost processing ships, troop transports, destroyers, and even capital ships as a result. There's a dedicated codex entry for Reaper Weaknesses, which specifically notes that "theoretically, with the right intelligence, weapons, and strategy, the Reapers could be defeated" before proceeding to outline possible exploits against them ranging from what weapons are most effective to trade-offs the Reapers make for situational advantages[footnote]Their systems allow them to pull against their defensive abilities to grant them greater turning speed, for instance[/footnote]. And during the final push Javik notes that the Victory Fleet was beyond anything the Reapers had likely ever faced and that its diversity gave it a further advantage that his own cycle had lacked. Heck, even the Multiplayer screen hits a point where it says that "allied forces are holding fast and winning in key areas".

Narratively speaking, the story had been pushing the idea that while the Reapers were an incredibly powerful foe, they were pretty much at the weakest they had ever been and the Galaxy was at its strongest, that for the first time in history victory against them was possible. Almost certainly costly, but possible. And then it doesn't go anywhere with it. It builds up and then falls flat. Every single advantage shown, discussed, and present in the codex is ignored in the final act. Reaper shields are significantly weaker near a planet? Fight them in orbit! Reaper Capital ships can't withstand the firepower of about 4 dreadnaughts? Don't focus fire, spread shot! Strategy? Pah, forget about it! Just go for overwhelming force despite the Reapers having raw power on their side! Diversity breeds strength? Let the humans control the battle, and make sure that only humans are represented among the ground forces! Don't forget to bet EVERYTHING on that [presumed] superweapon that we don't know the purpose of or how to use instead of fighting to win in case it doesn't pan out. I swear, the final act had the entire cast playing keep away with the idiot ball to force the writers' pet endings which themselves were not tonally consistent with the rest of the series. They simply were not a natural culmination of the story.

 

[Foehunter82]

Overall, I think ME3 had the weakest story in the series. I didn't like what they did with Cerberus. They took an enigmatic group that operates in a secretive way, and made them into some kind of amoral evil within the first hour.

They were evil since the first game. Playing through all the content of the first game, and having multiple run-ins with them there (and the subsequent unethical and immoral research on living people, and the assassination of Alliance officials they didn't agree with) pretty much cemented in my mind that they were evil bastards to start with. Aspects of Mass Effect 2 got leaked a short while later revealing that The Illusive Man had glowing blue eyes (much like a Husk) and that Shepard would be resurrected (with Husk-like scars) and I was fairly certain at that point that The Illusive Man had been and always would be in league with the Reapers. That is part of each cycle, apparently (though it's only briefly touched on in Mass Effect 3). I'm convinced that part of Miranda's (and to a lesser degree, Jacob's) role in Mass Effect 2 was to humanize Cerberus somewhat, to make them seem less threatening than they already were. You wind up with two different angles to perceive Cerberus. Miranda's angle is that Cerberus (and The Illusive Man) are simply misunderstood and that they really just help humanity and that they aren't really the evil organization they seem to be (even though The Illusive Man portrays all other alien species as tools to be used rather than worthwhile allies). Jacob, on the other hand, tends to remind you that Cerberus is perceived as evil for a reason.

That's kind of one thing that bothers me about inconsistency of Cerberus's portrayal. On the one hand, the first game demonstrated to me that they were a group that couldn't be trusted. On the other, they insert Miranda to push the "Cerberus only looks bad because we occasionally have rogue factions that do their own thing within our organization" theory. It was pretty clear to me with TIM's lying, ruthlessness, and general dislike of anything non-human that this group would be a problem at some point. Jump ahead to before Mass Effect 3 was released, and there were all sorts of fans insisting that Cerberus was somehow good (which they never were), and that TIM was somehow a misunderstood hero (which he never was). Even TIM's desire for the Collector Base seemed more to me like a power play than anything else. The entire third game is spent having everyone ask "Why is Cerberus doing this?" Gee, I wonder why. Maybe it's because that asshole TIM is using a galactic crisis to install himself as the defacto dictator of the galaxy. He even tried to use Udina to do it. This was something that was in the works from the first game.

One of the big reasons for some gamers' denial here is the argument that "Hey, if they make Cerberus evil, it means they have poor writers." So? It's a trope that's been used before. The person that looks like they're likely to use a crisis to make a power play is very likely to actually make a power play. It's literally a Chekhov's Gun sort of thing, with Cerberus/The Illusive Man being the loaded gun. Even Javik tells you "Hey, this happened in my time, too." The fact that it happens every cycle only indicates that it's part of the Reapers plan, which only reinforces the idea in my mind that The Illusive Man had always been working for the Reapers.

Some may argue that this could not possibly be the case. After all, TIM doesn't worship the Reapers, and legitimately seems to want to defeat them. You only need to look back at Saren to fully understand Indoctrination. Saren was Indoctrinated and served the Reapers. He also had research done to better understand Indoctrination as a means to try to defeat the Reapers. He found that if the Reapers wanted to use you for their own purposes, then they have to allow you your autonomy. If they don't, you cease to be able to function to your fullest potential, thus rendering you useless to the Reapers. At that point, you become little more than a Husk.

The Mass Effect series had everything laid out for everyone from the beginning, pure and simple. While much of the Mass Effect series is original, it relies upon a great many things which are not. Too much of the Mass Effect series put me into "meta mode" where I was able to predict what would happen next long before it happened. The truth is Mass Effect was far more predictable than people want to admit. The ending itself, while bad, wasn't totally unforseeable, especially not after they started shuffling writers around. Overall, it's and above-average series that ultimately doesn't live up to the hype and vision attributed to it.

(Also, I apologize if I seem a little combative here.)

 

[RedDeadFred]

HAlso, while these aren't tied directly to the main ending, the endings to the other core stories (Geth and Krogan) were done very well IMO. They made me weep like a child.

The ending to the Krogan story I agree is great, but the ending to the geth story, while emotionally satisfying, is also one of my main gripes with the game. Legion going from saying the geth would not accept someone else's future and commending Shepard for declining to use Reaper tech (Collector Base) to thinking that Reaper upgrades are a good idea just doesn't work, even with the excuse of a threat to their survival.

Eh, I didn't have a problem with that since it was either use the tech or be completely destroyed. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Logically, they're going to want to survive. It does clash with the themes they'd been giving us previously though.

 

[The Madman]

Has it really been 3 years already? Jeez. Feels like it was just released recently. In any case the ending is still shit, time hasn't changed my opinion on that.

Let me put it this way: I know two other people that were huge fans of the Mass Effect series, were being the key word because the ending was so terrible that neither have played or even much talked about the series since. I've never seen one moment in a game do that before, not in all the years I've been playing videogames have I ever witnessed something like it. With books and movies sure, but never an entire videogame franchise.

Personally I only played ME3 later on once the ending dlc had been released and yep, I still hated it just as both friends told me I would. Still shit, only less buggy and incomplete shit from what I hear. A turd all nicely polished up in the hopes people might not notice it's still a turd...

I noticed.

 

[R Man]

Has it really been 3 years already? Jeez. Feels like it was just released recently. In any case the ending is still shit, time hasn't changed my opinion on that.

Let me put it this way: I know two other people that were huge fans of the Mass Effect series, were being the key word because the ending was so terrible that neither have played or even much talked about the series since. I've never seen one moment in a game do that before, not in all the years I've been playing videogames have I ever witnessed something like it. With books and movies sure, but never an entire videogame franchise.

Personally I only played ME3 later on once the ending dlc had been released and yep, I still hated it just as both friends told me I would. Still shit, only less buggy and incomplete shit from what I hear. A turd all nicely polished up in the hopes people might not notice it's still a turd...

I noticed.

In Australia we have a saying which describes this exact thing: 'Wallpaper over the cracks.'

The Extended Cut was better in that it looks prettier (and has something of an epilogue), but it does nothing to resolve the major logical and narrative problems with the ending.

 

[laggyteabag]

I really enjoyed Mass Effect 3, but the ending really was a downer on the experience. Never before have I finished a game, and been more confused and irritated at the same time. Im pretty sure that my head did something like this:
My biggest gripe with the whole thing was that I expected all of my decisions to have an impact on how the ending panned out, but in reality, all it really boiled down to was picking what colour you wanted Shepard to die in. It made the last 3 game's worth of decisions feel fairly pointless to be honest. My other gripe was the silly explanation of the reapers. I mean, I understand their reasoning behind synthetics being a threat and all (as evidenced by the Geth), but why not just come down and kill all the synthetics instead of coming down and systematically cleansing the universe of intelligent organics to stop us from making synthetics? Seems like the long way around, to me.

Also, fuck the star child. Nobody wanted that damn thing.

 

[votemarvel]

I'm not sure why everyone hates the Reapers' motivations so much. They're basically gods who are maintaining a cycle of life or death. They preserve the histories of each race they extinguish by putting them into a new Reaper.

For me this is one of things that ruins the Reapers. Because they don't preserve that species, there is nothing left of that species. They are completely Reaper, with only Reaper purpose and motivation.

As to the endings. It was really the execution of them I hated more than the ideas behind them. I was forced to watch Shepard meekly accept the nonsense of the Star-Child. I was told that my choice would have massive repercussions but was then shown three near identical sets of ending cinematics. The team I built up and the people I met were almost completely absent.

I liked the extended cut because it made the three existing endings far more unique. Refuse doesn't rate for me as Shepard goes quietly into the night.

Personally now I use John P's Alternate MEHEM http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/265/?. You can keep the Star-Child scene, the three choices but if you've got high enough EMS and pick destroy, you'll get the Shepard memorial scene and EDI and the Geth live.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Its still a failure on absolutely every level and is one of the worst pieces of storywriting I've ever seen. The information, that came out after the furore started up, that it was written by one writer at the last minute and greenlit off the first draft didn't surprise me in the slightest. I recently recompleted it using the MEHEM mod which, frankly, is a far superior finish to the game. Although more amateurish in looks because he didn't have an entire damn game studio to put it together.

But honestly ME3's problems go way beyond just the last twenty minutes or so. Given the awfulness of the very end part coupled with the rose-tinted glasses being firmly in place its easy to miss the fact that...actually on the whole a big chunk of the game isn't particularly well written. For all that people complain about the ending roughly the last quarter of the game it starts dropping off. As if they made the first roughly three quarters of it and then got told the deadline was the week after, so they slapped whatever they could together and shipped it.

I mean...I know a lot of people complain about being railroaded onto the Liara romance. I didn't mind because Liara WAS my romance anyway, but I know people complained about it. But for anyone who did have a Liara romance just...Thessia. Priority: Thessia. My god the writing in that part was AWFUL. Everything after Rannoch was pretty poor and it just spiralled totally out of control until that last twenty minutes where it crashed and burned.

The opening was pretty rushed too. There was some good stuff in the middle but on balance the writing was just flat out not as good in ME3 as the previous two games.

 

[klaynexas3]

I played through just about all the different colors, both pre and post EC, and I have to say, while EC plugged up some of the more glaring holes in the original ending, the tone was just so off. Everything just felt too neat and tidy about it all. The first ending, while horribly presented, at least felt in line with this tone of inevitably only just winning, where even the best endings felt crippling depressing. The EC ones were just like "And so they all became synthetics and no one gave a shit anymore and these genocidal creatures now became school teachers and lawyers and doctors." It was just boring.

 

[jklinders]

Well seeing as Bioware tossed aside a good chunk of their own lore to patch together a plot for the third game it was really difficult for me to get too worked up over the ending. The first sign was the sudden discovery of a new prothean toy just as the invasion was beginning. How lazily convenient. Then we get sent on a MacGuffin hunt to patch it together. i suppose that's fine. But oh look, even though the reality of extinction is staring them in the face, the entire council is too busy naval gazing at the past to put aside their differences and band up.

the supposedly coldly analytical Salarians actually refuse to fully commit if you cure the genophage. *facepalm* The Turians refuse to fully commit until you get Krogan aid, which is understandable and reasonable but the Salarians are actually blocking this? Oy. The Asari actually sat on significant intelligence in their little shrine even as their world burned down until the last possible second because they were too concerned that the rest of the galaxy would no longer feel they deserved to be on top. *head desk*

The entire plot of the game hinged on humanity being the only race that had more brains than a bag of hammers. and one other thing. the Reapers using tactics and strategy in their invasion that was the complete opposite of how Vigil described in detail in ME 1. Vigil out and out stated that the reaping took place over centuries using a divide and conquer strategy that involved locking the other races off from the relay network via the Citadel. A simple, effective strategy that would allow a normally inferior force to overpower a more powerful one. So naturally this one time they do the complete opposite and attack multiple vectors at once and ignore the Citadel altogether even though that was always the focal point of their invasion. *head desk, head desk, head desk* We know from the game that taking the Citadel out was child's play for them, it fell off screen in the time it took for Shepard to go out and remove Cerberus' headquarters from play.

After all that bullshit, I was not bothered by the ending at all. The rest of the game's story already made it a flaming mess so you might as well toss on some lighter fluid and finish the job.

 

[Fox12]

It was bad then. It's bad now. Nothing else to say.

I find myself liking it less every year, and Bioware has done nothing to assuage my dislike of them. I consider it a permanent stain at this point.

 

[Bat Vader]

The ending never bothered me all that much. It could have been better but I never got angry with it. I just accepted it and moved on. Hard to believe it has been 3 years since it came out. I still remember having to wait for it.

I have been doing the same thing waiting for The Witcher III. played through the Arkham games and now doing a play through of Witcher II.

 

[BoogieManFL]

I felt the ending was so poorly done that I can't even bring myself to replay the trilogy again.

Not only is the ending a disappointment, it feels disconnected and alien and totally breaks away from how the rest of the game works. And there really is only one with minor variations, not even counting the palette swap. And to top it all off, it leaves the player with a bunch of unanswered questions that shows how little thought was really given to it.

 

[CaitSeith]

I've been also replaying the games (because they are that good). Still I'm not exactly looking forward to revisit the ME3 ending again. I think that Deux Ex Machina ending would had been more bearable if it had been a single ending, and not pretended to be three different (it still would had been lame, but it wouldn't had given false hope for a better ending). I certainly feel that the extended version was an improvement, and gave more credit to the player's decisions through the trilogy. At the end of the day, I preferred more the ending where the Reapers win, and all that's left from the galactic civilization is Liara's message.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I loved the ending!

...What? It was really good. Shepard and her team have to go fight a clone of herself, steal her ship, and then after that they all get to have a nice relaxing party, she gets to spend the night with Liara, and everyone just gets to relax and have a nice evening for a change of pace. Galaxy is safe and everything.

Star Child? Never heard of him. Color-coded endings? Why would they choose something that stupid when they already ended it perfectly.
SHUT UP I'M NOT LISTENING!!!!!!!! IT DIDN'T HAPPEN! GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME IN MY DENIAL!!!!!

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

And that will last right up until Mass Effect 5 when they start making references to Relays that don't work and start inserting Mass Effect 1-3's characters as cameos/team mates. I'm not holding on to their promise that they won't link the first three games to Mass Effect 4. It may not happen immediately, but around 5 or 6, they'll start making references to the previous trilogy.

They can't reference previous characters, or events in 1-3, without importing save game data. Which is what they said the wouldn't do, since because in ME2, it is possible for everyone except Shepard to die at the end.