AdmiralCheez wrote...
Dear Casey, Mac, Patrick, Preston, Chris, Stanley, Jessica, Rob, David, and everyone else on the Mass Effect team:
Hi. We’ve never met in person (and we probably never will), but after everything I feel like I sort of know you guys on some weird level. My name’s Leigh. I’m an art student going to a state university in the Midwestern United States. I’m honored to have been part of the developer-fanbase dialogue; no other corporation, at least in my experience, has ever been so welcoming and attentive towards its customers. Through your tweets, blogs, posts, podcasts, and everything else, you made me feel like I was honestly part of the creative process. You made me feel like I
mattered, like your creative works were made just as much for me as they were for your own enjoyment and profit. That sort of connection, even if it’s just through the internet, is incredible.
I’d also like to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the Mass Effect franchise. I kid you not, these games are the greatest pieces of entertainment I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I spent probably close to $500 on ME-related stuff, and just as many (if not more) hours either immersing myself in the incredible virtual universe you created or discussing it with the massive online community which, despite its bad rap, introduced me to some truly awesome people whom I consider to be close and respected friends.
It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that, for the past two years, Mass Effect has been my life, to an embarrassingly obsessive degree.
Let me tell you why I fell in love with this series:
I bought a used copy of ME1 along with a new copy of ME2 shortly after the second game came out, after hearing nothing but praise from a friend. I’d briefly investigated the lore and watched a few clips online, so I was interested enough to try it out. When I first popped in that disk, I really had no idea what to expect, but almost immediately I was in love. Right at the character creation screen, I was given the option to fashion my very own hero, and she wouldn’t be the personality-less doll that most RPGs offered. No, Shepard was a hero in her own right, but just as much, she was a little piece of me. It didn’t take long after that first walk down the Normandy’s bridge for me to realize that Shepard was the woman I’d always wanted to be: a strong, spunky, fearless, compassionate, charismatic ass-kicker that was human enough to be sympathetic and believable. The galaxy couldn’t ask for a better savior.
And hot damn, was it a galaxy worth saving.
The first time I opened the galaxy map, I actually had to just sit there for a minute and stare at it. There it was, the final frontier, immense and beautiful, with an amazing array of details and mysteries begging to be explored. When I first touched down on an uncharted world, I was awestruck; I actually felt like I was a real pioneer, taking my first steps on an unknown planet. It was a space nerd’s dream come true. And it would have been cool enough just as a space exploration game, but it had all this insanely awesome and complex history attached to it, too. The vast array of civilizations and conflicts, both past and present, gave the galaxy an incredible feeling of reality to it. The aliens were different enough to be fascinating, but human enough to be relatable. Their trials and tribulations felt relevant, and they made me think about real-world problems and ethical dilemmas.
To think that there was a high-stakes adventure story wrapped up in all this completely blew me away, and boy, was it a hell of an adventure. I stayed up until six in the morning to beat the first game, and when the credits rolled, I was
cheering. I felt like a hero. I felt awesome. It was the best game ever.
And Mass Effect 2 was even better.
I loved my crew. They managed to trick me into treating them like real people while I was playing. They made me care about them, and I felt really, really good when I was able to help them with their problems and make things better. Mordin and Legion especially were insanely funny, highly original, and surprisingly deep. Garrus? I fell in love with that crazy turian bastard, even though I wanted to punch his lights out more than once, and to this day I blame him for my inability to find a real boy/girlfriend. So you can imagine how awesome the suicide mission felt for me, when I
saw everything I’d done up to that point come together, where my precious babies finally worked together as a team, where we came up against the impossible and kicked its ass. Seriously, most godly endgame sequence ever, and that includes the goofy giant Terminator thing. Oh, and Biotic Charge. Best power or best power? Hell yeah, you know it.
But I got more out of these games than just the fun escapism and entertainment and stuff. I actually came away a changed person, and dare I say a better person. I became more patient, more tolerant. I started to care more about the people around me and the problems they and the rest of the world faced. And, for the first time, I felt confident
enough in myself that I could make a difference. Shepard had molded me as much as I had molded her. I had learned that, no matter how bleak things get, you’ve got to keep fighting. If you work hard enough, if you get enough people motivated to work together, if you care and you show it, you really could make a difference. Paragon +100
Mass Effect also really, really made me want to get involved in making videogames. It made me see the potential in the medium to move and change people, and I wanted to be there, working behind the scenes, helping to make gaming the most potent and involved form of entertainment on the market. To me, Mass Effect was the sign that games were finally becoming art. My passion for creation, for writing, for astronomy, for science fiction was rekindled. I was motivated as hell, and Mass Effect was proof that my dreams were possible. I actually daydreamed about being part of the team that developed new games set in the universe after the core trilogy was finished.
So after two mindblowing games in a row (and some damn fine DLC), I really looked forward to ME3, more so than getting my bachelor’s degree. Pathetic nerd alert, amirite? And for the most part, the final chapter in the trilogy met my expectations. The gameplay was better than ever, the environments more awe-inspiring, the characters more lifelike and lovable (Javik is my new favorite, even though he is the galaxy’s biggest jackass). Hell, even multiplayer was a blast, and I hated the idea of it when it was first leaked. I laughed, I cried, I had a goddamn blast…
… Until the last five minutes.
Those final moments effectively destroyed the universe I so fell in love with. I am not even kidding. My choices, all my hard work, the reasons for my multiple playthroughs, were trivialized. Those inspiring themes of working together, of understanding one another despite immense differences, of having hope and fighting strong in the face of impossible odds, were pitilessly swept aside. The promised immense variation and player agency in the final moments turned out to be a gross exaggeration at best, and at worst a downright lie. Everything happened too fast, and hardly anything was explained, while the little that was made practically zero sense in the face of the rest of the series. Nonsensical things happened for no reason, and I was denied that closure I was so looking forward to.
There were no final words. There were no glimmers of hope. There was no chance to challenge the Reapers face to face and prove to them that they were wrong, that we were stronger than they thought, that we were worth more than they gave us credit for. Instead, we got a stupid, pseudo-mystical ghost kid who gave us a brief, ham-fisted, and paradoxical “pick a color, any color.” The implications of the choices we were given were huge, but in effect they all had the same results. The Relays were destroyed for no reason, leaving entire planets, fleets, and races cut off from one another. The Normandy magically wound up on some unknown planet for no goddamned reason. And after the credits, we got this total BS “Stargazer” scene that added nothing to the overall narrative, along with a tacky advertisement to buy future DLC.
Look. I have immense respect for you guys. You created the most amazing virtual reality I’ve ever had the pleasure of
exploring. You’ve got hella talent, and you should be proud of yourselves.
But ME3’s ending… Well, it sucks. I know there was a purpose behind it, but your big artistic plan, whatever it was, either was too poorly executed or too ill-suited for your franchise that it just didn’t work. I’m sorry. I’m sure the concept was wonderful, groundbreaking even, but it just didn’t come across that way. Whatever intentions you may have had are now irrelevant. The ending is sloppy, cheap, and a violation of everything Mass Effect stands for.
You guys are the ones who get to make the final call, but I think you owe it yourselves, your artwork, your company, and your fans to fix this. The fanbase is upset not because we’re a bunch of entitled jerks, but because we love the hell out of Mass Effect, and we want to see you guys do the best you can and succeed. ME3 is supposed to be your crown jewel, your magnum opus, the epitome of everything you are capable of as programmers, writers, and artists. You screwed up, and that’s okay; we all screw up. But this is your baby.
We can be massive jerks, but at the end of the day, we’re still Bioware fans because we believe in you. Make our time, money, and faith worth it. You’ve done it before (at least twice), so the only thing stopping you from doing it again is, well, you.
It’ll take an enormous amount of courage, effort, and humility to make this right, but please. Guys. Don’t let the greatest epic of our generation die like this.
But that’s just my opinion.
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