So yeah, it really does suck as much as most people say it did. (Nerd rage warning)

[Serum211]

I know I'm comparatively late to the party, but I didn't finish Mass Effect 3 before now, so bare with a really pissed of persons screams of bitter rage.

THIS ENDING GOES AGAINST ALL THE THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN THE GAME!!!

And it really does, our choices are to control all synthetic, mesh them into us or destroy all synthetic life. And in most cases, this means that we have to sacrifice Shepard, to achieve it. All of this is pretty much bullshit anyway. I know what choice I would make in real life. I would say: "Fine, have it your way. We fight. We fight until there is nothing left fighting for. I have the biggest damn fleet ever. I have millions of soldiers willing to fight until the very end, so let's do it. Let's see your damn reapers beat us." That choice does technically exist, but it sucks balls. You just learn that: "Nope you failed, hardcore. But the next cycle survived because of Liaras warning thing." I worked my ass of to save this cycle and all I get the next one is okay? Screw you game. Screw you.

It just all feels so wrong, no one of these choices appeal to me in any way. Where is the one where we all just live in peace and harmony, where I don't have to destroy all the geth, or mesh all life into some wierd alien cocktail. And for future reference, no. I do not embrace the idea of controlling the reapers.

I brokered peace throughout the galaxy, I settled a peace between the krogans and the turians. I made sure that the quarian and the geth could share rannoch. I lived this adventure through, and I saved countless lives. For what? Blue, green and red? NO! I did this for the chance to save the galaxy! I did this for all life! Synthetic and Organic alike! The geth where there, just as much as the quarians! Why can't I say: "No, you're wrong! Synthetic and Organic can live in peace, I've proven it! You're wrong! I've proven it myself! You can take your reapers and leave. And never come back. I don't need you or the crucible. I've saved the galaxy. I don't need this!"

The worst part about this is the fact that all I feel is disgust and utter loathing. I didn't want this to happen, I didn't want learn that the ending suck as much as everyone says it does. I blame bioware for that. I didn't want to choose between Red, Blue and Green in the first place! I wanted a happy ending, is it really too much to ask? If I want an ending that suits me, that means I have to destroy all synthetic life in the galaxy. That's just not right. What I want now, is just to forget. Forget this ending, forget this game completely. Which is just sad, I had a really good time with it. And all of that, because I didn't get a happy ending. Guess that shows that I have a hard time with endings where my character can't simply save the day and live out the rest of her/his days in peace. I guess I'm just stuck in the old fairy tale days, where Happily ever after ruled. And you know? I think I would have been just fine with that in ME3. That would have made me enjoy this game a lot more then I do now. As it stands? Fuck all of this bullshit.

 

[Burig]

I didn't think the endings were so bad. I actually enjoy it when you're not always given the happy ending - that you have to chose and make sacrifices, even to get the best option. The only real problem I had with the endings was that none of them tied up any of the threads that were still hanging there; what happens with the krogans? how does everyone get away? Stuff like that. I think they took a bold move making the endings the way they did, and unfortunatly it seems many people dislike not having the happy ending where everyone lives happily ever after unfortunatly.

 

[Eddie the head]

I didn't think the endings were so bad. I actually enjoy it when you're not always given the happy ending - that you have to chose and make sacrifices, even to get the best option. The only real problem I had with the endings was that none of them tied up any of the threads that were still hanging there; what happens with the krogans? how does everyone get away? Stuff like that. I think they took a bold move making the endings the way they did, and unfortunatly it seems many people dislike not having the happy ending where everyone lives happily ever after unfortunatly.

No offence but it's been stated many many many times that it's not the fact that it's a "sad" ending. People are fine with sad endings, hell people got mad a Resistance 3 because it didn't have a sad ending. It's mostly due to the fact the ending wasn't that good. People got lost in all the questions it raised. Witch is the reason a lot of people didn't enjoy it, not because it was sad, or there was no back and white answer.

Edit. Hell my choice after the extended cut DLC was the one where everyone died. Because I felt it made the most sense.

Edit.2 Another thing one of my favorite songs is about an old couple that in the end kills themselves with poison because they think the world is coming to an end, and it turns out it's just an earthquake. Sad ending are fine, bad ending in the guise of a sad ending suck.

 

[Ruzinus]

Yes. The OP and a few others might specifically want a happy ending, but most of us just want one that doesn't feature 3 color coded endings and a magic ghost child.

 

[Khazoth]

I don't care how they ended it, but when you introduce a deus ex machina in the third game and don't explain it.. I'm gonna call BS. You can't fix a building that is broken at the foundation.


I didn't play the Extended Cut, because the problem isn't the ending, the problem is the Crucible. You know, the magical god machine that game out of no where, that we really didn't need, and wasn't explained. Heck, I watched a clip of someone asking about the crucible in the extended cut and they had the nerve to pull the "Oh you wouldn't know the people who created it."

 

[Erttheking]

"flicks the top off of the bottle of Jack Daniels" Yeah, pretty much. "pours himself a glass" It's been...half a year I think and I still want nothing to do with that game, I don't even want to go online to play multipalyer with my friends. "Takes a shot" I mean why couldn't they just make it straight forward? Gather the galaxy and defeat the Reapers with the largest fleet anyone has ever seen. The Turians were able to kill Reapers all by themselves, the big ones too, we didn't need all of this. We didn't need the Dues Ex Machina Crucible or the Dues Ex Machina starchild. I didn't mind the first one that much until it directly created the second one.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I worked my ass of to save this cycle and all I get the next one is okay? Screw you game. Screw you.

Hang on..

How the hell does this go against anything that happened in the previous game?

All three games spent a huge proportion of time pointing a giant glowing sign at the reapers and saying "when these guys arrive, everything is fucked, look, one of them just beat up the entire Systems Alliance Navy single handedly!" The entire plot of mass effect 3 is watching the entire galaxy get its arse kicked while you pull together a last-ditch alliance to fire an ancient alien superweapon which might stop it from happening.

Where is the one where we all just live in peace and harmony, where I don't have to destroy all the geth, or mesh all life into some wierd alien cocktail.

This is called a dilemma. It's like a choice without a right and wrong answer, where all the different sides have pros and cons.

And yeah.. control ending with paragon Shepard. If having things be "weird" somehow invalidates the fact that the synthesis ending was pretty much "things are perfect and awesome forever", that's probably what you're looking for.

Why can't I say: "No, you're wrong! Synthetic and Organic can live in peace, I've proven it! You're wrong! I've proven it myself! You can take your reapers and leave. And never come back. I don't need you or the crucible. I've saved the galaxy. I don't need this!"

You can. The problem is that, as the game should have made very obvious to you, it's not true. Go back to the point just before you head to earth and look at the galaxy map.

You have already lost at that point. You haven't saved the galaxy, you have bought it a single chance to live, which is the Crucible. That's what it all comes down to. The fleet you have assembled, the ground forces you have rallied, the various races you have come together. It was always about deploying the Crucible, you were told that in dialogue many, many times. Stop hitting space whenever Admiral Hackett is speaking and listen.

It genuinely bothers me that I seem to be the only person who figured out in the very first game that it would come to that. Perhaps it was all the times when they constantly signposted how epic and powerful and technologically advanced the reapers were. Sorry, but commander Shepard was never going to fend off the entire reaper armada with his or her pistol.

I wanted a happy ending, is it really too much to ask?

Sorry, I disagree.

A happy ending would have been like going for a lovely meal and then being served wallpaper paste for desert. Sure, you can be glad you're not eating a pile of shit, which is what it was before the extended cut, but it's not good. It's not something we should aspire to.

If it was simply a matter of choosing between an optimal choice and a sub-optimal choice, well, that wouldn't be a choice would it? It would just be a judge of whether you could actually play the game, like Mass Effect 2's ending.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

OH GOD WHY?!
I thought we were over this months ago...

Anyway, yes, the ending was cheap and really crappy from what I've heard, but what are you gonna do about it?
Sadly, it's just one of those things.

 

[hazabaza1]

Aaaaaand, people are still complaining about this?
Yes, we know, the ending sucked, etc etc, anyone who likes it is a Biodrone, etc etc, Bioware is the worst company ever, etc etc, "I will never buy a game again and Bioware have made me kill my wife and fuck my dog" etc etc.

 

[TheLizardKing]

Yes it is a terrible ending, but Bioware isn't going to do anything about it. These threads are meaningless.

 

[Hawkeye 131]

"YES, yes, now they begin to understand!!!"... Yeah Mass Effect is my all time favorite frachise followed closely by Halo. I seriously don't even consider Mass Effect 3 to be cannon. ME3 from a story perspective was ultimately a failure in my mind. Various aspects of the game are really quite amazing VO, soundtrack, graphics, customization, gameplay etc... However, there are some really crappy parts to journal UI, story elements, lost/forgotten plot lines, plot holes, deus ex machina story elements, fetch quests, lack of exploration, auto-dialogue etc... The list of good vs. bad things in that game are pretty much even IMO.

It's really sad to be honest because you can see the effort that was put in and when its good its GREAT!, and when its bad its HORRIBLE! There are some really powerful, mysterious and intriguing moments in the game then Mac Walters and Casey Hudson come along and in under 15 minutes completely destroy the entire establish lore, cannon, themes, tone and story of the entire franchise and then HOWL "Artisitic Integrity!!!" at the same time pointing to the 70+ perfect game scores. On top of that they (BioWare in General), NEVER once acknowledged the real and perceived issues with the game. Their general attitude was "Oh well our game is amazing but you people just don't get it!","But we're willing to meet you half way and help you better understand our AMAZING ending..."

I can't say for certain how this all happened but I think this problem can't be attributed to any one singular source. Was the game rushed? Did EA pressure BioWare in some way? Did Casey Hudson and Mac Walters really block the other writers and editors out of the ending? Who knows?

What matters to me is that I cannot trust BioWare to the same degree (if at all), since this entire thing started. Some others say this started back with DA2 but that was before I really knew BioWare (I started with ME2). Now BioWare is just another developer in my eyes, they will have to earn my trust all over again, and that is a VERY DIFFICULT thing to do. (I admit I tend to hold grudges, I'm slow to trust people and I don't like giving people second chances...) That's just me.

Sincerely

-Hawk

 

[Thespian]

Let me just say that I would have liked a happy ending - I didn't need one, but it was one of the possible endings that would have pleased me. The logic that happy ending = bad writing is flawed, IMHO.
The point of making the three games be a long, desperate struggle pointing towards certain defeat is that it makes victory all the more deliriously brilliant. There's no fun in a story about how things were miserable and hopeless but in the end they were still hopeless. Stories about winning against the odds, despite difficulty, are historically great stories for a reason. There was no reason not to give Mass Effect a happy ending, one we can enjoy, one where hard work and past sacrifice is repaid.

Some say that the ME3 ending included a dilemma. To that I snort my most derisive snort. What the ending offered was a bunch of ludicrous arbitrary demands that were tacked on in order to add weight and sacrifice and unnecessary misery to the story, because that makes it seem more profound. Shepard has to die in all three scenarios, even though you could easily avoid that.
The Mass Relays have to get blown up in all three scenarios, because of reasons. Do you want to actually stop the Reapers, in the way all three games have been building up to? Well, you'll have to also murder an entire race of docile machines. Or you could become Dictator Space-Ghost of the whole galaxy using the Illusive Man's method by somehow programming your brain into some sort of spirit Shepard.
Also, to do this we need to burn off your skin with electricity and kill you because that's how science works. Then I guess you will command the unstoppable army of death robots for all eternity and they'll be lead by an AI based off one man. The perfect system!
None of these options working out? Not seeing the "moral dilemma" we crafted for you? Okay, here's something else - Schloop the Reapers and organics into one species. Hm? What do you mean you don't understand? Look, you jump into a giant glowing tube, die for some reason, everyone glows green and then the Reapers become friendly. No, I don't know what that has to do melding DNA with machines. No, I don't know how this differs from the Control ending in any practical way. No, I don't know why you have to die or why we even need you for this when we could use any organic/synthetic hybrid. NO, I don't know why we didn't do this in the first place instead of telling the Reapers to kill all organics! LOOK JUST JUMP IN THE TUBE, IT'S CLEARLY THE BEST ENDING!

The fact is that none of this is a dilemma because we have insufficient insight as to what the ramifications of our choice will be and because we aren't given enough context or clarity to accept why all of these arbitrary rules come into play.

And even then, the ending is weak because the sacrifices we make are just plain... stupid. We aren't bartering for victory with anything that we can relate to, like the lives of our comrades, or personal morals or ideals. In the end what's put into the spotlight is technicality and specifics - The big final question is basically do you want the reapers to be killed, lobotomized or brainwashed? And we barely even know the difference between the last two. And the big sacrifice isn't anyone we care about, it's the damned Mass Relays! Imagine if WWII ended with all public transport suddenly vanishing. INAPPROPRIATE SCALE DAMMIT.

That's the end of Mass Effect? The entire GALAXY as we know it is thrillingly and climactically... inconvenienced?

To be honest, I could deal with a crushingly sad ending, where we beat the Reapers but lose our closest friends... And I could deal with a super uplifting ending where everyone's happy...
But I can't deal with this meh ending. Where we sort of win, but suffer heavy losses, but we'll fix everything eventually, but Shepard's dead, but the Reapers are now our friends... Or maybe King Ghost Shepard is in charge... It's just not an emotionally evocative ending in any way. It feels disjointed and awkward.

 

[FalloutJack]

Many people are too critical on Mass Effect about this. You spent three whole games of some damn decent work and now you complain about this? Ehhh...I'm a little more open-minded on things. For the record, my girlfriend and I find the ending with Shepard taking over the Reapers to be rather hopeful. Come on, think about it. Shepard, your character, in charge of the Reapers. What do you THINK happens? He rebuilds and improves society. Or rules it, depending on how your Shepard rolls.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Shepard has to die in all three scenarios, even though you could easily avoid that.

No, he or she doesn't.

The Mass Relays have to get blown up in all three scenarios, because of reasons.

No. They don't.

NO, I don't know why we didn't do this in the first place instead of telling the Reapers to kill all organics!

No, it does know.

Seriously. Play the extended cut. There's no excuse for not doing so, it's kind of free.

If you're still pissed off, so be it. But at least you'll have to find new crap to be pissed off about.

 

[eimatshya]

Seriously. Play the extended cut. There's no excuse for not doing so, it's kind of free.

If you're still pissed off, so be it. But at least you'll have to find new crap to be pissed off about.

Actually, I deleted ME3 and Origin from my computer months ago to make room for other stuff, so if I wanted to try the Extended Cut I would have to re-download the entire game, which would take a couple of days on my slow-ass internet connection, and then I would have to play through the entire thing again to get to the end. This is waaaaay more time and energy than I want to invest since by all accounts the Extended Cut doesn't fix the main issues I had with the ending. I'm not going to go to all of that trouble so that I can get an ending that is merely bad, rather than atrocious. Maybe one day I'll feel like giving Mass Effect 3 another try, but until then, I don't want to waste days of my life just to see the improved ending.

Back on topic, I know how you feel OP (although at least you got to experience the extended cut, which is, by all accounts, not as bad as the horrendously awful ending that launched with the game). They could have given us a nice simple ending that wouldn't have been great but would at least have left the series as something to be remembered fondly. Instead they arbitrarily threw in a bunch of crappy choices at the end that seem like they only exist so as to give the player a "dilemma", rather than because the story demands them. Such horrible writing.

Anyway, I'd like to tell you that the ending will seem like less of an affront to the series with time, but unfortunately it still pisses me off as much as it did when it was still fresh. So, it may be a long time before its impact fades, and I can think about the trilogy without ire. But, for what it's worth, I hope things work out better for you.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I didn't play the Extended Cut, because the problem isn't the ending, the problem is the Crucible. You know, the magical god machine that game out of no where, that we really didn't need, and wasn't explained. Heck, I watched a clip of someone asking about the crucible in the extended cut and they had the nerve to pull the "Oh you wouldn't know the people who created it."

The Crucible isn't the God-machine. The Catalyst is the God-machine.

The extended cut explains this pretty well, all told.

Millions of years ago, an alien race who physically resembled the reapers and who believed that organics and synthetics would inevitably seek to destroy each other created an incredibly powerful AI called the Catalyst with the goal of finding some way to solve the problem and to mediate between organic life and machines.

The catalyst decided that the only way to permanently avoid this conflict was to prevent organic civilization from advancing technologically beyond a particular point. However, it didn't want to just kill them off, so it discovered a way to preserve their "essence" in reaper form for all eternity. Its first victims were its creators. The catalyst started culling space-faring organic species every 50,000 years, ensuring that organic life would never be completely wiped out by synthetics as there would always be new species to fill the gap, while the older species would be preserved in a nigh-invincible form.

Much later, one cycle figured out what was going on and began designing a device which would be called the crucible. Basically, a giant generator designed to project energy through the mass relay network using the catalyst (the citadel, which is the central control point for the entire mass relay network as established in ME1). They failed and were wiped out, but over millions of years other cycles discovered and added a little more to their designs, evolving and improving on them. However, no cycle was ever able to complete it and get it working before they were destroyed by the reapers, until the one in which the Mass Effect games take place.

At this point, the catalyst manifests itself directly to commander shepard. It realizes that its plan has failed and organic life has demonstrated that it cannot be fully controlled. It asks commander Shepard how it should expend the energy of the crucible, which is the one rogue element in its otherwise perfect plan. If commander Shepard refuses, it sticks with what it knows and continues the cycle, resulting in death for everyone.

Yeah, there are plot holes in that. But surely you were expecting some kind of explanation for the existence of the giant robot space-squid who wipe out all advanced species every few millennia for nebulous reason? I mean, it was going to be something, right? I don't see why that explanation is so horrible, or indeed a terribly big leap. The central antagonists in the Mass Effect trilogy are a bunch of nigh-omnipotent, poorly explained God-machines who you spend the entire series slowly learning more about. This is not a world-breaking twist, it's just another of those revelations.

 

[Andrew Drake]

Dude. You forget something. During the whole game you have people doing everything short of sitting you down and screaming in your face that you can't win this without the Catalyst. The whole game says this:

YOU CAN NOT WIN THIS WAR CONVENTIONALLY.

The catalyst was the equivalent of nuclear weapons at the end of World War II. Something to ensure victory. It was something to make sure that no matter what else happened, we would win. It was a extreme, last ditch effort. Without the catalyst you would have lost, everyone would have died, GAME OVER.

Let me just repeat that point again for emphasis:
YOU CAN NOT WIN. YOU CAN GATHER TOGETHER ALL THE MILITARY FORCE IN THE GALAXY, BUT YOU CAN. NOT. WIN. WITHOUT. THE. CRUCIBLE.

The reason Shepard just accepted the Catalyst's speech was because he had no other option. The catalyst was giving him a way to get the damned thing working. The option to wreck everything was how Hacket and everyone else thought the damned thing would work. Control has Shepard literally replace the Catalyst as the Reaper Control AI. Then we have Synthesis. Synthesis is the only "good" ending because it is the one that has the least-negative cons.

Cons:
It fundamentally alters the nature of all live in the galaxy by merging organic and synthetic.

Pros:
Doing so will cause synthetics, such as EDI, to have a understanding of what it is to be Organic. It also grants Organics full integration with synthetics. Basically it makes us all Cybrans (Supreme Commander Series Faction). This means that it "perfects" both synthetics and organics. Also it does not make any physical changes outside of what is needed to convert species to Bio-Technology.
Additionally the Synthesis ending has the Reapers decide to HELP repair the galaxy (Extended Cut). You have the reapers, and the collective knowledge of all the civilizations that came before the Citadel Council era. Minus the Protheans and other species that were not compatible with becoming Reapers.

Lets look at the cons of destroy.

Cons:
You just destroyed all AIs. You just killed EDI and the Geth, you monster. You also killed the Reapers, depriving the Galaxy of their collective knowledge.

Pros:
You defeated the Reapers, oh and Shepard might have survived.

Control is what I call the Neutral Ending for a reason:

Cons:
Shepard is physically dead, but has become the new Catalyst. He is the Commanding AI for the reapers. So whats bad about that? You ever hear the term "He who fights monsters"?

Pros:
SHEPARD IS ALIVE-ish!
The Reapers are under Shepard's Control, although they could still do more with Free Will than they can with Shepard on their back.
The Geth and EDI are alive, although they are not Techno-Organic, and as such might still pull a Matrix on the galaxy due to the lack of the Synthesis giving them organic components and a basic understanding of what it is to be Organic, which would lead Shepard to having to kill them.

Synthesis is good, because it leaves everyone in the galaxy better. In Destroy you have to destroy things to take the reapers down. In Control nothing is gained except Shepard becoming the Catalyst. In Synthesis, the Galaxy gets the reapers to help rebuild, and Bio-Synthetic fusion leads to everyone being Transhuman, or Transasari, or Transgeth, or Transquarrian, or whatever have you. Oh and everything being on the same Amino Acids is a plus as well. The Geth are basically guaranteed not to turn into a Matrix situation, and EDI and Joker... well use your imagination there.

So lets move on to the next game, where we play as a Yahg Specter... sorry had to be said.

 

[SycoMantis91]

I'm not reading most of the responses, but here's my take: No, it's not that it's a sad ending, it's that it's a shit ending. It's lazy, stupid, practically a skeletal copy of Deus Ex, and defies literally everything the entire series is about. Not to mention making Bioware a pack of flat-out liars. What happened to (and I'm not quoting perfectly here) "Dozens of wildly different and varying endings based on your actions throughout all three games"? HA! What a load of bull.

I understand it's their property, but they pretty much lied to the faces of the people that keep them employed in order to keep their sales up. Also, this is a series centered around the player's ability to affect the characters and the world so much by making so many different decisions that no game will end up the same. Well, guess what. Everyone's game is EXACTLY the same, except some are in different colors. Wildly different endings should be expected from a game like this to begin with, but it's multiplied 100-fold when Bioware literally tells you "wildly different endings" and gives you the same ending, but all in different colors, oh and in one Shepard breathes once, WHOA IM GLAD I WASTED AN EXTRA 30 HOURS FOR THAT! WHAT A HIGHLY ORIGINAL TWIST THAT COMPLETELY SEPERATES THIS FROM THE REST OF THOSE LAME NO-SHEPARD ENDINGS!

So in summary, combine going against everything the series stands for, being lied to, the unoriginality and plain stupidity of the ending, being forced against a human's natural moral fiber as well as how contradictive lines like "humans and synthetics will always fight each other" while they're working together just outside in plain view (assuming you made that work), and how plain confusing it all is, and you've got one turd sandwich of an ending.

 

[Jaeke]

Welcome to the club friend.
A little late but better late than never.

 

[Something Amyss]

Yes. The OP and a few others might specifically want a happy ending, but most of us just want one that doesn't feature 3 color coded endings and a magic ghost child.

Yeah, it's not like there was a "Retake Red Dead Redemption" or other games that just had a "sad" ending.

I'd be fine with the entire crew getting wiped out in the end if it was a solid, well-thought and compelling ending.