Ex-BioWare Devs Reflect On Mass Effect 3's Controversial Ending

[Hailinel]

I agree with that. The Collectors do feel divorced from the main storyline, but it's two different things to say that and that ME2 as a whole failed as a second chapter in the trilogy. The latter is simply not true and as I see it show a failure to grasp the complete picture of what make a story great. A good story is not just a sequence of events. You need context, you need reasons to care about it. Not to mention other stories within that story. That's why I often dislike when people say "nothing happened in this episode" or whatever. Generally they are missing the point, as people as missing the point with ME2.

Going back a little, as I said, you do have a point with the Collectors storyline, which serves perfectly as a guiding light to ME2 but feels lacking when we see the trilogy as a whole. But this vision has quite a lot of hindsight to it. The Collector storyline did set up threads that could have been followed by ME3. The last scene from ME2 is Shepard looking to some intel gathered from the collector base that could very well have been used in the sequel. Just like the decision to keep or not the Collector base could have big ramifications in the third game. (not to mention all the Dark Energy plot points that were raised in ME2).

In short, I think there is merit to say that the Collector plotline could have been better integrated in the trilogy, but those missions are the only thing that you'd need to change in ME2.

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Vague intel gathered in the very last scene of ME2 doesn't really qualify as advancing the core plot of the Reaper threat in a meaningful fashion. It's throwing a bone to the storyline that the trilogy is supposed to be centered but that the second game almost completely ignores.

 

[Rodney McKay]

"There's no way to tightly 'wrap up' something that has been accumulating and branching and growing for so long like that."

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Well not with that attitude there isn't.
There's a difference between trying to wrap that stuff up in the final game, and just making up a magic super weapon in the final game to end things with.

ME1 already showed that major decisions don't always have to have major consequences. You let the council die and guess what? There's just a new council in ME2. And I forget this one, but I think I'd you kill the Rachni queen, a different Rachni queen is in ME3.

IMO the endings of ME3 should have just been (with slight variations to take account of your individual choices):

1. You lose: Reapers win and the cycle begins again. They actually have that as an ending which I do appreciate even if its kinda hard to get without knowing how.
2. You win, but just barely and the galaxy is mostly destroyed and the races aren't super friendly with each other afterward, and Shepard is probably dead.
3. You win, you solved all the race's issues, and there's peace and prosperity for the the time being, Shepard maybe survives.

Sure it's a more straightforward ensing, but I kniw that would have made people happy (or at least not angry), it would have made the choices you made throughout the trilogy matter in the end, and it doesn't throw any weird shit at you at the last minute like controlling the Reapers or magically melding tech and organic life together.

You can look at Dragon Age Origins as an example of that working well. That game is kinda similar to ME3's story. Big evil monsters are coming, gather up allies by solving their issues, and then at the end you actually see them fighting alongside you and then the VERY end decision is still killing the big dragon, but you just choose how to do it: you kill it and die, Alister kills it and dies, loghain kills it and dies, you\Alister kill it but live by giving Morigan a god-baby.
Yes that last one is the equivalent of a magic space weapon, but at least in that game there's actual magic so it makes sense.

 

[Zojirushi]

I probably would've been ok with the ending if the game itself had been better. That was my main problem

 

[Samiya]

There is so much wrong with ME3 besides the ending. As one of the developers says in the OP, the first and last minutes of the game are critical and ME3 had an opening that is just as bad as the ending. Probably worse.

The simple truth about ME3 is that it needed another year in the oven. Corners are cut everywhere and they ruin the game. The original ending was just the final insult.

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I think it was Keighly's final hours that showed that they didn't land on the beginning and ending (the worst parts about the game) until November:

Notice the grey section in November: "Focus on Beginning and End". So it was incredibly late that they even landed on the beginning and end and after that they had to crunch for beta, so there was no chance for editing and revising it.

 

[Crushed]

I think one of the funniest parts was the release of the Final Hours with the Lots of Speculation for Everyone sketch and Keighley announcing that he'd have to put out an extra chapter because nobody saw the ending discourse coming.


edit:

 

[Dinda]

I knew the story in 3 would not work for me when it started with that kid.. Absolutely awful.
The problem with Mass Effects Ending however never really was that it was so bad. It was a great universe, and now you would have a bad game. Not that big of a deal. Many games don't live up to expectations. The biggest problem with the ending was where it left universe.

 

[Son of Sparda]

I remember something else that bothered me (and a lot of other people iirc) back in the day was that prompt that you got right after the ending that essentially told you to buy DLCs. That felt like twisting the knife after how disappointing that ending was.

 

[nihilence]

Yeah this is why the modded endings are superior. They just keep it simple and still remain believable and well-earned.

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What are some nodded endings, more than just indoctrination theory?

 

[Samiya]

I knew the story in 3 would not work for me when it started with that kid.. Absolutely awful.

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Just imagine how much better and believable it would've been if it was the squadmate you had sacrificed on Virmire haunting your dreams in ME3 instead.

 

[Chance Hale]

Still to this this day I am barely looking forward to the remaster because the ending of 3(and honestly most of the 3rd game) was so dumb.

Even mass effect 2 was barely a story in its own right setting up for the third game and...no

 

[Darkstorne]

Mass Effect 3 senior writer Neil Pollner:
"To my knowledge, most of the team didn't know how Mass Effect 3 was going to end. And as far as I know, the vision for it was not set early on."

You don't say? It doesn't show at all...

I don't know how any professional writer can begin work on a narrative-focused project without having a clear idea of the key story beats before they begin on the fine print. That it took them until the final couple of months of Mass 3's development to figure out the trilogy's ending, rather than knowing how it would end before Mass 1 released, is crazy. You need to know what you're working towards to be able to use key narrative tools like foreshadowing. And I'd like to say this is just a sign of the immaturity of video games, but Disney went ahead and pulled the exact same shit with their Star Wars trilogy, which is infinitely more embarrassing given the IP and talent involved there...

 

[Hailinel]

Even that is hard because at the time BioWare started to work on Mass Effect, they were an independent studio (I think a group owned them, but they couldn't publish anything), had deadlines to meet, and was apparently almost bankrupt by the time they finished ME1.

If you ask if announcing Mass Effect as a trilogy was biting more than they could chew at the time, I'd say it absolutely was. It was a huge, risky, and ambitious project. I'm not even sure if they could make it happen without EA buying them. How can you plan for a whole trilogy if you don't even know you can finish it? This is why no studio today announces a trilogy anymore.

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There's a difference between announcing a trilogy and planning one, and all Bioware really did was announce one, but even a basic amount of planning would have been entirely possible. Again, even just outlining how the Reaper threat story could advance in ME2 and conclude in ME3, from the most basic conceptual perspective, would have taken little time while working on ME1 since they could leave properly fleshing out Parts 2 and 3 for when those games were made. Instead, the entire trilogy was apparently written seat-of-the-pants style with no forethought on how this trilogy they announced would even begin to progress in the second game, much less conclude in the third.

It is always risky to launch a trilogy without a guarantee that you'll be able to complete it. Hell, there are too many games that end on unresolved cliffhangers to count, so this isn't even anything unique to planned trilogies (whether they were actually planned or only announced as such).

 

[Raww Le Klueze]

My problem with the idea of "the whole of ME3 is the ending" is that ME3 isn't a good game from a narrative perspective because the main plot solution is nonsense and it tries to fix every single problem in the galaxy at the same time as it's very existence is threatened.

 

[Samiya]

What are some nodded endings, more than just indoctrination theory?

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Don't let the following mod's title mislead you, it's not simply a "Happy ending". It is still bittersweet and different things can happen depending on your AMS rating. It also involves Harbinger a little bit more and cuts away the nonsensical Star Child. It also adds a lot of missing context and imo, it works very well as an ending to the trilogy. In fact, it is somewhat unexpected given that ME3 is filled with premonitions and hints that Shepard will lose his/her life, so the mod is actually "unexpected" in some way (provided you have a high enough military readiness, of course).

I highly recommend getting the version with the original Mass Effect music, the new score is pretty bad

MEHEM The Mass Effect 3 Happy Ending Mod

MEHEM is a reinterpretation of the endings of Mass Effect 3, which introduces quite a few changes to the game's finale and - as the title suggests - will result in a brighter outcome for Commander

www.nexusmods.com

or if you still want the Starchild, then:

JohnP's Alternate MEHEM

Slightly modified Extended Cut ending with the MEHEM memorial.

www.nexusmods.com

 

[Thorn]

Remember when they hyped up the Rachni queen for 2 games and it ended up being completely pointless?

 

[Metroidvania]

It's impossible to plan for a whole trilogy of games like some of your solutions are implying. It sucks, but there's a reason why no other studio tried to make a planned trilogy. ME2 doesn't work as a "second part of a trilogy" because it was never designed to be that. It was designed as a sequel.

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What on earth is this I don't even.

If you plan to make the series into a story-intensive franchise, saying it's impossible is absolutely asinine.

I don't think Bioware 'necessarily' planned to make a trilogy right from the get go (though I could be misremembering), but once they realized they were going to continue (or at least bring back) the reaper storyline, thinking of a solution to the reaper problem should have been one of the first things brought up.

ME2 being a loosely framed sequel was fine...except it DIRECTLY REFERENCES and even builds up the reapers as an incoming threat that will have to be addressed!

And then ME2....barely, if at all, does anything to address that issue.

 

[thepenguin55]

Honestly the bigger ME3 issue I have is nothing in that story has room to breathe. ME3 damn near could've been made into a trilogy of its own with everything that happens (especially when you factor in the dlc). There's all this major stuff that happens in ME3 which you kind of blow past because the story of that game just moves at this breakneck speed and it has to move at that speed because of the Reapers invading at the start. That said, with the way the game and its story is structured and everything the game needed to accomplish that pace was never going to work.

It's why I think starting that game with the Reapers invading just sets that game up for failure. To me, the reapers invading is a third act/late game sort of thing, not what you kick the game off with as having the reapers come in later gives you more room for the story. Most of the game should be about fighting Cerberus, building the crucible, recruiting people to the cause and then late in the game it becomes focused on Fighting the reapers

 

[golguin]

I remember at the time that a lot of people that had beat the game very early had issues with the ending. I had purposely locked myself away from any possible spoiler sources. I played the game and thought that the character arc resolutions were slam dunks left and right. Then the ending happened. I wasn't happy.

The fact that Javik and the entire Prothean story revelations was DLC and not part of the main game was complete bullshit.
The idea that the Leviathan DLC didn't even come out until most fans had already beaten the game was complete bullshit.

Lots of people had so many ideas and dreams of how all the people that were recruited were going to have an impact on the final battle. I didn't even think that we would win at the end. I thought it was an unwinnable fight, but that the characters at the end were going to be integral to how far we could push the Reapers for the future races. The three color choice was a betrayal of the fanbase.

For those of you who weren't around during that time you should know that the Indoctrination Theory was such a better explanation and reinterpretation for the events of the ending that many fans prefer the fan made ending to the real ones. If you don't know take a look.

 

[Chance Hale]

Mass effect 3 remains a mediocre to bad game in every aspect. Nice to see some actual developers say the ending was actually just dumb

Game was rushed out more than cyberpunk

 

[Samiya]

Keighley announcing that he'd have to put out an extra chapter because nobody saw the ending discourse coming.

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What was that? Did that extra chapter ever release?

 

[WrenchNinja]

You guys remember that the demo came out in December 2011 and then got datamined and we got an early script and so much was different like Javik was the Catalyst and Ashley was a traitor

I forget if it was EA or maybe Sony or Microsoft that sent a cease and desist letter to GAF and that entire thread got nuked

 

[crazy monkey]

I never actually understood the story much in all three. I just loved making team and going on adventure. Loved running around ship and doing shit.Loved all three games so much.

 

[Crushed]

What was that? Did that extra chapter ever release?

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I can't remember if it did or not; I just remember it was something Keighley said, and it was listed in the FAQ: http://www.me3finalhours.com/

 

[Sign My Guestbook!]

Everything about why the endings are bad has already been said ad infinitum by every mind under the sun. You either believe it and learn from it, or you don't, and that's that. I can not wait for people to stop talking about them in the present tense.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

Remember when they hyped up the Rachni queen for 2 games and it ended up being completely pointless?

Click to shrink...

Mass Effect 1

"Oh you're saving us? you better think carefully because it could have HUGE repercussions in the future . HUGE"

Mass Effect 2

"Forget about us? You shouldn't. You saved us. And it'll be HUGE. When you need us we'll be there, and we can single handedly change the outcome of the galaxy"

Mass Effect 3
+50 GALACTIC READINESS POINT

 

[slothrop]

I always felt that a game having a dumb bad ending was less of a big deal than the fans berating the creators into making a new one. A lot of media ends up sucking! Its okay. Fans should not have ownership over storytelling -- if a writer makes something and no one likes it, thats still better than fanservice. Writers should just not have to do that.

 

[Hotbug]

As I recall all of Mass Effect 3 was bad, not just the ending. The first two games I replayed tons of times. The third one I could only stand to play through once.

 

[Thorn]

Mass Effect 1

"Oh you're saving us? you better think carefully because it could have HUGE repercussions in the future . HUGE"

Mass Effect 2

"Forget about us? You shouldn't. You saved us. And it'll be HUGE. When you need us we'll be there, and we can single handedly change the outcome of the galaxy"

Mass Effect 3
+50 GALACTIC READINESS POINT

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lmao, same could be said for the collector base too.

 

[NotVeryFriendly]

I always felt that a game having a dumb bad ending was less of a big deal than the fans berating the creators into making a new one. A lot of media ends up sucking! Its okay. Fans should not have ownership over storytelling -- if a writer makes something and no one likes it, thats still better than fanservice. Writers should just not have to do that.

Click to shrink...

I think this is a bit naive; they didn't make a totally new ending just to please people, they did it because their ending was so hated it had massive ramifications on the financial viability and future of the franchise. Having people's final thoughts on a franchise being that it sucked and thinking that's 'okay' isn't going to be what you want when you intend to sell future instalments in that franchise and hope people will continue pouring money into the franchise (which the final sentence in the game is about).

 

[Deleted member 17184]

There's a difference between announcing a trilogy and planning one, and all Bioware really did was announce one, but even a basic amount of planning would have been entirely possible. Again, even just outlining how the Reaper threat story could advance in ME2 and conclude in ME3, from the most basic conceptual perspective, would have taken little time while working on ME1 since they could leave properly fleshing out Parts 2 and 3 for when those games were made. Instead, the entire trilogy was apparently written seat-of-the-pants style with no forethought on how this trilogy they announced would even begin to progress in the second game, much less conclude in the third.

It is always risky to launch a trilogy without a guarantee that you'll be able to complete it. Hell, there are too many games that end on unresolved cliffhangers to count, so this isn't even anything unique to planned trilogies (whether they were actually planned or only announced as such).

Click to shrink...

I agree they only announced it, and that's my point. It would obviously be better to plan and design an outline as you said, but in reality, that's easier said than done. What if the Reaper threat doesn't work well? Remember, by the time Mass Effect was announced, BioWare didn't have EA's financial backing, and Microsoft wasn't helping that much either. I remember their main inspiration was the Star Wars OG trilogy, and that wasn't exactly planned either. In fact, the 1977 movie was initially a standalone thing, if I'm not mistaken.

What on earth is this I don't even.

If you plan to make the series into a story-intensive franchise, saying it's impossible is absolutely asinine.

I don't think Bioware 'necessarily' planned to make a trilogy right from the get go (though I could be misremembering), but once they realized they were going to continue (or at least bring back) the reaper storyline, thinking of a solution to the reaper problem should have been one of the first things brought up.

ME2 being a loosely framed sequel was fine...except it DIRECTLY REFERENCES and even builds up the reapers as an incoming threat that will have to be addressed!

And then ME2....barely, if at all, does anything to address that issue.

Click to shrink...

They did announce it as a trilogy in 2005.

 

[slothrop]

I think this is a bit naive; they didn't make a totally new ending just to please people, they did it because their ending was so hated it massive ramifications to the financial viability of the franchise.

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Right, and I am saying that is bad! That, to me, is the story, not the bad ending in itself.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

lmao, same could be said for the collector base too.

Click to shrink...

yeah the collector's base and the human reaper shit made me laugh so much.

fucking Mass Effect 2 was like SHEPARD ARE YOU INSANE IF YOU SAVE THIS YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT COULD HAPPEN THE TECHNOLOGY IS NOT MEANT FOR MORTAL HANDS IT COULD RUIN THE REST OF CIVILIZATION

Mass Effect 3:
"Hey shepard look it's the human reaper in the background"

"Oh yeah"

"I just downloaded some data"

"Dope"

+25 Galactic Readiness Points

 

[NotVeryFriendly]

Right, and I am saying that is bad! That, to me, is the story, not the bad ending in itself.

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You said "having a dumb bad ending was less of a big deal than the fans berating the creators into making a new one".

The ending was bad which caused massive dissatisfaction in the product, which meant that the series was going to be questionably profitable in the future.

Fans having a lasting view that the series sucked does nothing to address that the problem is that the writers and producers didn't want the lasting impression to be that the series was bad so that they could continue to sell to those fans.

Fans didn't have ownership over the storytelling, but they do have ownership over whether they continue to put money into the franchise, and the final sentence in the series is literally a CTA to do just that. There was never integrity in the ending, and the producers rewriting it to try and salvage the future profitability of the franchise never changed that.

 

[TC McQueen]

Honestly, the fact that Casey Hudson and Mac Walters considered radically divergent endings to be a good idea is utterly idiotic in the context of why Mass Effect was created: to be a Bioware owned* space opera IP. Literally everything should've been pointing them to one narrative solution that killed the Reapers and allowed the universe to progress from that point into the future. However, some people can't handle the idea that sometimes, the simplest solutions are best, and so they fucked up the franchise in the process.

Someone did the math in another thread suggesting they were trying to copycat/one-up the then-recent Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and the original version of the endings makes a compelling case for that.

*Your mileage may vary now that EA owns Bioware.

 

[gogosox82]

They should have used the Legendary Edition to improve the end still, if not fix them entirely. It will forever be a * in the trilogy, something that will be brought up as a taint in what is otherwise fantastic games. I wonder if it was at least discussed, but I would guess not.

Reading those quotes, the idea that ME3 as a whole is the end is an interesting one. The problem is the actual endings undermine that. Geth x Quarian conflict is the best example. Did you managed to save both the Geth and the Quarians thoug? Awesome. But wait, if you pick the Destroy ending the Geth die anyways. Samething for the Genophage and many other choices.

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Yep. Which is why these endings are so bad. A rewrite would've been nice but not something i'd expect

 

[Cranster]

The ending was the biggest problem but not the only problem. They literally wasted time creating new characters (James Vega), sidelining others (Harbinger) and cutting important plot points that were referenced in early ME1 demos and multiple times in ME2 (Dark Energy).

The extended cut is nothing but a band aid to a terminal injury that lead the series being pained into a narrative corner which lead to Andromeda and the franchise nearly being killed entirely.

Remember when they hyped up the Rachni queen for 2 games and it ended up being completely pointless?

Click to shrink...

Or they let you choose Anderson to be the human councilor in ME1 only for them to reverse it to Udina in a novel.

 

[sora bora]

 

[fluffy pillow]

For me, the main reason the ending was so unsatisfying has nothing to do with space magic or the big macguffin crucible thing, it's just that the space kid dropped massive new information on you that completely and totally recontextualised the entire story told so far, and then the story just ends. The whole game series just ends. The characters don't get to talk about it with each other, and Shepard themself barely has time to say two sentences on it before it's time to make the decision.

It's frustrating. The story changes, and no-one gets to react to it except outside the game, on forums.

 

[slothrop]

You said "having a dumb bad ending was less of a big deal than the fans berating the creators into making a new one".

The ending was bad which caused massive dissatisfaction in the product, which meant that the series was going to be questionably profitable in the future.

Fans having a lasting view that the series sucked does nothing to address that the problem is that the writers and producers didn't want the lasting impression to be that the series was bad so that they could continue to sell to those fans.

Fans didn't have ownership over the storytelling, but they do have ownership over whether they continue to put money into the franchise, and the final sentence in the series is literally a CTA to do just that.

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Yes but this was sort of unprecedented no? Fans have been vocally disappointed in franchise after franchise (pick your favorite. Stars Wars prequels are an obvious one). The decision here in essence was that there is no author, the story we made is irrelevant, and we will mess with it however to please the angry fans. That is a pretty meaningful thing insofar as you may consider a game story as an example of narrative art. I don't disagree with you that this is out of business concerns, but the intense fan feeling of ownership that caused these business concerns is just wild to me, and probably overall destructive on balance.

 

[Hailinel]

I agree they only announced it, and that's my point. It would obviously be better to plan and design an outline as you said, but in reality, that's easier said than done. What if the Reaper threat doesn't work well? Remember, by the time Mass Effect was announced, BioWare didn't have EA's financial backing, and Microsoft wasn't helping that much either. I remember their main inspiration was the Star Wars OG trilogy, and that wasn't exactly planned either. In fact, the 1977 movie was initially a standalone thing, if I'm not mistaken.

Click to shrink...

The original Star Wars was a stand-alone. It wasn't labeled Episode IV until later prints, after it became a series. But when it came time to write Empire Strikes Back, it was written with the core conflict of the rebels and Empire and of Luke and Vader squarely in mind, and that both of these threads would be resolved in the following movie.

The Mass Effect trilogy is like if, instead of the events of The Empire Strikes Back, Luke, Leia, and Han just fucked off to another part of the galaxy and had some adventure that was almost completely inconsequential to fighting the Empire, the Empire itself is only ever tangentially discussed, and Vader doesn't show up at all.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

For me the issue started with the first game in the sense that they made the reapers too powerful to the point where only a plot device could defeat them.

ME as a series has some amazing highs but they also put it's lows into focus. I personally think the whole series is absolutely ripe for a reboot, give the narrative a proper retelling.

 

[golguin]

Looking into some of the Mass Effect 3 stuff has got me all disappointed again. There was so much good in the characters.

The Mass Effect series is a particular sore spot for me because I never had a space fiction thing growing up. I didn't care about Star Wars and I didn't really care about Star Trek. I read lots of books on space and the universe and was really interested in the subject. Mass Effect was meant to be my Star Wars and Star Trek and I remember that point particularly because I told that to people around me.

 

[BossAttack]

Vague intel gathered in the very last scene of ME2 doesn't really qualify as advancing the core plot of the Reaper threat in a meaningful fashion. It's throwing a bone to the storyline that the trilogy is supposed to be centered but that the second game almost completely ignores.

Click to shrink...

Second chapters are supposed to be character focused, not plot focused. Empire Strikes Back doesn't really advance the plot of STAR WARS forward, in fact the only real advancement comes with the ending twist. Yet, most consider it the best in the series because of how it fleshes out its characters and the world.

 

[Son of Sparda]

Click to shrink...

 

[zombiejames]

The biggest problem wasn't the ending itself, it's that it was the only ending. Three games worth of choices and consequences and it all leads to the same outcome? What's the point then? The issue is only magnified these days because of games like Detroit when you can legit play the game multiple times and have completely different experiences with completely different outcomes.

 

[Samiya]

I think this is a bit naive; they didn't make a totally new ending just to please people, they did it because their ending was so hated it had massive ramifications on the financial viability and future of the franchise. Having people's final thoughts on a franchise being that it sucked and thinking that's 'okay' isn't going to be what you want when you intend to sell future instalments in that franchise and hope people will continue pouring money into the franchise (which the final sentence in the game is about).

Click to shrink...

It's really crazy to think that two people in charge and a project with a very short deadline lead to wrecking a massive IP like this.

Honestly, the fact that Casey Hudson and Mac Walters considered radically divergent endings to be a good idea is utterly idiotic in the context of why Mass Effect was created: to be a Bioware owned* space opera IP. Literally everything should've been pointing them to one narrative solution that killed the Reapers and allowed the universe to progress from that point into the future. However, some people can't handle the idea that sometimes, the simplest solutions are best, and so they fucked up the franchise in the process.

Someone did the math in another thread suggesting they were trying to copycat/one-up the then-recent Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and the original version of the endings makes a compelling case for that.

*Your mileage may vary now that EA owns Bioware.

Click to shrink...

Good observations, if they had just kept it simple, it wouldn't have received such a blowback.

I never thought about the Deus Ex ending, that's pretty good. I just can't fathom how they'd look at those very poor ending choices (Deus Ex was criticized for it) and think a similar design would fit Mass Effect 3.

The ending was the biggest problem but not the only problem. They literally wasted time creating new characters (James Vega), sidelining others (Harbinger) and cutting important plot points that were referenced in early ME1 demos and multiple times in ME2 (Dark Energy).

The extended cut is nothing but a band aid to a terminal injury that lead the series being pained into a narrative corner which lead to Andromeda and the franchise nearly being killed entirely.

Click to shrink...

Oh yeah, Harbinger being sidelined after all the glowup he received in ME2 was such a massive disappointment. Did the writers/team forget about Harbinger or something? ME2 really hyped him up.

For me, the main reason the ending was so unsatisfying has nothing to do with space magic or the big macguffin crucible thing, it's just that the space kid dropped massive new information on you that completely and totally recontextualised the entire story told so far, and then the story just ends. The whole game series just ends. The characters don't get to talk about it with each other, and Shepard themself barely has time to say two sentences on it before it's time to make the decision.

It's frustrating. The story changes, and no-one gets to react to it except outside the game, on forums.

Click to shrink...

Good post. It definitely shows how out of left field the creative decisions were made and very much in the final stage of development with no time to fix it or receive input from other writers and devs.

 

[KeyBladerXIII]

All of this is why they should retcon the Citadel DLC to take place after the main story

 

[slothrop]

Its not uncommon for writers to not exactly know where things will end when they start. Thats perfectly fine tbh. This is especially common in television -- Twin Peaks and Breaking Bad come to mind in particular for shows I love.

Breaking Bad writers rather famously set up some flash forwards of the final episode without having a clue what the ending would be and how they would get there. They were very upfront about going with the flow, with the exception of Season 2 which was more planned beat by beat (and IMO, the weakest and most contrived due to this). Lynch never even intended to solve the central mystery of Twin Peaks, there was not even an idea of an ending, this was irrelevant at conception. Network execs forced them to solve it, Lynch got bored and left, and the last half of season 2 was mess. Season 3 was an triumph, but thats another story.

This style of writing typically follows the characters and tries to give them natural beats flowing from one thing to next. When you don't know where you are going, and you don't understand your characters, then you run into trouble

 

[Cels]

remember, they have only themselves to blame.

Game Informer: "With the ending in Mass Effect 2, there were so many different variables and possibilities for the outcome and what could happen. As players reached the end, they started comparing notes and trying to figure out how it worked. A few months after it came out, we ran a chart in the magazine that showed the layout of how to get the different endings and how things happened. Is that same type of complexity built into the ending of Mass Effect 3?"

Casey Hudson, Game Director: "Yeah, and I'd say much more so, because we have the ability to build the endings out in a way that we don't have to worry about eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot more different. At this point we're taking into account so many decisions that you've made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It's not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C."

Click to shrink...

Casey Hudson On Finishing Mass Effect 3, DLC Plans

ME 3's executive producer discusses the importance of narrative, his studio's future, and new game modes.

www.gameinformer.com

not in any way like traditional games, where you can say you got ending A, B, or C?

that was simply not true.

 

[RoseBleue]

didn't they change it after the release ? how is the "new" one ?