"Let me first preface by saying I am a huge proponent of the
Mass Effect series. I picked up the first
Mass Effect game in 2007 and, since the first time I played it, I was enamored. I am currently in the process of collecting all comic books, novels, games, and any other expansions of the series' lore. Logging 400+ hours across all three games in the main trilogy, I can safely say that the
Mass Effect series is my favorite video game series of all time. That is why I am writing to you; not because I am angry, but because as a huge fan of the series, the ending to
Mass Effect 3 is the ultimate letdown of everything you, the developer, has promised over the past five years.
Mass Effect 3, with exception to the ending, is the defining game in the series. All of the choices fans have made over the years have come to resolution. The player can continue to pursue his/her emotional connection to the squadmates who, over the years, the player has come to know and love. The squadmates themselves are vastly more emotionally engaging than in previous games. Combat is challenging and ultimately rewarding. But, most importantly, the struggles, themes, and philosophical quandaries that the player has come into contact with over the past five years and three games reach an apex. Players are making some of the most difficult choices ever presented in a video game series, let alone the Mass Effect trilogy, and must live with the consequences of their actions.
Mass Effect 3, on all fronts, delivered everything Bioware has promised in regards to concluding this fantastic space opera.
This is why the ending is a disappointment. Everything I, one of many fans, has come to love about the series is ultimately pushed to the side and disregarded, in terms of closure, lore, and choice.
There are a number of reasons why the trilogy's end is a letdown. I will try to address them all:
The Catalyst We, the player, are presented with the creator of the Reapers and their reason for destroying organic life, but the Catalyst never gives the answer. You give the player access to understanding the conflict driving the trilogy, but never expand upon it. If you are going to present to the player the creator of the conflict, you should answer the questions that are arisen by its existence: who created it? Where did it come from? How and why does it justify the Reaper's harvesting? Why does it choose to take the form of the child haunting Shepard's nightmares? His circular logic is, admittedly, confusing for the player to understand: in order to stop synthetic life from killing organic life, it created the Reapers to to kill organic life and turn it into synthetic life. However, across the series, players have been experienced a galaxy that has a fully-developed, understandable story and universe. The Catalyst is meant to answer, “Why?” but just leaves us with more questions.
Lack of Choices Shepard does whatever is necessary to do what he/she believes is right and doesn't take anyone else's logic into account. So when the Catalyst imposes its logic upon Shepard, it is confusing as to why Shepard complies with its logic. Shepard has always been the person to say, "Screw the odds! Screw what you think! We will fight to the end!" Because this is the case, it is extremely disappointing when, given the three options to either destroy the Reapers, control the Reapers, and synthesize organic and synthetic life together, Shepard does not argue or try to find a different option. One of the most important aspects of Mass Effect is not only for the players to make choices, but the theme of free-will and forging one's own destiny. This is what makes the conflict with the Geth so compelling. The player, however, through this ending, is forced to make choices that he/she does not agree with. He/She must either destroy all synthetic life in the galaxy, taking away synthetic's choice, control the Reapers, removing their free-will and destroying their "freedom," or homogenize organic and synthetic life together, without their choice or permission. On another note, why must the mass relays be destroyed? Why would there not be an option to shut down the Reapers and leave the relays alone? There is no closure with any of the choices the player makes and the player is not able to see the consequences of his/her actions.
The “Different” Endings From the very start,
Mass Effect 3 was advertised as a game where all of the player's choices would come together to create divergent endings. Hudson was even quoted saying, “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.” However, once Shepard makes it to the Catalyst, none of the player's choices thus far matter. The Catalyst does not talk to the player any differently based off of his/her choices throughout the game. When the player makes a “choice” on how to deal with the Reapers, the end result is the same: there is an explosion, the Reapers are stopped and either leave or die, and energy is beamed from mass relay to mass relay, destroying each relay and the Citadel. Nothing the player has done up to this point effects how the end plays out. The only factor that matters is the Effective Military Strength, but if the endings are so very similar, having full EMS or no EMS doesn't matter in the end.
Joker and the Crew Joker was always depicted as the gung-ho pilot. He lead the fleets when Sovereign attacked the Citadel and never tried to stop Shepard from completing a mission because it might be “too dangerous.” On that note, Shepard's squadmates always were ready to fight and die along side him/her. We, the player, have come to regard these characters as friends, some even as lovers, and having their loyalty affected how they interacted with you and their potential survival in
Mass Effect 2. Bioware has created a theme of camaraderie and unity. To leave these people we've come to know and love stranded on an unknown planet without any resolution to their relationship with Shepard is an insult to the squadmates. Also, why did Joker pick up the crew and run? It's been established that the crew is ready to die alongside Shepard, so why did they flee the battle? They've been with us since the beginning, they should stay at our side at the end. When the crew does climb out of the Normandy, however, they walk out cheery at their situation. They may have abandoned Earth and left their friend and leader to die, but hey, at least they're alive, right? This would be akin to, in
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, when all Fellowship walks out of the Mines of Moria after seeing Gandalf plummet to his death, they stare at the mountain-scape and smile because they survived against the Balrog. A little resolution with the characters and Shepard would be nice.
The Epilogue After everything is said and done, after the player makes his/her “choice” and is forced to watch identical outcomes, and when the credits finally roll, we see the epilogue. After years of playing through the
Mass Effect series, the entire series turns out to be a story a grandfather tells his young grandchild about the Shepard who saved the galaxy. This is a confusing moment in and of itself. And, if the wording of the grandfather is correct, there is still one more story to tell. This means the ending was deliberately planned to force us, the players, to purchase DLC that clears up the confusion.
Co-Existence Not Possible The reason the Catalyst created the Reapers is because, according to it, synthetic life will always destroy organic life. The Reapers are meant to stop that event from completely occurring. However, as the player sees on Rannoch and through interactions with Legion, co-existence is not only possible, but doable. Shepard, throughout the series, has defied the odds and done his best to bring species and lifeforms together. But when faced with the Catalyst, Shepard ultimately succumbs to its logic and makes a choice that is ultimately not his own. Earlier in the game, Shepard was able to prove that synthetics and organics can live together. But according to the ending philosophy, this isn't possible.
Plot Holes There are so many plot holes created within the ending, which is surprising when considering how short the ending is. In one of the endings, Shepard is supposedly alive. How did he survive the Citadel explosion? Why is he found in a pile of stone and rubble, when the Citadel is made of metal? During the ending, the mass relays are destroyed no matter the player's choice. It is established in the Arrival DLC that the destruction of a mass relay has enough power to destroy a solar system. This means Shepard destroyed more lives than he saved. Also, now that the relays are destroyed, Shepard's amassed fleet is stuck orbiting Earth. Even with FTL travel, it will take the fleet decades to return home. Earth in prime condition could not house that amount of aliens, especially when some are not capable of eating the food found on Earth. Returning to Joker and the Crew, Joker would have to have pulled the crew out from the rubble near the Conduit after Harbinger blasted everyone with its laser. How did they survive? How did he get to the Charon Relay in time?
Abandoned Themes Mass Effect has established themes of unity with others, tolerance, and free-will. Throughout the series, Shepard has either brought the races together, whether it be in a crew or as a fleet, or choose his/her own race above all others. He/She was able to form a multicultural crew, establish treaties no one thought possible, and bring an entire galaxy together. Shepard went to the Catalyst to preserve the galactic community, but according to the Catalyst, unity is not possible between all forms of life. This is made even worse with the destruction of the mass relays, as all life in the galaxy is now cut-off from one another. All of the treaties and alliances Shepard has made do not matter. The idea of choice and free-will is also heavily explored throughout the series. The Geth have tried to maintain their own destiny without fear of destruction. The player must make choices that affects the entire galaxy, being able to do so because he/she knows it is up to all living organism, synthetic or organic, to make their own decisions and live in a galaxy where they can be free to do as they wish. The player, in the ending, is robbed of all choice or even the ability to argue for freedom. The player is enslaved and must do what he/she is told.
So what can be done from here? What changes can be made to make an ending that works for everyone? Here are a number of possibilities:
- Explain or remove the Catalyst AI. Either keep the Reapers as mysterious and their motives unknown, or otherwise give the player the option to find out, in a way that makes sense, why the Catalyst believes synthetic and organic life cannot co-exist. Having it between the two makes understanding the game confusing.
- Change the location of where Shepard goes to in order to make his choice. With the exception of the Indoctrination Theory (read below), the options presented to him, the setting of outside the Citadel, and the Catalyst AI make very little sense.
- Keep the choices of Destroy, Control, and Synthesize, but add more. Keep these endings, where the mass relays are destroyed, as the “bad endings” and add “good endings” where the relays are not destroyed, Shepard lives or dies, the crew lives or dies, and the galaxy is brought together. The players do not need a completely happy ending]True Paragon/True Renegade endings, where Shepard lives and either shuts down the Reaper shields, allowing for the fleets to destroy them, and Shepard can live in peace with his love interest; or Shepard is able to gain control of the Reapers and uses them to impose a human-controlled galaxy. In both endings, the relays and the Citadel survive. After a game filled with bittersweet moments, it would be nice to see some happy, or dark, resolution in the end, which gives the players catharsis and closure. The availability of these two endings would be based off of the choices made throughout the game and Effective Military Strength.
- Resolution of all the choices the player has made throughout the game. Show us the consequences of allowing the Rachni to live, the treaty between the Krogan and the Turians, the co-habitation of Rannoch by the Quarian and the Geth, and the immediate outcome of our final choice and fate of the galaxy. The ending should answer all of the questions raised by players throughout the series.
- The Indoctrination Theory, a fan-proposed theory as to why the plot holes in the ending make sense, holds very sound. This could easily become a “bad ending” and explains why the Catalyst is the way it is, how Shepard survived the destruction of the Citadel, why he doesn't need breathing equipment in space, why he doesn't have any real choice, and why the Illusive Man's option is presented as the paragon choice, while Anderson's is considered the renegade. This ending would occur at under the minimum Effective Military Strength needed.
- A final conflict between Shepard and a boss, most likely Harbinger. Harbinger is seen as the Reaper leader, which means a final battle between the player and the villain would make sense. The ending of the game really lacks a cathartic final battle, which could lead to Shepard's final talk with the Illusive Man and reaching a console that allows Shepard to choose any of the above endings, depending on the choices he/she has made and the Effective Military Strength.
- Drew Karpyshyn's original idea for the ending of the game made perfect sense. The allusions to dark energy were very apparent and it was obvious from the mission on Haestrom that the game was going to go towards the direction of solving that conflict. Having to make the choice to either deal with the dark energy problem yourself and destroy the Reapers, or let the Reapers harvest in an attempt to stop the dark energy expansion would have left players with a real choice that would give the fans divergent endings with possible permutations. If the ending were changed towards this direction, Effective Military Strength could factor into the battle itself, but not the choice of how to deal with the Reapers.
If we continue to show Bioware our dissatisfaction with the game's ending, not through anger, but through logic and reasoning, we can eventually reach the outcome that we deserve.
Hold the line, men. End transmission.
Modifié par Thoros_of_Myr, 18 mars 2012 - 05:37 .
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