Mass Effect 3 ending SPOILERS!

[omicron1]

Actually, if your EMS score is high enough, Shepard can "live" in the destroy ending.

In other words, if you multiplay-it-up. (I was missing one Citadel quest and a few fuel depots, and I was at 3500 EMS. I highly doubt it's possible to get to 5000 without either DLC or multiplayer, neither of which is an acceptable option for the "best ending.")

Yeah, great.


Also, "Sorry, galactic civilization can't continue after all. To the stone age with all of you!" Why, thanks, vindictive spirit child from the past. Geez, I guess all my hard work was for nothing after all. Why did I even try in the first place? I mean, I'm dead, galactic civilization is dead, the Normandy is crash-landed on a planet somewhere, the Quarians are dead, the Asari are dead, the Turian and Krogan are stuck together on a destroyed world, and the remnants of the fleet are stuck on a destroyed Earth.

Also, why the heck was Joker in a relay, anyway?

 

[Marcelo]

Yeah... I've visited this site for years now, but I just registered here now (hello, everyone!) because I just had to get this out of my system:

Mass Effect pulled a Lost. Amazing start and journey, but the way it ended...

Just like all those hours Lost fans spent writing theories about the island and the survivors of 815, when everything is said and done in Mass Effect, your decisions were never all that important. On the bright side, at least it was an incredible journey. I mean, I still remember playing ME for 10 hours straight before realizing it was 6 in the morning. Sadly, it's a journey I don't feel like playing again, and this is coming from someone who replayed ME 1 and 2 plenty of times.

Oh well, life will go on. I'm not mad, no one is perfect and I should have known that it would end like this. To me the saddest part is not even the terrible ending, but the fact that now that Mass Effect is over, I have nothing else to look forward to in games. No other game ever had this effect on me.

 

[Cl0udz0r]

ME3's ending ruined all replay value for me for all games. I've replayed ME1 and ME2 so many times yet I don't feel like playing any of them anymore ever.

 

[wicket42]

Oh I found this hilarious, has anyone else seen this?

 

[scorptatious]

Thinking about it now, after I had a bit of time to process the ending. I don't think it's as bad as everyone says it is.

Now don't get me wrong, the ending was far from perfect. To me it felt like it left everything way too open for it to be a proper conclusion to the trilogy. What's going to happen to the Normandy crew, including Tali and Garrus? How will civilization rebuild? All I really ask is something that tells me what happened to everyone after the final battle. If Bioware did that, whether it be through a patch or DLC, I would be satisfied with the ending. I heard Dragon Age did something similar to that.

At the same time though, I didn't mind the idea of the ending. Shepard having to sacrifice himself for the benefit of the galaxy. Even if the galaxy had to rebuild itself first before said benefits could happen. Who know, maybe what the catalyst said was wrong, perhaps the survivors will pass on the lessons they have learned and prevent them from repeating their mistakes.

Again, I do wish the game actually left some sort of closure, then I'd be satisfied with the ending.

That's my two cents on the matter. In my opinion, despite the ending, Mass Effect 3 was a really great game. And I'm glad I was able to finish up such a brilliant trilogy. Warts and all.

 

[SajuukKhar]

What I never got is why are people treating the word of The catalyst, a machine with limited knowledge, as the literal word of god?

He only knows what he was programmed to know.

 

[monkeymo4d]

Oh I found this hilarious, has anyone else seen this?

Thank YOU !!! That really cheered me up about the ending and summed up my feelings about it

 

[Mashimaro]

I loved Mass Effect 3, but the ending was disappointing. After reading some other people's opinions and thinking about it for a while, I think I know why and I think that getting it to a satisfactory place is easier than it seems. There is actually just one reason the ending bothers me. I don't mind how dark the ending was or that Shepard apparently had to die in order to save the galaxy/win the war. I don't think they had to make it that dark, I kind of like the idea of the good guys winning and getting that sappy sort of ending. But there is a place for that dark "there is no good ending" sort of story-telling too. The problem is that the ending abandons two key elements of the game that are closely intertwined: player choice (and repercussions) and character driven story.

At the end of Mass Effect 3, I would be okay with having to make one final choice about the Reapers (kill them/control them/become them) if they really took the time to give me a little window in to how it affected all the people I love. I want to see the galaxy react to my passing/sacrifice. I want to know that it MEANT something. I want to see more than just Joker crawling out of the Normandy with a couple crew members. I want to see my lover react to my death (again, assuming I have to die, cuz I kind of like sappy happy endings) and to know that she's alive somewhere. I want to see that my work in recruiting all of those races helped in some way. I felt like I worked SO hard to get the galaxy ready, but I don't know if it did a single thing based on the feedback the game gave me.

The fix, I think, is easier than re-writing the whole ending, I think. Rather, they could just add a few cut-scenes to show the impact of your choices and what happens to each of the characters you care about ideally starting with any that die, the other character's reactions to their deaths and your death, and ending on your lover, if you had one. I just want to know that my Shepard mattered to someone and that his life had an impact beyond deciding if we're going to move to the "trans-human singularity era". Because, frankly, I don't care about that, I care about the people/galaxy I was trying to save and the individual characters that the writers did an amazing job making me care about and love.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

What I never got is why are people treating the word of The catalyst, a machine with limited knowledge, as the literal word of god?

He only knows what he was programmed to know.

Hello. I've noticed you posting in several threads related to the Mass Effect 3 ending, and I was hoping you could answer a question for me; Why was Joker in a relay at the time of the explosion, and how did my squad mates get on the ship with him, even though they were racing towards the Citadel with me when I got hit by Harbingers laser? I'm not trying to point it out like it's a plot hole or anything, because I'm sure there's an explanation for it. It's just that you seem to have a very good eye for detail in regards to the Mass Effect universe, and I was hoping you may have noticed what I probably missed. Thank you for your time

 

[wicket42]

What I never got is why are people treating the word of The catalyst, a machine with limited knowledge, as the literal word of god?

He only knows what he was programmed to know.

It's a sloppy info-dump at last second, we have to assume what it's telling us is the truth because otherwise it serves no narrative purpose.

You can't have an info dump that just gives you misinformation, it makes even less sense than what it already tells us.

 

[42]

I knew the ending wouldn't be great but man did they take it to a whole other level of bad. But to make your decisions actually matter Bioware would have had to make ME3 game completely revolve around the first and second installments. Unfortunately the big dogs at EA likely saw this as a way to alienate new costumers. I imagine this is why ME2 essentially restarted the game series from scratch, and ME3 had to spend time on developing multiplayer instead of focusing on completing a respected trilogy in a way that isn't completely retarded.

Each game in the series was marketed as a place to pick up and start, sadly this game design choice made it nearly impossible to make good on the promises of ME1 to make your choices actually mean something.

EA should've taken it as an oppurtunity to sell the first two games. but then again EA are retards. I also blame EA for the reason why the ending sucked. They took away resources to work on Multiplayer. For a game thats been well-established as a Single-player experience, even if the multiplayer was good, it was still tacked on. EA interference. Haven't they seen J Sterlings video on Skyrim? LOL. and i remember reading that ME3 took less time because of something to do with not having to work around decisions made in the previous game. something like that.

 

[wicket42]

What I never got is why are people treating the word of The catalyst, a machine with limited knowledge, as the literal word of god?

He only knows what he was programmed to know.

Hello. I've noticed you posting in several threads related to the Mass Effect 3 ending, and I was hoping you could answer a question for me; Why was Joker in a relay at the time of the explosion, and how did my squad mates get on the ship with him, even though they were racing towards the Citadel with me when I got hit by Harbingers laser? I'm not trying to point it out like it's a plot hole or anything, because I'm sure there's an explanation for it. It's just that you seem to have a very good eye for detail in regards to the Mass Effect universe, and I was hoping you may have noticed what I probably missed. Thank you for your time

He has answered this question multiple times, go back and read some of his other posts

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

What I never got is why are people treating the word of The catalyst, a machine with limited knowledge, as the literal word of god?

He only knows what he was programmed to know.

Hello. I've noticed you posting in several threads related to the Mass Effect 3 ending, and I was hoping you could answer a question for me; Why was Joker in a relay at the time of the explosion, and how did my squad mates get on the ship with him, even though they were racing towards the Citadel with me when I got hit by Harbingers laser? I'm not trying to point it out like it's a plot hole or anything, because I'm sure there's an explanation for it. It's just that you seem to have a very good eye for detail in regards to the Mass Effect universe, and I was hoping you may have noticed what I probably missed. Thank you for your time

He has answered this question multiple times, go back and read some of his other posts

I will, thanks for the info

 

[SajuukKhar]

It's a sloppy info-dump at last second, we have to assume what it's telling us is the truth because otherwise it serves no narrative purpose.

You can't have an info dump that just gives you misinformation, it makes even less sense than what it already tells us.

All you have to "assume" is that what it tells you WAS right.... when it was made.

It even says that you reaching him means the cycle is broken and no longer valid and thus just about anything he knows is no longer valid also.

Hello. I've noticed you posting in several threads related to the Mass Effect 3 ending, and I was hoping you could answer a question for me; Why was Joker in a relay at the time of the explosion, and how did my squad mates get on the ship with him, even though they were racing towards the Citadel with me when I got hit by Harbingers laser? I'm not trying to point it out like it's a plot hole or anything, because I'm sure there's an explanation for it. It's just that you seem to have a very good eye for detail in regards to the Mass Effect universe, and I was hoping you may have noticed what I probably missed. Thank you for your time

They make mention of The Normandy going back to help the sword team, aka the space fleet, explaining why they are in space.

Joker's "escape" is never truly explained, but I could think of some very possible explanations including
1. The sword team was pulling back a bit to lure more The Reapers off of Earth and into space to fight them
2. The sword team, even if you had a high readiness level, was taking some heavy fire and was pulling back to not get shot as much
3. The Normandy was in space and was inn an area between The Citadel's death beam and the relay and joker tried to escape te beam by jumping into the relay not knowing it oculd follow him there.

As I said it was never fully explained but there are possibilities, even many beyond the ones I listed.

I do admit that said part was half-assed and handled poorly though.

 

[Mashimaro]

Well, Tali is screwed on planet random. The quarians in general have their liveships to keep producing food as they always have (assuming a sufficient number survived the battle). Turian fleet is more than likely screwed.

Ignoring that the ending sprung a BS philosophical psuedo-quandry with very little leadup/relevance in the rest of the game nevermind the trilogy, that the quarians and geth can negate the BS philosophical psuedo-quandry, that the ending answered none of the things I wanted answered and showed me very few things I was hoping to see, that the ending felt like it had very little to do with gathering the biggest fleet in history, that the plot holes in it were painfully obvious...

If you spend most of the culmination of your game/story explaining the culmination of your game/story, you're doing it wrong. Very, very wrong. (Unless you're in the mystery genre, which this isn't)

I agree with this too. I think the ending had a strange deus ex machina feel, in that it didn't seem to fit with everything else the game was talking about. I loved the weird underbelly of the Citadel, I loved my argument with the Illusive Man, the weird god-child from the machine bit...not a fan. But like I said in my earlier post, I wouldn't even care that much as long as I got to see the reactions of my crew/friends/characters and a bit of the actual aftermath of what mattered (NOT the Normandy landing on some weird planet, but the battle over Earth). Because what we were led to care about through 3 games were the civilizations and the characters (Shepard's crew/friends) and ME3 did that better than either of the first two games and then ended with an arbitrary "trans-human singularity" song and dance number from left field without telling us about the stuff we cared about.

 

[calza27]

Tali committed suicide for me, so she's already dead, and SPOILERS! Shepard died no matter what I did in the end. Illusive man got Pwned

 

[wicket42]

It's a sloppy info-dump at last second, we have to assume what it's telling us is the truth because otherwise it serves no narrative purpose.

You can't have an info dump that just gives you misinformation, it makes even less sense than what it already tells us.

All you have to "assume" is that what it tells you WAS right.... when it was made.

It even says that you reaching him means the cycle is broken and no longer valid and thus just about anything he knows is no longer valid also.

Then, if what he says is no longer valid, why even activate the crucible? He recognises it's no longer valid, controls the reapers, why not just shut them down himself?

Edit: Also, why use the reapers to harvest organic life, instead of defeating synthetic life and letting organic life continue? If the created destroy the creators, and he is preserving organic life for future generations, why destroy the organic life to prevent it from destroying itself, instead of destroying the synthetic life they lose control of?

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

It's a sloppy info-dump at last second, we have to assume what it's telling us is the truth because otherwise it serves no narrative purpose.

You can't have an info dump that just gives you misinformation, it makes even less sense than what it already tells us.

All you have to "assume" is that what it tells you WAS right.... when it was made.

It even says that you reaching him means the cycle is broken and no longer valid and thus just about anything he knows is no longer valid also.

Then, if what he says is no longer valid, why even activate the crucible? He recognises it's no longer valid, controls the reapers, why not just shut them down himself?

Correct me if I'm wrong, and pardon my ignorance, but I think the child was a VI, not an AI, so he may have needed another sentient being to be in the vicinity before anything outside of his programming could occur. Bear in mind, I'm not 100% certain on this.

 

[wicket42]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and pardon my ignorance, but I think the child was a VI, not an AI, so he may have needed another sentient being to be in the vicinity before anything outside of his programming could occur. Bear in mind, I'm not 100% certain on this.

You could be right, we aren't even given enough information to tell what this thing is...

Which is not good story telling either, is it?

Edit: although he does say of the Reapers that "they are my solution"

which implies he created them.

Which also raises another question.

If the created destroys the creator...

Why haven't the Reapers destroyed the catalyst?

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and pardon my ignorance, but I think the child was a VI, not an AI, so he may have needed another sentient being to be in the vicinity before anything outside of his programming could occur. Bear in mind, I'm not 100% certain on this.

You could be right, we aren't even given enough information to tell what this thing is...

Which is not good story telling either, is it?

lol, Not really. I enjoyed the philosophical food for thought the ending gave me, but the introduction of the "God Child VI" was rather abrupt, and it really didn't offer any closure on my squad mates, which seems like a pretty big mis-step in a game that relies heavily on it's story and characters. I can understand if they want to leave the state of the galaxy a little ambiguous, but damn it I want to know if Tali is ok :'(