Mass Effect 3 ending SPOILERS!

[Cl0udz0r]

Why would you want to destroy the Reapers? They are the guardians of life, destroying only the life that threatened all life. Inevitably without them some race would make AIs that would rebel against organics and kill all life in the galaxy.
Which is worse? A galaxy teemed with life that only has its advanced races extinguished every 50.000 years, or an eternally dead galaxy? Obviously the second.

That's why I see the synthesis as the only good ending. No more doomed galaxy, no more Reapers.
This is all based on what the Catalyst said anyway. I hope he didn't lie. Lol.

 

[Aisaku]

Why would you want to destroy the Reapers? They are the guardians of life, destroying only the life that threatened all life. Inevitably without them some race would make AIs that would rebel against organics and kill all life in the galaxy.
Which is worse? A galaxy teemed with life that only has its advanced races extinguished every 50.000 years, or an eternally dead galaxy? Obviously the second.

That's why I see the synthesis as the only good ending. No more doomed galaxy, no more Reapers.
This is all based on what the Catalyst said anyway. I hope he didn't lie. Lol.

Exactly! Can Shepard actually trust the Catalyst? How we know that it isn't just trying to get Shepard to do what it wants?

 

[Tomo Stryker]

Yep, just add my name to the countless other who absolutely despise this so called "ending". its bullshit that Bioware did this to us, I mean all these decisions and stories that you learn about only to have them thrown away in multiple choice ending were its basically screaming "Fucked Up" at you? Ya, I'll wait til DLC, then I'm just going to put my Mass Effect trilogy on the shelf to collect dust if they don't fix the goddamn ending.

By the way, there is a guy on the Bioware forums that wrote his own ending. Pretty good, here is the link. It sounds like Bioware might actually take it into consideration, IMO totally worth a fifteen dollar spend for a good ending.

http://social.bioware.com/poll.php?user=1183972&poll_id=29101

 

[Aisaku]

Yep, just add my name to the countless other who absolutely despise this so called "ending". its bullshit that Bioware did this to us, I mean all these decisions and stories that you learn about only to have them thrown away in multiple choice ending were its basically screaming "Fucked Up" at you? Ya, I'll wait til DLC, then I'm just going to put my Mass Effect trilogy on the shelf to collect dust if they don't fix the goddamn ending.

By the way, there is a guy on the Bioware forums that wrote his own ending. Pretty good, here is the link. It sounds like Bioware might actually take it into consideration, IMO totally worth a fifteen dollar spend for a good ending.

http://social.bioware.com/poll.php?user=1183972&poll_id=29101

That's priceless... This is exactly what the game needs, Shepard rebelling against the Conduit's options and fighting to the bitter end. That way the assets would be worth something.

 

[Tomo Stryker]

That's priceless... This is exactly what the game needs, Shepard rebelling against the Conduit's options and fighting to the bitter end. That way the assets would be worth something.

That is exactly what I thought, make sure to spread the message though. If Bioware is going to change it they need to know were upset. Although from the amount of heat there going to be getting in the next couple weeks I'm sure they will know.

 

[Erttheking]

Yep, just add my name to the countless other who absolutely despise this so called "ending". its bullshit that Bioware did this to us, I mean all these decisions and stories that you learn about only to have them thrown away in multiple choice ending were its basically screaming "Fucked Up" at you? Ya, I'll wait til DLC, then I'm just going to put my Mass Effect trilogy on the shelf to collect dust if they don't fix the goddamn ending.

By the way, there is a guy on the Bioware forums that wrote his own ending. Pretty good, here is the link. It sounds like Bioware might actually take it into consideration, IMO totally worth a fifteen dollar spend for a good ending.

http://social.bioware.com/poll.php?user=1183972&poll_id=29101

That's priceless... This is exactly what the game needs, Shepard rebelling against the Conduit's options and fighting to the bitter end. That way the assets would be worth something.

Yeah, why go the the extreme of gathering thousands of points worth of war assists if it doesn't matter in the end? Make it so that they pull through with pure determination!

 

[Aisaku]

That's priceless... This is exactly what the game needs, Shepard rebelling against the Conduit's options and fighting to the bitter end. That way the assets would be worth something.

That is exactly what I thought, make sure to spread the message though. If Bioware is going to change it they need to know were upset. Although from the amount of heat there going to be getting in the next couple weeks I'm sure they will know.

On spreading the word... I hope this will help: http://www.facebook.com/DemandABetterEndingToMassEffect3

1800 likes since thursday.

 

[Bigeyez]

So I finally reached the end of the game...and I loved it. Sure while I understand the gripes with the ending but to me it fits this series perfectly. All three games have revolved around making sacrifices in order to achieve the overall goal. Now as far as the "Child" goes I feel thats left up to the player to interpret. In my mind what we are seeing is simply an AI that was created to be in charge of the Reapers and control their actions. It takes the form of a child because it most likely delved into Shepards mind and realized that child had a profound affect on Shepards mind and then decided to take that form. Remember the child itself says no organic has ever made it that far so why would it look like any other form in particular? It picked something from Shepards own mind that Shepard would recognize as important and be familiar with.

In my game I had over 5k military strength, 100% Galaxy Readiness and all side missions complete except for some of the scanning ones. I was presented with the three options. Destroying the Reapers, controlling them, and synthesis. I chose to destroy them. The crucible fires destroying all synthetic life. The Mass Relays get destroyed in the process (happens in all three choices) leaving the Normandy and crew stranded on an unidentified (to the player) planet. We then see Shepard's body in rubble in a closeup of his N7 tag and in the last seconds Shepard's chest moves which looked to me like he breathed, or in other words he survived. Credits roll to final cutscene of an elderly man telling a little girl about the Legend of Shepard. Hearing the end of the Reaper story the girl asks for one more tale about Shepard and he agrees to tell her one more story, again confirming that he survives. Last thing is a piece of text from Bioware saying something along the lines that Shepards tale will continue in the future with DLC, etc which makes three confirmations that Shepard survives in my book.

Do I understand the complaints? Yes. Do I feel like my choices mattered? Yes. Am I happy with the ending? Yes. Would I have preferred a total "happy" ending? Maybe, but maybe not and maybe we will eventually get one.

All in all though I applaud Bioware writers for having the balls to go with a risky ending. They could have simply ended it with the Reapers being destroyed and everyone goes home for a cup of tea and hot love making but they in my opinion stayed true to the core of what the series has been about and offered up three huge bittersweet sacrifices as your final options.

I know my opinion isn't a popular one, but I sure as hell enjoyed this game and enjoyed the ending. And the way I see it any ending where someone somewhere survived is a good ending versus the Reapers. And seeing that Shepard survived through it all and we will most likely have DLC or more games furthering the story I see this as far from a bad ending.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Actually Bigeyez Bioware has already said there will be no DLC that takes place post-game, and that Mass effect 3 is the end of shepard's story.

His adventures afterwards are most likely be left to the player to imagine.
.
.
Captcha: nut case, what I feel about many of the ME3 ending haters.

 

[synobal]

So I finally reached the end of the game...and I loved it. Sure while I understand the gripes with the ending but to me it fits this series perfectly. All three games have revolved around making sacrifices in order to achieve the overall goal. Now as far as the "Child" goes I feel thats left up to the player to interpret. In my mind what we are seeing is simply an AI that was created to be in charge of the Reapers and control their actions. It takes the form of a child because it most likely delved into Shepards mind and realized that child had a profound affect on Shepards mind and then decided to take that form. Remember the child itself says no organic has ever made it that far so why would it look like any other form in particular? It picked something from Shepards own mind that Shepard would recognize as important and be familiar with.

In my game I had over 5k military strength, 100% Galaxy Readiness and all side missions complete except for some of the scanning ones. I was presented with the three options. Destroying the Reapers, controlling them, and synthesis. I chose to destroy them. The crucible fires destroying all synthetic life. The Mass Relays get destroyed in the process (happens in all three choices) leaving the Normandy and crew stranded on an unidentified (to the player) planet. We then see Shepard's body in rubble in a closeup of his N7 tag and in the last seconds Shepard's chest moves which looked to me like he breathed, or in other words he survived. Credits roll to final cutscene of an elderly man telling a little girl about the Legend of Shepard. Hearing the end of the Reaper story the girl asks for one more tale about Shepard and he agrees to tell her one more story, again confirming that he survives. Last thing is a piece of text from Bioware saying something along the lines that Shepards tale will continue in the future with DLC, etc which makes three confirmations that Shepard survives in my book.

Do I understand the complaints? Yes. Do I feel like my choices mattered? Yes. Am I happy with the ending? Yes. Would I have preferred a total "happy" ending? Maybe, but maybe not and maybe we will eventually get one.

All in all though I applaud Bioware writers for having the balls to go with a risky ending. They could have simply ended it with the Reapers being destroyed and everyone goes home for a cup of tea and hot love making but they in my opinion stayed true to the core of what the series has been about and offered up three huge bittersweet sacrifices as your final options.

I know my opinion isn't a popular one, but I sure as hell enjoyed this game and enjoyed the ending. And the way I see it any ending where someone somewhere survived is a good ending versus the Reapers. And seeing that Shepard survived through it all and we will most likely have DLC or more games furthering the story I see this as far from a bad ending.

Just my 2 cents.

We don't really know Shepherd survived though the DLC and stuff could be prior to the final battle for earth, after all the game takes you right back to the moment once it is all over. Which suggests to me that Bioware have DLC that takes place prior to the ending of the game not after.

I hope Shepherd died myself, its fitting really.

It is possible though and Bioware certainly left that open for the future. If the 'control' ending got established as Cannon it might be interesting to talk to Shepherd as a Reaper though obviously he wouldn't be all 'destroy all organic life'.

 

[Bigeyez]

Actually Bigeyez Bioware has already said there will be no DLC that takes place post-game, and that Mass effect 3 is the end of shepard's story.

His adventures afterwards are most likely be left to the player to imagine.
.
.
Captcha: nut case, what I feel about many of the ME3 ending haters.

Well even with Bioware saying that I really would not be shocked if they changed their minds on it. Shepard's story may be over but that doesn't mean thats the last we will hear of Shepard in future ME games. =) But yeah Bioware left the ending entirely up to the player to imagine. And while I understand why a lot of people might hate that it was the perfect way for the series to go in my mind.

 

[synobal]

Actually Bigeyez Bioware has already said there will be no DLC that takes place post-game, and that Mass effect 3 is the end of shepard's story.

His adventures afterwards are most likely be left to the player to imagine.
.
.
Captcha: nut case, what I feel about many of the ME3 ending haters.

Well even with Bioware saying that I really would not be shocked if they changed their minds on it. Shepard's story may be over but that doesn't mean thats the last we will hear of Shepard in future ME games. =) But yeah Bioware left the ending entirely up to the player to imagine. And while I understand why a lot of people might hate that it was the perfect way for the series to go in my mind.

Oh ya for sure. It's likely that in future games Shepherd will be deified. Ya I don't understand why people are so upset at leaving open possibilities for the future that was full of hope.

From they way they talked you'd think Bioware said 'you all die horribly and the reapers die too and guess what that space hamster was the only one left alive from the Normandy and he was paralyzed from the waist down and only lived for five terrible days in a slowly depressurization Normandy that was on its way into the star of the sol system.

 

[Bigeyez]

Oh ya for sure. It's likely that in future games Shepherd will be deified. Ya I don't understand why people are so upset at leaving open possibilities for the future that was full of hope. From they way they talked you'd think Bioware said 'you all die horribly and the reapers die too and guess what that space hamster was the only one left alive from the Normandy and he was paralyzed from the waste down and only lived for five terrible days in a slowly depressurization Normandy that was on its way into the star of the sol system.

Exactly haha. I've been reading this thread and the descriptions of the endings and the way people talked about them here it sounded nothing like what I got from playing through the game and seeing the ending in it's proper context.

 

[Aisaku]

Actually Bigeyez Bioware has already said there will be no DLC that takes place post-game, and that Mass effect 3 is the end of shepard's story.

His adventures afterwards are most likely be left to the player to imagine.
.
.
Captcha: nut case, what I feel about many of the ME3 ending haters.

Well even with Bioware saying that I really would not be shocked if they changed their minds on it. Shepard's story may be over but that doesn't mean thats the last we will hear of Shepard in future ME games. =) But yeah Bioware left the ending entirely up to the player to imagine. And while I understand why a lot of people might hate that it was the perfect way for the series to go in my mind.

Oh ya for sure. It's likely that in future games Shepherd will be deified. Ya I don't understand why people are so upset at leaving open possibilities for the future that was full of hope.

From they way they talked you'd think Bioware said 'you all die horribly and the reapers die too and guess what that space hamster was the only one left alive from the Normandy and he was paralyzed from the waist down and only lived for five terrible days in a slowly depressurization Normandy that was on its way into the star of the sol system.

It may look full of hope on the bigger scale, but they just handed the Normandy crew a death sentence... Jacob's father is laughing in his grave.

How can't people take offense in this?

http://cloudn1en.tumblr.com/post/19078422136/this-has-got-to-be-one-of-the-worst-uses-of-a-deus

 

[4173]

I've actually had my mind shifted towards liking the ending more because of this thread, but I still have a big problem; the reveal of the Reapers' motivations is really underwhelming.


I'm really unhappy Sovereign seems to have been blowing hot air in ME1. "We wipe out advanced races in order to stop them building Skynet" is the awesome (as in the original sense of the word) purpose we couldn't possibly understand?

They were set up to be some hybrid of C'thulhu and Galactus and instead they are just another paternalistic, "father knows best," video game boss.


At the very, very, very least I wish I had the chance to ask the Catalyst why they give two fucks if organic life is destroyed.


I'm not going to say that the ending invalidated all the prior choices, but doing a hard reset does make a number of largish (saving the Council) and tiny (punching the reporter) choices pointless. After being so involved in galactic politics, it was sad to see so much of it wiped away.


The collectors still feel pointless. It feels like huge chunks of the main story in ME2 was a completely useless detour.

Not related to the ending, but I think Kai Leng has become my most hated video game character. Simply awful.

 

[synobal]

Actually Bigeyez Bioware has already said there will be no DLC that takes place post-game, and that Mass effect 3 is the end of shepard's story.

His adventures afterwards are most likely be left to the player to imagine.
.
.
Captcha: nut case, what I feel about many of the ME3 ending haters.

Well even with Bioware saying that I really would not be shocked if they changed their minds on it. Shepard's story may be over but that doesn't mean thats the last we will hear of Shepard in future ME games. =) But yeah Bioware left the ending entirely up to the player to imagine. And while I understand why a lot of people might hate that it was the perfect way for the series to go in my mind.

Oh ya for sure. It's likely that in future games Shepherd will be deified. Ya I don't understand why people are so upset at leaving open possibilities for the future that was full of hope.

From they way they talked you'd think Bioware said 'you all die horribly and the reapers die too and guess what that space hamster was the only one left alive from the Normandy and he was paralyzed from the waist down and only lived for five terrible days in a slowly depressurization Normandy that was on its way into the star of the sol system.

It may look full of hope on the bigger scale, but they just handed the Normandy crew a death sentence... Jacob's father is laughing in his grave.

How can't people take offense in this?

It was not deus ex machina, I wish people would really figure out what that is.

Plus we don't know anything about the planet they crashed on and we don't know to what extent the Normandy was damaged, it obviously wasn't destroyed.

For all we know it is some colony of the Asari or some other race.

The ending with everyone getting off the Normandy is symbolic, Joker and EDI symbolize Adam and Eve, and the planet is suppose to be 'Eden' hell for all we know it is Eden Prime.

It's the start of a new cycle one that wasn't reaped by machines anything is possible it is a new era!

 

[Bigeyez]

Actually Bigeyez Bioware has already said there will be no DLC that takes place post-game, and that Mass effect 3 is the end of shepard's story.

His adventures afterwards are most likely be left to the player to imagine.
.
.
Captcha: nut case, what I feel about many of the ME3 ending haters.

Well even with Bioware saying that I really would not be shocked if they changed their minds on it. Shepard's story may be over but that doesn't mean thats the last we will hear of Shepard in future ME games. =) But yeah Bioware left the ending entirely up to the player to imagine. And while I understand why a lot of people might hate that it was the perfect way for the series to go in my mind.

Oh ya for sure. It's likely that in future games Shepherd will be deified. Ya I don't understand why people are so upset at leaving open possibilities for the future that was full of hope.

From they way they talked you'd think Bioware said 'you all die horribly and the reapers die too and guess what that space hamster was the only one left alive from the Normandy and he was paralyzed from the waist down and only lived for five terrible days in a slowly depressurization Normandy that was on its way into the star of the sol system.

It may look full of hope on the bigger scale, but they just handed the Normandy crew a death sentence... Jacob's father is laughing in his grave.

How can't people take offense in this?

http://cloudn1en.tumblr.com/post/19078422136/this-has-got-to-be-one-of-the-worst-uses-of-a-deus

How do you know they handed the crew a death sentence? For all you know they landed on a colonized world. Its obviously habitable and if its habitable it will have a chance of having life and food on it. So yes I don't take offense because WE DON'T KNOW THEY WILL DIE.....

 

[Aisaku]

How do you know they handed the crew a death sentence? For all you know they landed on a colonized world. Its obviously habitable and if its habitable it will have a chance of having life and food on it. So yes I don't take offense because WE DON'T KNOW THEY WILL DIE.....

Asuming they landed in a habitable world, not all of them could survive without stretching things. For starters, Tali and Garrus are dextro dna so they can't eat food from a levo dna (regular) planet. So they either invent a way to produce levo food or starve to death. There's the issue of Joker's vrolik's syndrome. He needs constant medical attention or else he will be bedridden and sick. Even not showing anything would've been better than this. It's on par with the gross contradictions of established lore on the latest ME novel.

 

[synobal]

How do you know they handed the crew a death sentence? For all you know they landed on a colonized world. Its obviously habitable and if its habitable it will have a chance of having life and food on it. So yes I don't take offense because WE DON'T KNOW THEY WILL DIE.....

Asuming they landed in a habitable world, not all of them could survive without stretching things. For starters, Tali and Garrus are dextro dna so they can't eat food from a levo dna (regular) planet. So they either invent a way to produce levo food or starve to death. There's the issue of Joker's vrolik's syndrome. He needs constant medical attention or else he will be bedridden and sick. Even not showing anything would've been better than this. It's on par with the gross contradictions of established lore on the latest ME novel.

Did you miss the synthesis bit? We don't know what changes that has, for all we know they can survive on dirt, air, batteries or don't even eat any more.

Plus we don't know anything about the planet they crashed on and we don't know to what extent the Normandy was damaged, it obviously wasn't destroyed.

For all we know it is some colony of the Asari or some other race.

The ending with everyone getting off the Normandy is symbolic, Joker and EDI symbolize Adam and Eve, and the planet is suppose to be 'Eden' hell for all we know it is Eden Prime.

It's the start of a new cycle one that wasn't reaped by machines anything is possible it is a new era!

 

[Hyper-space]

snip

I am writing just seconds after finishing the game and I completely agree with you. In ME2, everyone on your ship and your crew could die, all bets were off. The possibility of an ending where everything is sunshine and unicorns wasn't owed to us, it wasn't even promised (considering how people kept going on about this being a one-way trip) nor was it necessary for the series.

These endings were not an insult to the player, it simply did the unexpected. The vitriol that surrounds it might just be a byproduct of the immense hate that is being directed towards Bioware and the high expectations.