Hi,
I know there have been a lot of reactions towards the ending(s) of Mass Effect 3. But I felt like I HAD to post my own feelings and ideas here. I apologize for the length of what’s to come in my post, but again, I just couldn’t watch and wait, now that I have (finally) found the time to finish the game. Please excuse my English if it’s not good, and feel free to ask if there’s something that is not understandable.
First of all, I’m a big fan of BioWare. I’ve bought and played (often many times) nearly all your games, and I really, really enjoyed them. You are the one developers who brought storytelling to a level even above movies, and in some extent literature. And as a writer myself (not as a major occupation, though), I’m really fond of the job you did. The Mass Effect trilogy is a really good example of your prowess in the matter. You created here a story, characters, situations, and you developed ideas that can only be enjoyed at a Brobdingnagian level. And the very best was done on this last opus. I mean: during Mass Effect 3, I never felt so engaged in a game, I never felt so moved by the story, by the characters. Some sequences were just awesomeness in its raw state. And for that, I thank you.
And then, after a real big deal of emotion, fun, engagement, so much time with my hero through the all trilogy, deciding on crucial and cornelian choices that would change the galaxy for ever, I went to the end of the game, the culminating point of all of this. And it was the worst disappointment I ever felt in any story I ever read/watched/played. It was the right example of how you can totally ruin years of waiting, dozens hours of playing and the child-like amazement of a long expected and anticipated story. I was like this child you promised a wonderful candy for months, finally gave him, and at the very moment he was going to enjoy it, you throw the candy in the mud.
I don’t get why you had to ask a twelve years old Russian intern (no offense toward Russians, it would work with any non-english speaking people) to write the conclusion of this magnificent work. I read a bit, before ending the game, about how the last minutes were bad, but I didn’t want to believe it, and I didn’t want to be spoiled, so I kept playing and enjoying the game. Now, I feel like you stole me. I don’t talk about money here. I talk about how you stole me one of the best story ever, one I’ve been waiting and playing for some years now.
Why the ending is so bad, many people have already told you. I won’t try to list it again; I think you can find many places, many posts that will tell you better than I could. As a writer myself, I can’t forgive you most of the fails that concentrate in so few minutes, I’m talking about those that make non-sense towards the story, what we learnt about Reapers, what we learnt about characters, what we learnt about the universe you created. It’s like you wrote Mass Effect without knowing until the very last moment how it would end. That’s not a good idea, that’s not how you write a story.
Still, there were some solutions, some ideas you could have developed to come over and offer your fans an epic, immensely enjoyable ending to the best story you ever wrote, you the best storytellers in the game industry today. You had the means to create a legend with the trilogy. And all felt to pieces in the last ten minutes.
Actually, during the whole game, I was really excited and I couldn’t wait for starting another game with other choices, etc. Now that I know the ending(s), I’m just frustrated and I feel like starting another game would change nothing, whatever I do, and seeing this ending another time will be very painful.
That’s how I feel, and when I read what others said here and elsewhere, I think that’s what most people feel.
I understand you had to write a story that won’t depend only on the choices made in the first two games, as the choices in ME1 had quite a small impact on ME2. But you hadn’t to propose a fully independent story neither. My opinion is that you could have proposed like 3-4 very different endings for characters created in ME3. And, you could have proposed 2-3 more very different endings for characters created in ME2. Finally, you could have proposed 2-3 more very different ending for characters created in ME1.
Of course, considering how bad the ending(s) is (are) actually, the ones I’m thinking about would be different.
So, players who would have played only ME3 can still enjoy different endings depending on the choices they made. But the players who carried their Shepard (like myself) during the whole trilogy can see how their hero, and all what he/she chose during his/her journey changed the face of the galaxy through how he/she was. You wanted to show us the fate of a single being, and you wanted to show us that the way he/she is has a major impact on a whole galaxy. You wanted to show us, like in many other epic stories, how an individual, no matter are the thoughts he/she carries, can still make a change. Nice, very nice. Then stick with it, instead of what you proposed.
I won’t tell you how to write an ending, you proved that you have the skills to do so (i.e the epic, awesome, and very different endings of Dragon Age: Origins). But I can help providing ideas.
Here are some ideas I didn’t really work on, but I hope this can provide you an overview of the many things that can be done to improve dramatically the failed last moment of an otherwise epic story.
First of all, screw the god-child newly drawn character that should be removed for the sake of the story. Let’s imagine something else. I’ve always believed the Citadel to be a Reaper itself, like the very first one, created by beings of the very first cycle, which rebelled against them and reaped them to create more fellows (I let you imagine why; but if you want to stick with the idea of synthetics vs organics, it’s really possible). The Citadel could have been thought for what it is: a huge space station intended to be the center of the empire of the first cycle beings. But the A.I developed to sustain it took control and became the first Reaper. Oh yeah. But, as the first Reaper, it is not as evolved as the others, and it can’t go to the void outside the galaxy like others, and thus sleeps until its “children” come to wake it. That’s what Sovereign tried to do, and failed at. Let’s then say that, instead of a non-sense god child, you introduce the very king of the Reapers, who still has the codes and schematics for them, as well as everything that is to be known about them.
In the other hand, I think you should include all the main characters Shepard has allied with (Liara, Garus, Tali, etc.) in the battle on London. For example, they could cover Shepard’s back while he/she is trying to get to the beam, like in ME2. Anyway, that’s non-sense that they don’t follow to the death. I’d really enjoy seeing Jack’s students with her, firing biotics at Reapers, or Miranda leading a tech team, sabotaging defenses, as examples. We want to know the fate of the characters you made us so fond of. I really, really enjoyed, for example, what happened to Legion.
Here we are (I’m not 100% sure of the auto-choices if you create a character in ME3):
Endings shared by all ME players (whether Shepard has been created in ME1, 2 or 3; the Collectors’ station has been spared and given to Cerberus, the council has been killed but replaced as former with the four races):
• If enough war assets has been gathered:
- Happy ending (there should ALWAYS be a happy ending, where the hero lives and saves us all): Shepard interacts with the core of the Citadel, thanks to the Crucible, to find the code that the Reapers use to communicate, interact and share information. He then uses it to someway upload a virus (or anything like that) that would infect the Reapers’ main program and get them ultimately inoffensive and out of order. Joker comes next to pick Shepard back. The galaxy destroys the Reapers on Shepard’s order and everyone can enjoy a galaxy free of Reapers for ever, with Shepard being a living legend.
- Pragmatic nuance of the above ending: Shepard gives the order not to destroy the Reapers, as they are now inoffensive, so that they can study them and try to use the technology. But the indoctrination has not stopped (as it was in another module of the Reaper’s program). And the scientists became fonder and fonder of the Reapers’ way of thinking. Some decades later, eventually, they created a fleet with Reapers’ technology to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy, and a new war will begin. Shepard is still a hero, of course, and his/her final choice won’t have only a bad impact, as many discoveries gained through the study of the Reapers allow the races to get a huge improvement of their science, notably how mass relays work, and the ability to build more, with a hope of someday building some in another galaxy.
- Shepard chooses to control the Reapers, get indoctrinated doing so, the war goes on, the Reapers destroy everything, the cycle ends, the Crucible plans are found and destroyed (as Shepard knows where the plan can still be found), and everything starts again, as in the beginning of the second cycle. Everything is lost…
• If not enough war assets has been gathered:
- If there are very few war assets, then we can imagine that the fleet is destroyed by the Reapers while Shepard is trying to get on board of the Citadel. Now that Reapers have more troops to spend elsewhere, Shepard meets more resistance in London and aboard the Citadel, making the game more difficult. When he/she finds the Illusive Man, this one has been more indoctrinated, as he had the time to take the place of Shepard with the catalyst. He chose to control the Reapers, and felt like a god, became insane, and killed Shepard. The Reapers finally killed all sentient life except for humans TIM still wants to save until someday, eventually, he decides to kill them as well.
Endings shared by players who created their character in ME1 or ME2 (here, we’ll consider the Collectors’ station has been destroyed, you MUST have ME2 and made that choice to see these endings):
• If enough war asset has been gathered:
- TIM has not been indoctrinated, and at the last moment he offers his support to Shepard and his research on indoctrination and control allows Shepard to effectively control the Reapers if he chooses to do so, without being indoctrinated him(her)self. The now allied Reapers draw back, the war is over, very valuable scientific discoveries are made, that will allow the races to eventually travel to other galaxies some day, while finding a durable peace. The entire galaxy is gathered in the same union.
• If not enough war asset has been gathered:
- TIM is killed by the Reapers (he’s not indoctrinated, so he’s a target for them now). The fleet is destroyed as well. Shepard is killed nevertheless (even if not by TIM like the non-enough-war-asset previous ending), and the Reapers chose to use humans, as they see them as a big threat capable of destroying Collectors, to build the next generation of Reapers for the next cycle. But the crucible’s plans are saved by Cerberus and sent to the Yahgs for the next cycle, so it is built way before the next Reapers awakening, allowing the Yahgs to end the cycles.
Endings for players who created their hero in ME1 (the Collectors’ station is destroyed, the council is saved / replaced by humans, and other choices made regarding ME1):
• If Shepard replaced the council by only humans:
- Shepard fails to unite all races, as humans are hated in the galaxy for taking control of the council. Enough war assets can’t be gathered. Thanks to their nomad style and their gift in technology, Quarians manage to survive and accept to ally themselves with the remaining Asari and other races, sharing their hate for humans (humans taking control of the council made them ally tighter). They survived the following onslaught of the Reapers and will eventually be the first races of the next cycle, building the crucible and destroying the Reapers in the next cycle, which will be exactly the same, but without humans.
- Shepard can unite all races through negotiations (or a secondary quest), doing huge compromise (i.e. humans can be ejected from the council). Thus the endings are the same than the first choices above (for ME3 born characters) depending on your choices, except humans can’t be in the council anymore (or any other compromise).
• If Shepard saved the council:
- The council manages to save many batarians and other Terminus systems races due to their trust in Shepard’s warning as soon as Reapers show, which gives even more war assets. If all other war assets in the game are taken and the galaxy is fully prepared, Earth would be lost very fast due to the losses the humans took on saving the council, but is taken back as fast thanks to batarians and vortchas infantry, thus minimizing the destruction of the major cities of the planet. Thanks to it, Earth is rebuilt pretty fast. In addition, the huge fleet gathered allows them to retake Thessia as well and save what can be saved. Humans become the heroes of the galaxy, with Shepard as a nearly religious icon for generations to come. Seeing the prominent role humans can share, TIM dissolves Cerberus to the Alliance, considering his job is now done.
You can also imagine many other variations depending on other choices made. As an example, I enjoyed seeing that saving the Rachnis led to something in ME3, and I regret there has not been more (i.e. when you allow the crime baroness to go on her activities, she could as well become a war asset, etc.).
These are quick ideas I didn’t really work on. There are endings where Shepard dies, others where he/she doesn’t, you can have happy ending or dark doomed ones. That’s what I wanted to show: it’s possible to content new players, as well as the first ones, with really, really different endings. It is possible to keep our hero alive, it is possible to shape the fate of the galaxy. And the most important: your choices have a real impact on the future, YOU decide what it will look like, or you have to submit to the consequences of bad choices… And I don’t even talk about the cinematic, scenes or other stuff that would be pure awesomeness (seeing batarians and vorthas charging the enemy in London, seeing the hugest fleet ever to come back retake Thessia, seeing the plans for an intergalactic future mass relay, etc.).
Furthermore, if you try to get something like that (endings depending also on the previous games), you can convince players to buy and play the first two games if they liked ME3, cause they will want to try other options than the 3-4 they have with only ME3.
Again, these are just ideas, I’m pretty sure you can find a lot of mistakes, bad ideas, or whatever in what I exposed. The goal was only to mention how things could be handled to correct the hugest lacks of current endings.
Thanks for reading all of this, I’m looking forward for a free DLC with different, congruent, choice-based endings in a near future. I really hope my post here will help, even if it’s just a bit.
Modifié par Durmir, 10 avril 2012 - 03:32 .
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Shepard keeps struggling against the control and dies. Others will finish his/her mission.
