Another possible ending: The god child's glowing blue mother comes in and says: "Billy! Are you harvesting organic races for their genetic material again? Just wait until your father gets home!" She then drags the god child away by his ear. The god child whines: "But, mom! Creations are always destined to rebel against their creators!"
That's hilarious. I think my preferred ending would've involved the Illusive Man actually getting Control via the Crucible, shutting down all of the Reapers except Harbinger (who takes over IM, because Harbinger is unique like that), then a final boss battle where Shepard has to defeat the Illusive Man (like he did with Saren ME1), then swap to Joker and beat Harbinger in a space combat section. Dodging debris, exploding cruisers, Harbinger's beam, and making the final killshot, perhaps even while directing the fleets in their appropriate roles. That's it! It should've been the Mass Effect 1 boss fight, followed by the Mass Effect 2 suicide mission in epic space combat form. Then Victory Celebration (or Yub Nub, for you nostalgic folks out there). Why in the world didn't they make it like that?
Tye only reason I c the current endings being terrible I'd tat no 1 they are deus ex machinas so they are automatically shit and no 2,all endings lead the the destruction or death of both the geth which u wasted s9 much time trying t9 save together with the qurians and EDI cus destroy kills all synthetics so u feel bad. And control will lead t9 them being mindless machines which is also bad. Synthesis makes everyone mindless machines so it's less heartbreaking but still just as bullshit and refusal is okay in tat u don't feel guilty fir sticking with your gut and telling the god child to fuck the fuck off. Still, I'd only we could have just destroyed the reapers alone, that would have made everything worth it
After 6 years, I'm still pissed at the ending. The trilogy would have been my favorite video game series of all time, if not for the ending. It's like going to the best all you can eat buffet you can ever imagine, but at the end of it, the waiter takes a dump on your table. Like what the actual fuck Bioware.
I'm sincerely convinced that the reason the ending of ME3 sucks so bad is because the Mass Effect team was rushed by some asshole executives. Goes to show how much a corporate CEO will ruin a good thing for the money.
SSJ3 Trunks Well, that's not what I mean. The reason the ending is so bad in my opinion is because it completely contradicts everything the rest of the game has been striving towards, butchers characters, and replaces the promise of many possible endings with an unavoidable and very cliche'd ending. If the game developers were allowed just a bit more time and freedom, we could have had an incredible ending. But nope, they had to hurry up and make copies of the game in time for Black Friday, so the greedy execs badgered them until they came up with this half-assed bullshit.
Tekrothebountyhunter I'm not defending the ending, I'm just saying I don't think it was rushed. There are just so many other parts of the game they could've taken away details if they needed to.
TheTRUE BAUSE I'm not saying you are not right, they were probably rushed. But I still feel that the rest of the game was to such a high quality that it is strange that the ending is what was gimped. But aspects such as the rachni queen not being in the final battle was pretty lazy.
Hey BioWare, you want a good explanation for the Reapers? You fucking wrote it into the speeches of the Reapers themselves. "We are your genetic destiny." "You are shortsighted." "Evolution cannot be stopped." "They will be as we are." "Relinquish your form to us." "Embrace perfection." All of these said by Harbinger through the collector forms. So why not make that the story? The Reapers consider themselves immortal, and think that by harvesting each race that the galaxy provides and turning them into more Reapers, they are actually making that race immortal. They believe that they are the pinnacle of evolution, and are 'uplifting' lower species to their level, both to immortalize them and to bolster their own numbers. How can this be that hard?
You know what? I've come to not give a shit about ME3's ending. I created my Shepherd. I chose half his name. I made the choices that molded his character. He's mine, and mine alone and I assume all creative license to determine what his "official" actions in the end were. My Shepard put two in that little glowing fucker's head, blew up the Reapers, survived, and promptly married Tali afterwards and built a home *WITH* her on Rannoch because he fucking earned it. Checkmate, BioWare. */conversationover*
+Phillipe Fernandez well actually a human wouldn't be able to reproduce with a quarian amino acid proteins are not compatible with dextro amino acid protien. They just don't work together. think about it humans can't even get chimps pregnant despite us both being primates, and our DNA differing by only 2% so how do you expect to impregnate a female from a species that developed in an entirely different environment, and isn't even composed of the same amino acids? That's for any interspecies relationship, save for the asari and their BS pseudo -asexual reproduction. Shame cause I really liked Tali.
TheGuyWithTheSniper my shepard too... not only married tali but also have human-quarian child... And ofcourse in my mind still building a team for the arrival of the real reaper's master, in my mass effect 4...
Haha! That's funny because it's the same for me.. I'm still fuckin pissed.. And now some teasers for mass effect 4 starts showing up and the main character is wearing an n7 uniform. Bioware just trashed Shepard.. And YES, we have every right to get pissed.. 100% agree with you man.
Fucking sad man. After all the protests and shit, they'll never make the better ending it deserves and that fucking god child lives on forever. Every time I want to play ME1, 2 or 3, and can't fucking do it because I think of the inevitable shit ending i'll see at the end of the series. Fuck everyone responsible for that ending.
Compared to controversies around some of your modern games like TLOU2 or No Man's Sky for example,the ME3 ending seems tamed by comparison but at the time,the ME original ending was one of the first controversies in gaming that really had a impact on the gaming industry.
The most baffling thing about this ending is that it goes against the main themes of this game. From ME1 to ME3, the two main themes of this game have been "Can synthetics and organics coexist?" and "What is survival without free will?" In ME1, synthetics are the enemy, plain and simple. Reapers and geth want to destroy all organic life. In ME2 you meet and befriend EDI and Legion, who prove that all AIs aren't evil and the geth are just misunderstood. And in ME3, you probably spend one third of the game's runtime dealing with EDI's issues with organic morality, alongside the quarian/geth conflict. So why does one of the endings allow for the destruction of all geth, Now for the free will thing - ME1 goes to pains to show that Matriarch Benezia was a good woman before her indoctrination, and even gives redemption to Saren. Shepard says multiple times in 1 and 2 that indoctrination is as bad a fate as death. Then there's his campaign against the Thorian and his brainwashed slaves, as well as Legion's and Jacob's loyalty missions, which both deal with themes of brainwashing. Yet the second of the three endings, Control, forces you to rob the Reapers of their free will and "become" them. Poetic justice, perhaps, but still seems contrary to everything we've seen so far. And Synthesis, of course, is bad all on its own. It basically takes control and self-determination away from the entire galaxy and says "want to retain your individuality as people? Too bad, we're all machine hybrids now!" Mutating the entire galaxy against their will is a 180 from anything Shepard would do. And after ME3 spent hours convincing us that synthetics and organics could cooperate, why have an ending that says "actually they can't cooperate, better make them all the same!" In this way, Synthesis actually manages to go against both stated themes.
*****> There's no reason why you can't destroy the Reapers with the Crucible and keep EDI/Geth other than > "Mac and Casey said so". Ha ha. Pretty well put. I can pretty much guess what BioWare's response would have been: "But...but...but movies have tragic endings!" This is ridiculous in the same way as that Mass Effect writer who had claimed that she wanted a version of the game without gameplay. Video games aren't movies. We control the characters; the choices and efforts are the player's, not just the characters'. The biggest reason the endings sucked was that they negated all the work you did. Fight Reapers? Doesn't matter -- all four endings put all the power in the hands of that wretched "Star Child" and you have to obey. Worked hard to level up? Doesn't matter, Shepard will die, and so will your squadmates...and then BioWare had to backpedal because people hated it, but the backpedalling doesn't work because it was based on ridiculous premises like the Normandy landing in a Reaper battlefield to extract two people. (And by the way, why would you bring only two teammates in the most important battle of your campaign? The rest of the team should have been in the mission even if they weren't playable, as with the Citadel Archives DLC mission.) Finally, in dramaturgy, what is the purpose of tragic endings? Catharsis -- the generation of pity and fear for the main character. Except in video games, the main character is the player. Tragic endings work in plays and films because the viewer isn't the actual person to whom the tragedy happens. When a video game subjects the player to a cheap tragic ending, it is basically punishing the player for having played the game. By making the player the *target* of the pity and fear, it is putting the player into a position of being a victim, and that's not the purpose of any entertainment or art. It's like saying, "I'll chop off your arm because it hurts, and you'll like it because that's what I've decided will happen." BioWare was arrogant in designing three crappy endings for you to choose, and ignorant of the differences between a game (where you are engaged, an active agent) and a narrative (where you are a bystander to events).
One day they should make "Mass Effect 3: The Drew Karpyshyn Cut" A new version of the game that adapts Drew''s original storyline and ending, including the Dark Energy plot line.
Funny thing this reminds me of Monty Pythons bridge of death. "Welcome to the citadel in order to win you must answer me three question." What is your name? -Commander Shepard What is your Quest? -To end the cycle What is your favorite color? -I don't have a favorite which one shuts down all the reapers? Catalyst, "What are you talking about I don't know that." *Catalyst gets launched off the citadel* Shepard, "*chuckles*. I can't believe that actually worked." *shuts down all Reapers, saving all the synthetics in the process.
my ideal ending, Shpards love interest is shown with their kids, he died, but hes legacy continues in them, for female Shep its possible only if she romances Liara second ideal ending better then first, Shep live with all endings but is forced to retire due the extended damage he took while using the one of 2 devices control or synthesis, both ending have same consequences, shep body will never function 100%, he can walk yes & basically seems fine, but he/she is not 100%fine, but he/she with hes/hers love interest will raise kids together, happy end for shepard, i prefer this version why bother with romance in the game if that's how it ends & leaves a empty vortex inside u if u have romance u don't do this type of ending, its a huge no no!!! this is my mane issue with the ending, so this ending doesn't exist for me, its incomplete, even with the leviathan DLC
my favorite ending Synthesis is best ending cause only this way there can be peace, like the Ai child said organics will repeat the sickle & crate Ai again & new war is born between ppl & Ai & then new reapers are born so only choice is' Synthesis, best choice for peace
even after 7 years.. we can only mourn for the trilogy, because we can't get any better conclusion due to Bioware's fucked up so much. Rest In Peace Mass Effect trilogy remake, Rest In Peace Dragon Age 4, Rrst In Peace Bioware
@@brandjf1458 I know it's been literally years but the main 2 pieces of music he's playing in the video are "leaving Earth" and "An end once and for all". Suicide mission at 7:50 too.
Ask Alice. if ONLY that was their motivation behind the crap ending. its more probable that theyre zombies under EA's control and will tow their line no matter what
The ending is still shit, even after all this time. Even if the extended cut fixed some of the plot holes, the ending still fundamentally goes against every theme in the series. Synthesis: This one is truly fucked up. You force every being in the galaxy to become a cyborg... and this is the "good" ending? Could you imagine waking up one morning to discover you had wires running underneath your skin and computer chips in your brain? It's fucking horrible. Not only that, but its pointless. The whole purpose of the Reapers was to stop synthetics from wiping out all life in the galaxy. How does being a cyborg stop that? Even if I was a cyborg, I would still drive a car, use a computer, etc. We would still use machines, and create synthetics to make life easier for us. And when we created synthetics, would us being half machine stop them from killing us? Of course not. On top of that, this ending spits in the face of the whole "learning from our differences and working together to become a greater whole" theme this series has pushed from the beginning. The sythnesis ending basically says that "sorry, being different leads to conflict, we should all be homogenous", even though we spent three whole games making people see past their differences and work together. Synthesis wouldn't even bring peace either. We have already seen numerous example of conflict between the same group (ei, humans fighting humans, Geth fighting Geth, etc), so why would everyone being the same make conflict go away? The only possible explanation is that the synthesis ending also rewrites our brains to make us "peaceful". If that is the case, this is literally the most morally horrifying ending I have ever seen. Not only to you force everyone to be a cyborg, you forcibly rewrite their brains and strip away the personal freedom of trillions of intelligent beings. Holy fuck. Control: Not as morally fucked up as synthesis, but still a fucking stupid ending. We spent 3 entire games watching every single being that tried to control the Reapers become indoctrinated and turned into a monster. Hell, we spent all of ME2 and 3 telling the Illusive man that his plan was crazy, that you couldn't control the Reapers. You even told him that seconds before the ending! Then, all that goes out the window and we are told by some random fucking glowing kid that you totally can control the Reapers. What? Why would I believe the leader of the Reapers! The entire series built up that the Reapers can't be controlled and that trying would lead to your demise. Thus, I can only assume that Shepard eventually becomes indoctrinated after being absorbed by the Reapers, and goes back to killing the galaxy. Destroy: The least offensive to my intelligence, and thus the ending I went with, but it still sucks. Why the hell did every synthetic have to die? For fuck sake, the Crucible was accurate enough that it could rewrite the DNA of every living being in the galaxy, but it can't tell the difference between a Reaper and Legion? Come on. The only reason they made it so that Destroy destroyed all synthetics was because if they hadn't it would have been the obvious choice for everyone. And this is supposed to be the "bad" ending when it is the only option that doesn't leave the Reapers alive to kill everyone if they change their mind or rewrite the brains of everyone in the Galaxy, or both. Even past the choices themselves. The entire premise of the ending goes against the rest of the series. "Synthetics will always destroy their creators"... Did you not read the news God Child?!? I just brought fucking peace to the Geth and Quarians and now they are living in peace! I just proved your entire concept wrong and yet I still have to make this stupid fucking choice. Yeah yeah, "wall of text", "rant", "you mad bro". I guess I forgot how much I hated this ending. To this day I can't figure out why Bioware didn't just give a ton of endings. That way, everyone can be happy. They didn't need to worry about continuity because the next game is set somewhere else. It's just such a disappointing ending to such a great franchise.
Totaly agree with what u said.machines can be rebooted.start legion up again.it would be like nothen happen.he would be none the wiser.god made man with souls and think and feel and have emotions and free will. real purpose.man made machines. They are not truly alive.they are just chips and wires and metal.they can be built or rebuilt.
+John Canuck There are more endings, you just forgot this is a role playing game, you just need to do things differently to get a different outcome, I had a different ending, and that was shortly after the game came out
+John Canuck I feel like it was an OK ending at best, but a mass effect ending? not by far. this is something Id expect from a b level game! not a badass trilogy.
+TheHatFactory There is only 2 more endings, The rejection ending, which is basically a f-you from EA. (The cycle continues and everyone dies.) The other happens if you dont have enough miliary support, and again everyone dies.
It really should have come down to Harbinger vs Shepherd. Harbinger has been the main villain for two out of three games and his obsession with the anomaly that is Shepherd should have been the decision point. I figure Shepherd should have been captured and the final fight would have been having the fleet holding the reapers off long enough for the crew to GET.HIM.BACK. Depending on your choices you can succeed or fail with varying degrees of success. Harbinger could be then revealed to be suppressing a consensus divergence, similar to what happened with the Geth. Not all reapers might AGREE with Harbinger and his final solution, but he could be oppressing them. Those Repears were constructed from other bio-races. Its just that the ARROGANCE of the leviathan race was so great that they can never see bio-races as living in peace with synths because Leviathans always saw the other bio-races as inferior! If you could fracture, or even turn Reapers themselves to your cause, then the outcomes could differ massively. Imagine if the Geth could convince one of the old-machines to turn to their side, protect them. There are so many better endings they could have done...You could range from a control-style ending where the Illusive man and Sheperd and the Geth find a way to dominate the reapers, or you fracture them and the ally-reapers return to deep space forever, or the stay and help the young-races, or you just flat out fail and are killed because Shepherd is consumed by Harbinger. lol
So the reapers die but Shepard is protected by *a bubble of love and friendship* She flies down to earth and all of her friends are there. Everyone hugs Shepard. the end
Shepard punches the ghost child in the face and then usurps him as the creator of the reapers. she tells the reapers to bugger off back into deep space. She lives happily ever after in a suburban neighborhood with the whole crew of the Normandy and she lives in a house with Samantha Traynor and a dog with a white picket fence, like she promised. the end
ThunderCatsAreGo01 The way the citadel destroys the reapers is that shepard takes control of it and it turns into a giant mech that smashes the shit out of all of the reapers.
it turns out the crucible is a massive intergalactic communication device, and shepard broadcasts out to all the Reapers a paradoxical riddle, and with the Reapers' synthetic brains built on reason, they can't solve the riddle and implode out of sheer stress. the end
The stupidest thing about the synthesis ending is that...fine everyone is now half synthetic that doesn't mean that making purely synthetic AI is something we can't do anymore. Off course we would do it. What exactly is stopping us? The fact that we are now part machine, fuck does that help when you can create a group of machines to do shit for you. The entire ending doesn't solve the reason of why we make machines in the first place. To make our live easier. Plus even if everyone was made of the same stuff, we kill each other all the same. The synthesis ending is something a hippy dreams up after doing acid.
Yeah it was dumb as shit and poorly thought out, probably the weakest and least plausible of the endings, a magical synthetic/organic harmonious utopia lmao so happy I didn't pick that one
the mass effect 3 ending totally ruined everything that happened in the trilogy and makes it so that none of the things you did mattered even in the slightest
TomeOfBattle yeah i still like mass effect but simultaniously hate that the whole lore is stupid bullshit just due to the ending and its explanation that they had to create synthetics that kill organics just so that the synthetics the organics will inevitably create wont kill them. Thats some increadibly stupid bullshit and also doesnt the peace between the geth and the quarians indicate that peaceful coexistence of synthetics and organics is in fact possible? I choose to believe that shepard got hit too hard on the head and hallucinated the ending
I know I may be a bit dramatic but I finished the ending back when it came out a few weeks later and I didnt even wanna play the series anymore, it just stunned me how bad the ending was, I had to chill out for a week and just think about everything before I went back
Besides, the Reapers being created to solve the "organic vs synthetics" problem is quite cheap, when we first spoke with Sovereign in the first game i thought of the Reapers being some kind of godly, unfathomable, eternal species, and yet at the end we find out they were just robots shittily programmed! I remember reading a theory that told that the Reapers, being eternal, worried about the organics using biotic powers, since this kind of hastened the "big rip". That would have being a far better motive for the Reapers, instead of just being just robots with bugged AIs.
ya, it feels pretty weak, especially since even up until the reapers spoke about how we could never understand their reasoning. Fucking hell, when Shepard asked Sovereign on virmire "why are you doing this" he should had just said "oh, cause the ai that made us saw that organic life crates synthetic life that surpassed their creators, kill them, and then poses a threat to all organic life in the galaxy. so the solution the ai came up with was to exterminate all advanced life before it has a chance to do that, thus making sure some organic life always exists in the galaxy." if you're gonna make it vague for a good part of the story don't have it so the reason could have been easily explained in two sentences.
***** exactly! by the way, if the catalyst was so accomodating with Shepard, couldn't he have asked it to simply shut down the reapers, instead of, you know, blowing up the entire relay network and killing also all the other sentient synthetics like the Geth and EDI?
ARX 351 i know, the ending just throws all logic out the window. i mean even if for whatever reason the ai can't stop the reapers for whatever reason. the structure clearly has the ability to discriminate between reapers and other synthetic life cause it has the power to let you control just the reapers, and you don't control all synthetic life, so it makes no sense that it can't just shutdown all the reapers.
From what I've read, the original motivation for the reapers said by the creators was over dark matter. From what he said apparently the mass relays were causing dark matter to accelerate around the galaxy and was slowly destroying it. It was alluded in Talis recruitment mission on Hastrom with the dying star with its age being accelerated by the dark matter. The reapers were created to stop it form happening and resulted in the cycle. Apparently in the original idea, the final choice was to either destroy the reapers and hope we can find a way without them or allow them to continue the cycle to save the galaxy. This my not sound perfect, but that was thought out early on and could have changed in the final game. But from what I've read the idea was leaked out and Bioware not wanting anything spoiled decided to scrap the dark matter and rushed a different motivation with the out of nowhere organics vs synthetics bullcrap
The sad truth is that no matter what anyone says/does the endings will remain how they are. And that's what pisses me off the most. The only reason the endings were so shit is because EA forced Bioware to rush the ending. And as AngryJoe said "It's as if the endings were written by completely different people". That's because they were.
Most likely because EA told them to sound like they were happy with the outcome. Just remember, It's EA who has control over Bioware. Bioware had to do what EA told them to do. I almost feel like i want to help liberate Bioware from EA's grasp because it was EA who ruined the fucking series.
MikuHatsune10728 I know what you mean about towing the company line. That's what I get from original writing lead Drew Karpyshyn. But it seems like more with those two. You could be right though.
EA also ruined Dragon Age 2... Just sayin'. They believed they could make a Shepard-like character, adored by players with Hawke. (They basically wanted a main series character for more money).
I literally cry every time I see an ending for ME3. I don't ball my eyes out, but there are apparent tears. I love the trilogy more than any other game, but the ending sucks eggs. All of them.
I usually go for the destroy ending because that's the only ending that makes some sense. From the very first game Shepard's goal was to defeat the reapers which is what he achieved in the destroy ending. The control ending is stupid because Shepard just spent an entire game telling the elusive man that controlling the reapers is a stupid idea that shouldn't be done. So I'm supposed to believe that one conversation with the Star child Shepard suddenly believes that the elusive man was right all along? The synthesis ending is also stupid because essentially it just finishes what the reapers started. The reapers harvests organic DNA and merges it with reaper technology. By choosing that end Shepard is doing the reapers job for them.
Synthesis is just what the reapers want but much better morally doesn't matter if It was what the reapers wanted it's still the best ending, the geth dont die if they're alive and other ai like edi dont die also organics and synthetics get improved its literally a win win for everybody how is this hard to understand
What prevents me from thinking that the destroy ending is the best is that Star kid said after the reapers and technology are destroyed shepards children will create them again.
@@bubblelaydy Not necessarily. What I noticed in the game is that the AI takes on similar traits of the organics that created them. The Geth are in some ways like the Quarians that built them in a way the share everything with each other and solve problems in a democratic way. Joker may not have created Edi but lot of her personality is what she learned from Joker by spending a lot of time with him but her original origins came from the Alliance military so her competence in the field comes from them or Shepard. The Reapers were created by Leviathan who believed themselves to be above everything so the "solution" as Reapers put it is the only right choice because their intelligence is "superior" to everyone else. It doesn't matter that the Geth or Edi decided to work with organics the Leviathan planted this idea of being superior to everyone around them so other organics or synthetics opinions don't matter.
@Jerry C is this for real? Andromeda has so much potential, but it was so poorly written... I would buy a copy of the sequel in a heartbeat if it had any redeeming qualities!
the fact that are still people today who are watching this video and STILL complaining about the ending, tells me ea/rest of the bioware team really fucked the ending up and yeah im still pissed to... and yeah i wish a ending with shepard, tali, quarians and the geth building up rannoch again
Selvares it's like people said, why did they have to go for something overly complicated that barely makes sense instead of something like mass effect 1 & 2: success and a happy ending would've much easier
Well, Bioware definitely succeeded at creating a memorable ending. Unfortunately for them, memorable does not equal good. When I first heard about Andromeda, my first though was "so how are they going to deal with the godawful ending they wrote themselves into a corner with?"
Simple they go to a different galaxy but sadly even then Andromeda still suffers from EA syndrome. We can only hope they somehow manage to get their staff members levelheaded. Which I doubt.
Dude, even replace the main story ending with shore leave ending would have been enough for me. Like Normandy got destroyed and everyone stands together looking at it.
wasn't the syntheses ending exactly what Saren did in the end of mass effect 1, combine both reaper and organics DNA "the strengths of both the weaknesses of neither" and even then Shepard thought that was a horrible idea
The clarification dlc didn't help in the slightest. If anything, it added more questions. Like why the Normandy would swoop in to pick up your crew in the middle of a death charge, something completely out of character for what Shepard had just got them worked up for. All doubling down on the original bad endings. Even if Indoctrination Theory wasn't their original plan, Bioware should have just rolled with it and made it.
And so many years later, it's still seen as "taboo" in the entertainment industry. Which is bullshit and I'm kind of sick of it. I agree with Joe that having a happy ending would have been the ultimate twist ending. It's not just that I can't accept reality, I'm not stupid or naive. It's simply that if I choose to be invested and put effort into improving happiness but arbitrarily that *earned* reward is stolen, I'm pissed cuz I wasted my time and care. Idk, it's just all so depressing lol.
After everything they've done, lost, and been through, a happy ending would've been a kindness, a reward for sticking together the time it really mattered.
I just finished the game today. Put in 100 hours total into the trilogy with no spoilers. Only a few tips from friends that played it. This is the most disappointing ending I've ever seen. I feel so... empty.
+Doomslayingrocker Yeah, I know that feel bro. I just started the trilogy a couple months ago and got to the ending about two weeks ago. So many plotholes, unanswered questions and a lack of closure... I felt Bioware robbed me of my choices and an good ending.
+Jo$h if you still want a better ending enter here and help us: www.change.org/p/bioware-corporation-we-want-a-remaster-of-the-mass-effect-trilogy-for-xbox-one-ps4-amp-pc?tk=YJnRtheG9It8fH-XlXJD3NnaYSpj7DgEvLyXf9mbdCo&
The vanilla ending of ME3 was like having a giant delicious cake all to yourself. You get down to the last piece, and just before you bite, someone pours a bucket of diahrea all over the piece. Doesn't matter how good most of the cake was; all you'll remember is that shit ending.
Just finished ME3 with all DLC ; I agree HEAVILY with reason number 5; I would have loved to see Rachni, geth and quarians fighting. Just unique cinematics with every war asset. I agreed SO HARD with number 5.
I would like that but if you remake one of them you pretty much have to remake them all. also alot of problems with mass effect three are in the foundation of the very game. it would be hard to get around that with just a remake. whereas something like mass effect one would become MUCH better because a majority of ME1'S problems come from gameplay Wichita can be circumvented with a new engine
When I said gameplay I meant the lack of options in combat and the huge amounts of repeated environments that you go to, making every side missions feel the same.
joshua thomas i didnt mind those elements in me. Im a more role-playing focused, less-combat focused player, so me1's formula was good for me, even with its apparent flaws, which i didnt care about because of how large thr galaxy was. I hated me2 and me3 for consolidating, simplifying, and removing things like exploring uncharted worlds. I always hated the armor system in 2 and 3 and i still hate thermal clips. Pretty much my first reaction with first me2 playthrough was utter shock and appalment
Even in 2019, I remember this ending as the worst I have EVER witnessed. And don't forget, by this time we have already seen the ending of the Games of Thrones series too.
I don't know why Shepard never mentioned how he got the geth and quarians to co-exist. It was the first thing I thought of when the catalyst started talking. Bringing Javik back had no bearing on any events even though it had so much potential. The leviathan never did anything once Shepard left so that was pointless.
I can understand why he didnt mention javik. It was day-one dlc and it wasnt allowed to be to major in the plot, eventhough I think Javik is useless in the story anyways.
When I started played ME 3 I knew everyone hated the ending, but I thought "Come one, you are overreacting. How bad can it be?" Well, now I finished ME 3 and now I understand why everyone hates it! And the little patch that Bioware released to "make it better" doesn´t make it slightly better! The only way to make such a horrible ending better is to fire everyone who thought this might be a good idea and reedo the whole last mission! I was so totaly pumped when I encountered the Illusive Man on the Citadel, but then this dumb brat of a God-AI shows up and tells me that I die anyway and basically can only choose the coler in wich everything goes to hell! God, hopefully they don´t do that shit anymore with Mass Effect 4!
ME3's ending didn't make sense until I played the games over again a few times to realize that the ending took place in Shepard's mind. Also, to the people like Joe saying that the extended cut destroys the Indoctrination Theory, I'd argue that it strengthened it, tenfold. I hate open endings because they split the fans and don't give them the closure that they need for a series that has spanned so many years. I can see why they'd go that route, though.
There are a ton of people who can explain this better than I can (people like CleverNoobs), but, if you give a shit, here are my reasons why the IT is a valid interpretation of the ending. Incoming TL;DR 1) Merizan and BioWare employees never rejected the Indoctrination Theory (IT). In fact, they stated over Twitter that the IT was a valid interpretation of the ending. If it wasn't, wouldn't it make sense to explicitly say, "this is not what we intended for?" Merizan even spills the beans when a fan states that they are disappointed about not being able to be with Tali. Merizan states something like, "then pick the Destroy ending and go be with her," implying that Shepard is alive in the destroy ending which only means that he never left the Citadel. 2) Destroy ending gasping scene: Shepard's body is surrounded by concrete and rebar (confirmed by BioWare dev), which the Citadel isn't made out of. Those are the materials used in London. There's no way that Shepard could have made it from space all the way back to the streets of London (pretty precise), especially considering his armor was beyond destroyed. 3) Right when Shepard beams up to the Citadel, there is a Keepertakig the helmet off of a soldier. When you regain control of Shepard and walk over to the body, it's gone. If you go into free cam during that scene, you'll see that it is, in fact, Major Coates. But Coates is alive. He is even shown in the end scenes. So why would BioWare do that? Because it's a DREAM. 4) In the decision chamber, there's no field encasing the surroundings so where is the oxygen coming from? 5) Why would the past civilizations, who are desperate to stop the Reapers, waste time constructing an option for synthesis and control? The only obvious choice would be Destroy. The fact that you are given 3 choices, 2 of which make no sense, is pretty suspicious. 6) Ending scene after credits where a grandpa is talking to a child: The background used is the cover for a song about undergoing indoctrination. Coincidence? Nope. It was obviously used with a purpose. 7) The ME franchise has always been about immersion and personalization. It's been about making you love and care about the characters, the story, the atmosphere/environment, etc. The reason why the IT isn't explicitly stated is because BioWare is making YOU go through Indoctrination. The people arguing which ending is correct are the same people who argue over whether or not their minds are theirs and if they're correct (Saren, Illusive Man, Rana Thanoptis). BioWare wants you to be conflicted because it effectively emulates the indoctrination processs. The decision chamber is a way of doing that because it is highly subtle. You get bombarded with information and then told to make a decision, while being subtley hinted that Destroy isn't the best option. This is how indoctrination works.
Wow... you just gave me the final piece of closure I wanted from the Mass Effect franchise. I never thought of it as Shepard dreaming but it all makes sense. But did the choice you made in the dream actually affect the real world? Oh great, now that needs answering.
karesneminus Just because it's a theory doesn't mean it's not true. Gravity is still a theory (actually, it can be classified as theory and law depending on the context). Do you believe it doesn't exist? Not the writer's intention? How do you know that? Did you talk to the writers? Several developers and employees (i.e. Merizan) have been quoted stating that the Indoctrination Theory is a valid interpretation of the ending. Also, you seem convinced that I'm wrong, but provide nothing to back up why you feel that way. Explain. Face value fans (i.e. you) always stick to the script as face value and claim that this is what the writers intended. When asked why, they say the same thing that you said, but never back it up with any evidence. What I would like to know is this: Did BioWare say that the Indoctrination Theory is NOT a valid interpretation of their work? There's more evidence pointing towards IE than face value so I choose to believe that which presents the most evidence.
Well, looking at things in retrospective, while the ending was never really changed, the stand people took made it into history. Now, each time there's an ending to the game that people consider to be poorly written, they say "At least it's not as bad as the ending of ME3".
Even with all of the DLC, the ending is still shit. Even though the journey to the end was amazing, the last ten minutes ruined it for me. I will not be purchasing another Mass Effect Game.
Have you ever heard of the 'indoctrination theory'? It's quite an interesting theory with very solid arguments. Maybe that would change your opinion :)
Yeah, and if the last DLC wrapped it up like that, THEN mass effect 3's ending would be legendary! But it's not... sadly. BioWare and EA fucked up big time.
Hym138 What confuses me the most is how ignorant the makers of the games seem nowadays. With a game like mass effect, you'd think the creators would have put more thought into what they were giving the fans. Do they even listen to us, or are they so stubborn and lost in their own world that they just can't put their ideas on paper properly?
Don't you think it's quite hard to really prove or bust the Indoctrination Theory? They'd lose half the community if they did... But I can understand what you mean. Then again, if they don't listen to their funder, they can't make a game at all.
I was just finishing the Priority: Earth mission, and when I was supposed to make the sprint towards the beam, the game froze on me and crashed. Could it have been trying to spare me from the awful ending(s)?
I don't take this ending seriously. I hope someday people in bioware will wake up and redo it. In my mind reapers are defeated and shepard is sipping drinks with Garrus.
Beating the reapers was impossible but Shepard did it but at a cost. Now with the cycle finished humans and other alien lives will evolve and move to andromeda . This ending is great
It is 2021, and I am still so salty and insulted, I still can't replay it. This was the greatest piece of entertainment I have ever experienced, until the final chapter of the third act. They fucked the end up so bad, I still can't go back.
I just finished the game and im so so mad. Absolutely loved everything about the game and was hyped for the ending only to be confused as fuck 😢😢 Shepard deserved better and so did all the other characters !
I legit want to play the series again but that ending has stopped me everytime from picking up a new playthrough....crazy how a God awful ending can bitter a great series.
@@MrAnimeFan4Eva Exactly. They did shepard dirty. I hope the new game involves shepard and they can have a crack at another good series again. But its a lot to hope for considering bioware's recent struggles
I want a complete remake of the Mass Effect trilogy! It would have to really be done right, though. Not something like the Halo: Anniversary editions, but an actual from the ground up rewrite. Same story, same voice actors (if they can get them), but more content, more polish, and a more satisfying ending. Something that honors and builds upon what is already there, not replaces it. The Bioware execs would have to get off the dev's backs for a release date and just keep the money flowing. Let them make the trilogy we always wanted, the one such an amazing story deserves. We didn't get it the first go-round. It was almost, but not quite, so I feel a remake is justified. I know I speak for many people when I say I'd be willing to shell out some serious cash for such a remake. Update the graphics, physics, and NPC AI. Fix the damn bugs already. Listen to the community and address their concerns with the original trilogy. Make the gameplay consistent across all 3 games. I'm looking at you, ME1's infinite ammo and repetitive Mako assignments. Double the singleplayer campaign content with new missions, assignments, cutscenes, squadmates, conversations, codex entries, clusters and systems, and explorable planets. Even players who've been through the trilogy half a dozen times should feel overwhelmed at the sheer depth, complexity, and beauty of the universe they've once again stepped into. Give us more dialogue options while hanging out on the Normandy, let the characters grow in new and varied directions, and feel more alive. Expand the maps in exporable locations like the Citadel and Omega with more places to see, things to do, even some places that don't necessarily advance the plot but deepen the level of immersion. I want to walk into a bar and be able to hear 10 different conversations about anything from how much the Blasto sequel sucked to a Turian pitching the idea for a joint-species Lacrosse league. The galaxy is a big place, let us see what it has to offer. But most of all, redo the ending to ME3. Imagine if it was done right, if we had more than a few different flavors of the same ending, but a plethora of different outcomes, each with a long and highly polished cutscene that gives the player real closure, even if the choices they made turn the story into a tragedy. We got a feel for this kind of REAL consequential decision making with ME2, but the potential was so much greater with ME3. What an incentive to go back and get it right, to see your favorite characters survive! The Suicide Mission was done so well. ME3's ending should have been even better, with the stakes so much higher.
+Robert Brown I actually preferred ME1's gameplay over the others it feels more free and the cover system for me at least was much better than the other two, at least i could fire from any position while in cover in the first and i liked the Mako missions... but i didn't like the crappy AI that almost always rushed you unless they are Geth, the music really was more original and somehow it had the nicest animations out of the three even tho it was the first. All in all give me ME2+ME3 with gameplay like the first but better AI of course and the more RPG game styled loot like the first, once again tweaked of course and i would be so freaking happy. :P
Robert Brown are you insane? Sure would be plausible if devs got infinite resources which they don't. Do you realize how long a project like this would take? It would outlive the advance of graphics capabilities and hardware, causing them to go BACK and redo things. Game devs aren't magicions. People keep writing their own personal fan fictions not realizing that people have different opinions. I don't by any stretch of the imagination think mass effects ending was good. It was disappointing, but it wasn't BAD. The 3 conclusions were not even the worst part of the game IMO.
I was always curious what the joke was and I even thought this was a line in the series or a misunderstanding name of a character in game. I finished the game last week... I understand Marauder Shields now
I chose to play the game in 2015, so about three years after it originally came out, and of course I ending up getting spoilers from a lot of my friends about it. I was told what the final decision was before I even started playing the franchise, actually-I wasn't told how that decision affected anything-and I was also told that only Destroying the Reapers with 4000+ war assets at the end of the game resulted in the survival of Shepard. So, by the time that I actually got to that part of the game, I had my mind set. I wanted my Shepard to live, above all else. I knew that I was going to pick the Destroy option. And after listening to the God-child rattle on about order and chaos and all that bullshit, I would probably have gone with Destroy anyways. I mean, seriously? Chaos and order? Really? That's what you're going with? I'm sorry, God-child, but I'm not really sorry when I say that saying organics harvested into Reapers are order and synthetics taking over the world are chaos. That makes no fucking sense. Synthetic life, which you especially see through EDI and Legion, are probably the most intelligent, logical-thinking things in the galaxy, and so having them be a civilization obviously wouldn't really be chaos. And I'm sorry, but all of these civilizations have lived with chaos for FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS. They built 'chaos', aka synthetics. I don't even really understand what chaos/order have to do with it. Why are you harvesting civilizations anyways? What's the point? Why not just let them kill each other? Why do you, said god-child, even really care about what happens to the civilizations? Another thing about the God-child: He says that because we finally found a way to create the Crucible, then obviously this 'solution' to the 'problem' (what problem, by the way? What's the problem here? What's so bad about synthetic life, instead of organic?) isn't working and they need to find another solution. So why is control the Reapers an option? I mean, the solution isn't working. We need to find another solution. Doesn't make any fucking sense, but whatever. I was going to Destroy the Reapers, and that was my decision. Unfortunately, because I got distracted in the final cut scene due to other things that were going on, I looked back over at my monitor in time to make the decision...and I had no idea which terminal was linked to which decision. I went left, just to see what it was, because I knew Destroy couldn't be the middle. I figured out that the left was...Control. And when I got to Control, what couldn't I do? MOVE. Literally, I was stuck there, couldn't move, had to choose Control otherwise I would've been reverted to a completely previous save from about two hours before that point. So, fuck me, I chose Control. Wasn't what I wanted, but whatever, I couldn't move, and I wasn't going to redo that. I would just watch the other ending on the internet somewhere. Wouldn't be as satisfying, but that was fine. I chose Control, watched the ending. It was fine. Then I went on my phone and watched the Destroy ending...and, umm...wait. What? I was expecting something...more. Something different. But it was basically just a cookie cutter scene. The only real difference that I saw was the fact that the lights were red, rather than blue, the Reapers crashed instead of flying away, and EDI was on the ship in my ending but not in the Destroy ending. The Mass Relays get destroyed, Shepard dies-and no, he didn't *live* or whatever in the other Destroy ending. He took a breath. That's not living. For all we know, he took a breath and then fucking died right after that, alright? And you COULD say that maybe he did live, maybe that was Bioware's way of saying "hey, nice job, player. Your Shepard lived!" But does it matter? Does it REALLY matter? Because the last part of the game is the old dude talking to his grandson. He died anyways, maybe from old age or maybe he was brain-dead from the blunt force trauma of the explosion or maybe he succumbed to his burns. Because maybe he got a life after that happened, but if he did, we sure as hell don't see it. Why does it matter if he lives or dies at the end, if we have no idea what his life is like? It was basically cookie-cutter endings, and that really pisses me off. The fact that every decision I ever made throughout the entire game rarely fucking mattered besides Big Ben burning or lights changing when the Crucible explodes or a shattered, maybe last breath from Shepard, where he's probably in immense pain after being part of A FIERY EXPLOSION. The choices in general really pissed me off, too. And I'm probably just rambling on about something that no one is ever going to read, but I don't care. If anyone does read this, maybe you'll agree with me. Controlling the Reapers-what. Why would I want to Control them? What benefit would that give me? An unstoppable force at my beck and call? Oh wait, that doesn't matter, cause I'm dead. Or maybe I took the place of the god-child, fuck if I know, cause it doesn't tell me. I mean, there's indoctrination and all that crap, but I've pretty much already proven that I can get a force to stand behind me in the span of just a few months/years by doing a few favors for them. And why am I the one whose able to Control them if the Illusive Man couldn't? Fusing synthetic and organic life-wait. Aren't those Reapers? Why the hell would I want to do that? I've already proven on multiple accounts that I absolutely loathe the Reapers, that they are a threat for everything. Why would I want to make smaller versions of them? Plus, and forgive me for being a little too "real-world" here, but how the fuck do I even fuse synthetic and organic life without starting from scratch? There's no way that I can change every species DNA by just sacrificing myself. Maybe if I created a brand new species of synthetic/organics, I'll give you that. But I couldn't possibly just randomly fuse together DNA of synthetics and organics without some sort of surgery. What the hell is synthetic "DNA" anyways? And how would sacrificing myself fuse synthetic and organic life? Fuck if I know. Destroying the Reapers-I get the need for options. I do. But why isn't this the only option. I am serious right now. For three games, I have been adamant that the Reapers are the biggest threat not only to humanity but to every galactic race that exists in the Milky Way. Why does that change after a three minute conversation with a god-child? Seriously, when you are talking to the Illusive Man in the ending and how he is saying that Controlling the Reapers is the best option, YOU CAN'T EVEN SIDE WITH HIM. You can only say, "No. You're crazy. You've been indoctrinated. That's what they want you to think" or whatever. But after talking to the god-child...well...I guess I changed my mind. Control is the way to go. NO. That makes no sense. Realistically, the only ending that makes sense here is Destroying the Reapers, which still doesn't really make any fucking sense, because why in the hell does Destroying the Reapers destroy all synthetic life? That's something I don't get. It doesn't make sense and really I think it was just a way for the developers to say, "Think about the weight of your decisions. Think of your synthetic friends." And, finally, after reading my ramble (or not, do whatever the fuck you want), here is the one thing that, after thinking about this for all this time, I don't get about the ending to Mass Effect 3. I can justify the decisions. I can justify the chaos/order bullshit. I can even justify the cookie cutter endings, because maybe the Mass Effect team wanted to really say that "hey. Guess what? The ending really means that all of your decisions don't ultimately matter, and the only one that really counts is the final one. That's it." I mean, throughout the last thirty minutes to an hour, it is stressed THIS IS IT. So what can't I justify? I can't justify why in the world the god-child even gives me these decisions. Why does he think that I should decide the fate for all of the galactic races? Why does he think that I am better equipped to come up with a new 'solution' than he is? After all, I may be a smooth-talker and have cool sword skills with my omni-tool, but I'm just a soldier. One of thousands. Maybe a good one, I'll give you that, but why the fuck didn't the god-child approach the Council with this decision? Why can't the god-child himself be the one to decide what happens to the Reapers and to himself? This god-child, this Catalyst, the Citadel, whatever you want to call it, has been here for much longer than my species has been alive. It has obviously seen more with the galaxy than I have. I don't understand why it would just willingly give up its power to place in the hands of a random person. Fuck, the god-child doesn't even KNOW me. That's what I don't get. I don't understand that part. Oh, and here's another thing, if basically all of the endings to Mass Effect 3 result in the same endings, why even give us a decision? Maybe someone else has the answers, but I sure as hell don't. If anyone feels like replying and clearing things up, go for it. I will probably read it.
There is actually one great ending for me 3 how to get it ? be dick in all me games complete renegade always kill as many of your teammates as you can finally do control ending and become GALACTIC EMPEROR OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE NOBODY WILL DEFY SHEPARDS REAPERS NOW
+ozis ponas Its niot Shepard. Its a VI with the momorys of Shepard. He dies the Intelligence sais that too: He will lose everything he has. Its a cold hearted dictator, not even organic or Synthetic, just a VI trying to complete his job what he was build for(as every VI) to "defend the galaxy, and life itself". Just think. This is NOT a good thing! He can think logically that like if Sam buysa knife and tries to murder someone Shepard exterminates Sam, than the shop, the place where the knifes were made, the place were they were produced ect..because its his job to do that. Also he could "think" of a solution as worse as the Reapers. And eventually he will. The people will rebel ut then they will always be destroyed. Or worse. Indoctrinated. So yeah. Not cool.
Quick question. Were not the Reapers allready a combination of organic and synthetic life? Does that fact not make the Synthesis ending irrelevant (Despite the fact that Machines dont have DNA)
Urdnot Grunt The Synthesis ending closed the gap between Synthetic life and organic life by infusing synthetic and organic into a new DNA form. Essentially ending the cyclical nature in which Organics and Synthetics warred with each other after synthetic creation; this eventually led to the destruction of the creator race. The Leviathans gave this "god child" a job to stop this lost of life since the Leviathans couldn't receive tribute from an extinct race. The "god child" saw that converting organics into 'reapers'(synthetics), in which they retained their culture and philosophy of the race they harvested as the only way to preserve life. Technically, the "God Child" had a logical solution to the problem but it disregarded the right to have a organic life and natural evolution. If one would look at a organic race as a whole as a machine, one can see the logic of "god child" in which a reaper would be a logical next step. Each individual has a job and function like every software/hardware in a computer. The "god child" saw that converting organic life into synthetic life was the only sure way to prevent a extinction of "life", with synthetic being its final form. Synthesis would create a bridge between these two forms of life, eliminating misunderstanding. Also the Mass Effect trilogy story explains that Shepard is a unique force and that he was a new factor into this formula that the 'God child' was computing on saving of "life" What I think people have a issue with is that the ending wasn't visually different, in that it didn't have drastic options (ex. spaceships destroying Reapers or a 'On/Off' switch with no consequences). The idea that their isn't any cost to making a solution is just naïve. The different endings depended on Shepard (a new factor in the 'life' formula) and that each option required his input with two of them requiring his dissolution as an organic to accomplish. Each ending creates a different outcome (ex destroy reapers/synthetics, Shepard replaces 'God child' and synthesis-coexistence with organic and synthetic life.) One may see all three endings resulting in Shepard's death (except the high readiness- destroy option) as not being different but that isn't taking into account the choice Shepard made. Also the choices made in previous games were accounted for in the ending, the way that Bioware presented the impact of one's decisions was poorly presented (slideshows). This results of Shepard's past game decisions maybe explained in a future Mass Effect game. Bioware could have made the ending a little more resolute, allowing the gamer to feel like the story was complete but still allowing for a sequel to made. P.S.- there is a fourth option: refuse (let the next cycle finish it).
The best ending would when the crucible attached to the citadel would just attack all the reapers and the reaper would die without any other casualties that would be the best and proper ending bringing up the AI catalyst and the other bullsh*t wasn't nessesary at all. Why did bioware add all that to crap to ruin the ending
I think the thing that bugged so many people apart from the lack-luster ending was that from the very beginning of the franchise Bioware said your decisions will affect the outcome and they didn't (especially if you're colour blind) matter at all really. Also the ending was changed after the original plans were leaked by a (I think) disgruntled ex-Bioware employee. The original ending sounded so much more interesting than that of which we got. Such a shame it ended as it did but I still enjoyed it overall, it would have been a huge landmark in gaming if they had pulled it off and gave everybody an ending more fitting to our choices. It would've gave us all an extra incentive to replay the whole series again.
punksterdaddy agree. original ending was much more interesting, shepard talking as a reaper on the extended version, was ridiculous. he died in a pretty fucking heroic way and rescued everybody, thats all you need to know.
it should be our decision as gamers if we want a happy ending or not... you worked for it... and it was all for nothing... as Shepard ended up being the greatest and most effective reaper of all whether he/she was a paragon or a renegade
i mean in the extended cut dlc it shows that shepard lives if u destroy the reapers and bioware says that him and the crew will be reunited eventually if u do that ending so thats good
I notice that the people who say they like the original ending and had no problem with it, never give a reasoning as to why. Where as, those that dislike the original ending(s) give specific reasoning to their argument. This even goes to the professional game reviewers who simply write, "personally, l like the original ending."
The only reason they can really good as to why Mass Effect 3 is a "good" ending is that "It was unexpected, and sad, and it didn't coddle anyone." So, basically a new rule should be added to Game Design 101: Always make endings that are sad with a plot twist... No matter how illogical.
Jay R specifically, how did it end sad and 'didn't coddle anyone'. I got the same ending of; relays blowing up, Joker crash landing on a planet, and Buzz Alderan telling a child that someday they'll reach the stars again. All the same ending except in different colors. I can't tell if the ending is "good" or "sad" because I don't understand it.
gallopingLake6 I agree; The original endings made so little sense, it was really hard to tell what to make of them. I think the idea is that most fans assumed the galaxy was screwed in the original endings (Mass Relays destroyed means no way to travel back to their home planets; Food supplies are probably low and going to get worst; Turians and Quarians can't eat the food that grows on Earth; Etc. Etc.) and the Normandy and their crew MIGHT be able to live on that planet, but seems unlikely they could set up a colony... But again, it was kind of hard exactly what to make of the original endings... Hence why we got the Indoctrination Theory. xD
Jay R Or,....the Mass Relays blowing up took out each individual star system that it was in, as described in the Arrival ME2 DLC which was released nine months before ME3 was released. So, we are talking about twenty star systems, all having the height of civilization within them....gone! The galaxy is going to start over again, but this time with what ever color you chose. I had to have that explained to me as a scenario for what the ending meant because I didn't play the Arrival dlc. That would explain why Bioware said people just wanted a happy ending.
gallopingLake6 Yeah, and why Bioware very quickly backtracked on the Relays thing and tried to say they didn't blow up and could be repaired (because the cutscene TOTALLY made it look like that. -_-) and why some players speculated on it being a "controlled" explosion while Arrival's was "uncontrolled" and how that would somehow make it better...
The destroy ending is the only viable ending. Synthesis is stupid because what right do you have to alter the DNA of every living being in the galaxy without any input from them? It doesn't make sense anyway. How does the crucible make everyone half synthetic again? "uh...well...ugh....LOOK AT THE COOL GREEN EFFECTS EVERYONE HAS NOW. Fuck the control ending, because The reapers MUST DIE. We waited three games to kill those fuckers. Their logic is flawed and not a very good plot device. I'm sure Casey Hudson thought it was clever but the reapers were just fine as enemies when we all thought they were simply killing all life to remain the dominate species over the galaxy. It made sense, but no, they had fuck with it and leave us with a broken ending. Starchild:"It's for your own good! Synthetics would've destroyed you!" So you sent synthetics to destroy us to save us from being destroyed by synthetics? You just threw all logic out the window. My Shepard proves on Rannoch that synthetics and organics can co-exist but I guess that didn't count for anything. I'm giving Bioware ONE MORE CHANCE, but only because I enjoyed the ride so much, and because they're taking their time with ME4 and not trying to fuck it up this time.
I'm not going to argue how it's actually possible because I don't think it's necessary to know. But as for Synthesis, one could ask what good individual freedom is if we almost exclusively use it for self destruction. It is not illogical. Antagonists can be benevolent. They don't have to be solely malevolent.
edgecrusherhalo What a load of BS. You can't argue how it's possible because of simple bias. People who can see that the ending is broken almost always give valid reasoning for their arguments while fanboys never can. If you like the ending "just because", that's your business but don't waste my time.
Jack St john Oh there are definitely things to be desired about it, but how to resolve the premise is not one of them. I've always said that I think it is unfortunate that it took DLC to get enough information, but I don't like it "just because." I like it because it turned out to be much bigger than I originally thought. Because the antagonist turned out to be benevolent, not malevolent. And because there is no right or wrong answer as it is up to the player to decide. There are plenty of ways to look at whats happening and plenty of pros and cons for all the choices whether people want to admit it or not. Is it really a surprise that the ending is morally ambiguous in a story that founded itself based on making such choices in the first place? As for Synthesis being physically possible all I can say is, the Reapers were established as being significantly more advanced from the beginning. It is logical to assume that something that has survived for hundreds of millions would be capable of something a 50K year old species would not understand. Couple that with the Crucible being stated as basically just an energy source, so the Citadel and Relays are what distribute the energy. With that being said... So the giant space station made of an unknown material that we didn't build ourselves but found and know nothing about, that we let a race of docile alien creatures we can't communicate with that exist only here and aren't located on any terrestrial world maintain almost exclusively without question, that just so happens to be an enormous version of those other giant machines that we found and did not build ourselves made of that same unknown material that are the only reason we can travel the galaxy, all of which were put in place specifically for us to find as a means for controlling our advancement by the enemy... THAT station and the enemy had some secrets. BIG surprise...NEVER saw it coming..... -_-
edgecrusherhalo Advanced reaper technology still doesn't justify forcing your conclusion onto an entire galaxy, that's what the reapers were doing and for Shepard to do it makes him/her no better, But that's besides the point. Bioware explicitly promised us multiple diverse endings prior to ME3's release, and we were basically left with "red, blue or green?". The destroy ending is the only viable one because it's the only that lets us do what we came to do in the first place: destroy the reapers. But no matter what you do, how you play or what decisions you make, your still faced with the same ending as everyone else, which is a slap in the face from Bioware, and if you're satisfied with that, I don't want to judge you but I feel sorry for you.
this is what i got from the control ending epically if your Shepard is full paragon aka ultimate good guy.When Shepard takes control of the Reapers he has in all essence ascended to godhood but he still keeps his memory, his conscience, his morality from when he was human. So know Shepard can use the Reapers as a force for good for all life in the galaxy. He passivized the reapers
4 years have passed and i'm still back to these mass effect 3 ending videos to remember how sad and disappointed i was... I've been true to my word though, i never once gave EA or Bioware another dime since then...
I feel that EA made the Extended Cut based on this video EXCLUSIVELY. Well a few more scenes, one-or-two screenshots, that'll do. STILL doesn't make sense
5 years on and this video still breaks my heart and makes my eyes wet. The last few minutes, the music combined with Joe's speech never fail to bring a tear to my eye.
What the fuck was going through their heads when they were making that bullshit ending? I'm still fucking pissed about it. I spent so much time playing this series.
Jeremy Lebron I personally like the first one more. The second one was all about repetitive team collecting, and then doing their backstory which can be tedious if you have played the game several times.
I just finished Dragon Age Inquisition's Trespasser DLC and the first thought that came to my mind.."How did they screw up the endings so bad in ME 3 yet make an epic ending in DA I?" Really, the way it ended is how ME 3 should have ended. I would actually like to see the next Dragon Age come out instead of Andromeda due to the difference in quality now
+Cole Cash lol Yep it makes no sense why they would try to get cute with their greatest franchise ever, when in the past they wrapped up their games so nicely. Just give us the ending where we "win," it was really that simple..We don't need it all perfect either. Like you said the Trespasser DLC ended things on a bitter sweet note(especially if you played an elven character). It really ruined the series for me in terms of replaying it. It's a damn shame but I'm glad this wasn't the end to the Mass Effect universe.
Not to mention Dragon age origins ending gave an entire epilogue of your choices and decisions throughout the the game, and it can end as good or as bittersweet as much as you want and gave you replay value to make you want to see what's would be different or change your mind about something. So Bioware has already done good endings before what the he'll happened here. Sure their is an epilogue in the extended cut but it only shows you a couple of decisions you made resulted and only give vague descriptions of what your decision at the citadel actually amounted to.
+Brandon Lyon Dragon Age Origins was Bioware Incarnate. If you all notice, Mass Effect Trilogy and Origins has essentially the same plot except DAO offered a better ending than a whole trilogy.
Honestly, I'd have been happier if every single squad member had died in the battle no matter what. That at least has closure, they're dead. And it would mean something, you see all the time you spent fostering those relationships just evaporate in front of you. That would at least make me _feel_ something, even if that feeling is shitty. Instead we get "They lived......." with basically no other context.
for number 2 the Normandy picks up your two teammates just before you reach the teleport thingy they are both injured and are evacuated just before harbinger hits you with his beam and everything goes slow mo
GTR Productions that doesn't make any sense either. It's the last mission, and they bail because of a twisted ankle. Who are they, Wedge Antilles? Shepard is almost dead when he gets to the relay, there is no reason loyal comrades like Garrus, Liara or Tali wouldn't show the same dedication. To say nothing of EDI who doesn't even need her "human" Avatar. That last-minute evacuation makes zero sense. And then there's the little fact that it's completely impractical. You're gonna bring a frigate down for evac right next to freaking Harbinger? No way that ends well for anyone.
Honestly, the only issue I had with the ending was the fact that it ALL turned out to be a bed time story for some generic kid we never saw before. that and a few minor things like how it ave you bad reputation to defend Cerberus and the Elusive Man yet in the end the option he'd choose is considered the "Hero" ending. Those are the things that pised me off a little
Actually they tricked you. The paragon ending was the bad ending that was giving into the indoctrination. I know that because Anderson picked the Renegade ending.
Supersparkjr i dont think you understood me right. How is it that throughout the entire game you get renegate points by agreeing with ceberus, basically going against everything the alliance stands for. Yet in the end, doing what the elusive man would have done is considered the Paragon ending? they should have swaped the colors for both choices
Even with the extended cut the ending fucking sucks it basically changes nothing but drag out the ending which I prefer without it as I have to experience this ending longer otherwise
I wish they would've made the refusal ending such that if you had enough war assets, you would destroy the reapers with conventional warfare, preserving Shepard, the citadel, and the mass relays
Tigerlover1337 same here just finished the game for first time, ME3 on it's own is meh, when you play the trilogy it just makes everything worse, no ending, no closure, I don't get why the crew has to leave shepard behind, it's the end of the world they should be throwing everything to get to that beam and after all they've been through, I would have loved if they made Shepard stand with at least his LI at the final front/ending while dying or anything, but no, not even closure to ME2 romance (jack, miranda etc.) even with citadel DLC, not good. It would have made sense to make a sad ending IF that was the direction we were heading from ME1, ME2, but throughout all those everyone believes in shepard and he's confident about himself, in ME3 they completely turn it around.. just.. sucks
Carlos Azar Yeah their artistic vision and all but in a game where everything is about choices good or bad you can't have such a sub par ending where you have to live through their vision of how the ending should be like. One has to accept that in a game like that not all players are going to want to live through their artistic vision and stuff. In my mind Garrus and Shepard are sitting on the beach drinking beer and talking about the good ol days. With their respective LI nearby. That is my vision of how that game played out. But they went in the totally opposite direction.
Joe got his wish the the extended cut, the refusal ending. Which makes the most sense but is depressing. Honestly i feel sorry for anyone discovering ME for the first time and playing vanilla. This game practically forces you to go out of your way to mod the ending, thankfully there are happy ending mods that remove the starchild available.
I'm still seething with rage. Frostbite engine 3 full remaster including completely revamped endings. It will never happen, but I rub my pepperoni nipples to the thought everyday. Still the best series ever made tho.
I think this might be Joe's greatest work. Or at least his most authentic/real. Like nearly everybody, Joe was crushed by the lacklusterness of the endings. And you feel just how downright sad and disapointed he was (like many of us were) watching this vid. Theres no yelling or screaming, and barely any comedy. It's just Joe, solemn and defiant, laying out some of the games most glaring mistakes in video essay form. Its a side of Joe we rarely see. Reason 10 nearly brought a tear to my eye. The fact that they wasted the opportunity of a lifetime in giving us deep varied endings based on our choices throughout the trilogy is a colossal mistake. The game wouldve went down as the best video game series of all time had they nailed the endings, and made them meaningful. And varied. Hell, I'm still disapointed by the endings all these years later... they arent terrible with the dlc that came, but it couldve been so much more. Love this vid so much and the indoctrination theory one.
Just finished replaying it fully with Legendary out, and I had forgot how bad the ending even with the extended cut is. Completely undermines all the decisions and people you save through 1, 2 & 3. I'm still going to replay it all again, I think as a Vanguard this time... But once I get to priority earth I'll just stop it there and make up my own ending in my head tbh.
Here's how my personal headcanon ends; the god child never appears. The Reapers and their forces are annihilated by the Crucible. Shepard wakes up in a hospital bed to find Kaidan (my love interest) at her side. He fills her in on what happened while she was on board the Citadel, and the two of them hug, sharing in the relief and gratitude that the nightmare is finally over. Then it cuts to the Normandy, with *everyone* on board. Shepard adds Anderson's name to the memorial wall, and the crew shares a moment of silence, for him and everyone else that died. Yeah, I know that's cliché as fuck, but Goddamit, my girl *earned* a happily ever after!
I pretty much am positive that it wasn't a lack of talent that made the ending so bad but the fact that they needed more time. The writers and artists said themselves two years wasn't enough
This was my all time favourite franchise. I played ME1 and 2 several times a year. I was in love with the story and characters. After the ME3 ending (and even with extended cut), I NEVER played them again. And btw, Destroy is the only ending that makes sense considering Shep and his crew fought for 3 entire games to get rid of the Reapers.
I understand the feeling bro, I just end my game and I'm feeling so... Sad :/ My Shepard died and this feels like all my efforts in the game were useless.
I think you missed another big reason. We didn't see how the citadel got taken over. What happened to the people on the citadel. Why did they fall so easily. How did the Citadel move? I would have preferred if they left the citadel out of it. Maybe destroy the McGuffin just for them to say "glad we made 2, well tried to finish the one a previous cycled made" and even that could have been the McGuffin weapon thing.
A partial rebuttal to reason #4: the Quarians had agricultural liveships (depending on if you saved Zaal Koris's fleet) that may have been able to supply both the Turians and Quarians, so at least those people would have survived, given that you saved the Quarians and the Civilian Fleet. But yes, everyone else would've starved to death. Still a big plot hole lmao 😂
"The created will always rebel against the creators" - "you are welcome to return to Rannoch Admiral Raan, with us." Priceless.
Another possible ending: The god child's glowing blue mother comes in and says: "Billy! Are you harvesting organic races for their genetic material again? Just wait until your father gets home!" She then drags the god child away by his ear. The god child whines: "But, mom! Creations are always destined to rebel against their creators!"
Still a better ending then shooting him
+Fade Blade then shepherd just stand there and like: "WTF WHAT DO I DO WITH THESE SYNTHETIC SSS HOLES THAT ARE GONNA KILL EVERYONE???"
That's hilarious.
I think my preferred ending would've involved the Illusive Man actually getting Control via the Crucible, shutting down all of the Reapers except Harbinger (who takes over IM, because Harbinger is unique like that), then a final boss battle where Shepard has to defeat the Illusive Man (like he did with Saren ME1), then swap to Joker and beat Harbinger in a space combat section. Dodging debris, exploding cruisers, Harbinger's beam, and making the final killshot, perhaps even while directing the fleets in their appropriate roles.
That's it! It should've been the Mass Effect 1 boss fight, followed by the Mass Effect 2 suicide mission in epic space combat form. Then Victory Celebration (or Yub Nub, for you nostalgic folks out there).
Why in the world didn't they make it like that?
Tye only reason I c the current endings being terrible I'd tat no 1 they are deus ex machinas so they are automatically shit and no 2,all endings lead the the destruction or death of both the geth which u wasted s9 much time trying t9 save together with the qurians and EDI cus destroy kills all synthetics so u feel bad. And control will lead t9 them being mindless machines which is also bad. Synthesis makes everyone mindless machines so it's less heartbreaking but still just as bullshit and refusal is okay in tat u don't feel guilty fir sticking with your gut and telling the god child to fuck the fuck off. Still, I'd only we could have just destroyed the reapers alone, that would have made everything worth it
Andy Howard cus biowares writers were rushed by EA
If you are colourblind all endings are exactly the same. The endings are also the exact same if you are not colourblind. Hmm decisions.
Problematic.
OMG 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
This man is correct for I am colorblind
Implications unpleasant.
After 6 years, I'm still pissed at the ending. The trilogy would have been my favorite video game series of all time, if not for the ending. It's like going to the best all you can eat buffet you can ever imagine, but at the end of it, the waiter takes a dump on your table. Like what the actual fuck Bioware.
Yeah I agree that it definitely has the "best game series of all time" potential. Which is rare, especially for a trilogy not just a single game.
If you take out the last 20 minutes of Mass Effect it easily becomes one of the best game series of all time.
2020 and the ending is still good.
@@30yovegan34 Nah, the ending is fine.
@@balabanasireti 2021 and your opinion is still arse
I'm sincerely convinced that the reason the ending of ME3 sucks so bad is because the Mass Effect team was rushed by some asshole executives. Goes to show how much a corporate CEO will ruin a good thing for the money.
Tekrothebountyhunter But there was sooooo much detail in the rest of the game?
SSJ3 Trunks Well, that's not what I mean. The reason the ending is so bad in my opinion is because it completely contradicts everything the rest of the game has been striving towards, butchers characters, and replaces the promise of many possible endings with an unavoidable and very cliche'd ending. If the game developers were allowed just a bit more time and freedom, we could have had an incredible ending. But nope, they had to hurry up and make copies of the game in time for Black Friday, so the greedy execs badgered them until they came up with this half-assed bullshit.
Tekrothebountyhunter I'm not defending the ending, I'm just saying I don't think it was rushed. There are just so many other parts of the game they could've taken away details if they needed to.
SSJ3 Trunks It was clearly rushed.. It's insane to think otherwise unless you have evidence
TheTRUE BAUSE I'm not saying you are not right, they were probably rushed. But I still feel that the rest of the game was to such a high quality that it is strange that the ending is what was gimped. But aspects such as the rachni queen not being in the final battle was pretty lazy.
Hey BioWare, you want a good explanation for the Reapers? You fucking wrote it into the speeches of the Reapers themselves. "We are your genetic destiny." "You are shortsighted." "Evolution cannot be stopped." "They will be as we are." "Relinquish your form to us." "Embrace perfection." All of these said by Harbinger through the collector forms.
So why not make that the story? The Reapers consider themselves immortal, and think that by harvesting each race that the galaxy provides and turning them into more Reapers, they are actually making that race immortal. They believe that they are the pinnacle of evolution, and are 'uplifting' lower species to their level, both to immortalize them and to bolster their own numbers. How can this be that hard?
And yes assholes, this is my real name.
can you get me to Atlantis? :P
3 years later and this comment still applies lmao its a very good take
Nah.
@@balabanasireti Yah.
You know what? I've come to not give a shit about ME3's ending. I created my Shepherd. I chose half his name. I made the choices that molded his character. He's mine, and mine alone and I assume all creative license to determine what his "official" actions in the end were. My Shepard put two in that little glowing fucker's head, blew up the Reapers, survived, and promptly married Tali afterwards and built a home *WITH* her on Rannoch because he fucking earned it. Checkmate, BioWare.
*/conversationover*
amen!! my shepard is helping tali build that population up.
+Phillipe Fernandez well actually a human wouldn't be able to reproduce with a quarian amino acid proteins are not compatible with dextro amino acid protien. They just don't work together. think about it humans can't even get chimps pregnant despite us both being primates, and our DNA differing by only 2% so how do you expect to impregnate a female from a species that developed in an entirely different environment, and isn't even composed of the same amino acids? That's for any interspecies relationship, save for the asari and their BS pseudo -asexual reproduction. Shame cause I really liked Tali.
lol same here, except im with Jack. lol she's crazy but she can definitely handle herself
TheGuyWithTheSniper my shepard too... not only married tali but also have human-quarian child...
And ofcourse in my mind still building a team for the arrival of the real reaper's master, in my mass effect 4...
Agreed.
The best ending is when Starbrat gets thrown out the airlock by Javik.
Badass Elite I need a fanfic about that!
Like in BSG?
Trent Boyett No like in Mass Effect poop.
NO
I STOP THAT FROM HAPPENING
4 years and I'm still fucking pissed.
+Corek BleedingHollow I didn't even play the game and I'm still pissed
Haha! That's funny because it's the same for me.. I'm still fuckin pissed.. And now some teasers for mass effect 4 starts showing up and the main character is wearing an n7 uniform. Bioware just trashed Shepard.. And YES, we have every right to get pissed.. 100% agree with you man.
+Corek BleedingHollow the pain is still too high, the suffer never ends.
and then, they release a new poison.
damn....
Me too.
Fucking sad man. After all the protests and shit, they'll never make the better ending it deserves and that fucking god child lives on forever. Every time I want to play ME1, 2 or 3, and can't fucking do it because I think of the inevitable shit ending i'll see at the end of the series. Fuck everyone responsible for that ending.
Roughly 10 years later and this ending still haunts me.
true...
I still have PTSD.
I cried, soiled my pants, and considered ending everything when I saw this ending. It destroyed my marriage.
Compared to controversies around some of your modern games like TLOU2 or No Man's Sky for example,the ME3 ending seems tamed by comparison but at the time,the ME original ending was one of the first controversies in gaming that really had a impact on the gaming industry.
This ending upsets me more than my parents' crumbling marriage
The most baffling thing about this ending is that it goes against the main themes of this game. From ME1 to ME3, the two main themes of this game have been "Can synthetics and organics coexist?" and "What is survival without free will?"
In ME1, synthetics are the enemy, plain and simple. Reapers and geth want to destroy all organic life. In ME2 you meet and befriend EDI and Legion, who prove that all AIs aren't evil and the geth are just misunderstood. And in ME3, you probably spend one third of the game's runtime dealing with EDI's issues with organic morality, alongside the quarian/geth conflict. So why does one of the endings allow for the destruction of all geth,
Now for the free will thing - ME1 goes to pains to show that Matriarch Benezia was a good woman before her indoctrination, and even gives redemption to Saren. Shepard says multiple times in 1 and 2 that indoctrination is as bad a fate as death. Then there's his campaign against the Thorian and his brainwashed slaves, as well as Legion's and Jacob's loyalty missions, which both deal with themes of brainwashing. Yet the second of the three endings, Control, forces you to rob the Reapers of their free will and "become" them. Poetic justice, perhaps, but still seems contrary to everything we've seen so far.
And Synthesis, of course, is bad all on its own. It basically takes control and self-determination away from the entire galaxy and says "want to retain your individuality as people? Too bad, we're all machine hybrids now!" Mutating the entire galaxy against their will is a 180 from anything Shepard would do. And after ME3 spent hours convincing us that synthetics and organics could cooperate, why have an ending that says "actually they can't cooperate, better make them all the same!" In this way, Synthesis actually manages to go against both stated themes.
*****> There's no reason why you can't destroy the Reapers with the Crucible and keep EDI/Geth other than
> "Mac and Casey said so".
Ha ha. Pretty well put.
I can pretty much guess what BioWare's response would have been: "But...but...but movies have tragic endings!" This is ridiculous in the same way as that Mass Effect writer who had claimed that she wanted a version of the game without gameplay.
Video games aren't movies. We control the characters; the choices and efforts are the player's, not just the characters'. The biggest reason the endings sucked was that they negated all the work you did. Fight Reapers? Doesn't matter -- all four endings put all the power in the hands of that wretched "Star Child" and you have to obey. Worked hard to level up? Doesn't matter, Shepard will die, and so will your squadmates...and then BioWare had to backpedal because people hated it, but the backpedalling doesn't work because it was based on ridiculous premises like the Normandy landing in a Reaper battlefield to extract two people. (And by the way, why would you bring only two teammates in the most important battle of your campaign? The rest of the team should have been in the mission even if they weren't playable, as with the Citadel Archives DLC mission.)
Finally, in dramaturgy, what is the purpose of tragic endings? Catharsis -- the generation of pity and fear for the main character. Except in video games, the main character is the player. Tragic endings work in plays and films because the viewer isn't the actual person to whom the tragedy happens. When a video game subjects the player to a cheap tragic ending, it is basically punishing the player for having played the game. By making the player the *target* of the pity and fear, it is putting the player into a position of being a victim, and that's not the purpose of any entertainment or art. It's like saying, "I'll chop off your arm because it hurts, and you'll like it because that's what I've decided will happen." BioWare was arrogant in designing three crappy endings for you to choose, and ignorant of the differences between a game (where you are engaged, an active agent) and a narrative (where you are a bystander to events).
Mac and Casey need to fuck off and get thrown out an airlock.
One day they should make "Mass Effect 3: The Drew Karpyshyn Cut" A new version of the game that adapts Drew''s original storyline and ending, including the Dark Energy plot line.
Dear god I've got to look this up now, finished he game for the first time a couple days ago
@Jerry C Shut up.
Funny thing this reminds me of Monty Pythons bridge of death.
"Welcome to the citadel in order to win you must answer me three question."
What is your name?
-Commander Shepard
What is your Quest?
-To end the cycle
What is your favorite color?
-I don't have a favorite which one shuts down all the reapers?
Catalyst, "What are you talking about I don't know that."
*Catalyst gets launched off the citadel*
Shepard, "*chuckles*. I can't believe that actually worked."
*shuts down all Reapers, saving all the synthetics in the process.
"He who approacheth the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see."
Come one, you call yourself a nerd?
4 years later, still pissed with the endings.
my ideal ending, Shpards love interest is shown with their kids, he died, but hes legacy continues in them, for female Shep its possible only if she romances Liara
second ideal ending better then first, Shep live with all endings but is forced to retire due the extended damage he took while using the one of 2 devices control or synthesis, both ending have same consequences, shep body will never function 100%, he can walk yes & basically seems fine, but he/she is not 100%fine, but he/she with hes/hers love interest will raise kids together, happy end for shepard, i prefer this version
why bother with romance in the game if that's how it ends & leaves a empty vortex inside u
if u have romance u don't do this type of ending, its a huge no no!!!
this is my mane issue with the ending, so this ending doesn't exist for me, its incomplete, even with the leviathan DLC
my favorite ending
Synthesis is best ending cause only this way there can be peace, like the Ai child said organics will repeat the sickle & crate Ai again & new war is born between ppl & Ai & then new reapers are born so only choice is' Synthesis, best choice for peace
Still pissed with the ending*
Fixed that for you.
7 years later. Still replay trilogy and enjoy synthesis. Still get baited by haters in recommended and leave dislikes.
even after 7 years.. we can only mourn for the trilogy, because we can't get any better conclusion due to Bioware's fucked up so much. Rest In Peace Mass Effect trilogy remake, Rest In Peace Dragon Age 4, Rrst In Peace Bioware
mass effect music still gives me chills...
is this me soundtrack? which song? I really like this music.
@@brandjf1458 I know it's been literally years but the main 2 pieces of music he's playing in the video are "leaving Earth" and "An end once and for all". Suicide mission at 7:50 too.
And tears. So many tears.
I still feel pain when i hear, An end. Once and for all.
@@Fire_Bear42 Perfect comment.
Bioware sacrificed its reputation and its best game series's ending to expose EA. That is dedication. That's an ending way more better than Synthesis.
Ask Alice. if ONLY that was their motivation behind the crap ending. its more probable that theyre zombies under EA's control and will tow their line no matter what
I mean dude, the people that sign your paycheck.... it is the way of the world :/
I really don't see how EA's reputation could get any worse. They were once literally voted the worst company in America.
Twice, actually.
Honestly Activision is the one that's super Evil with a capital E these. EA is just garden variety evil and somewhat stupid.
The ending is still shit, even after all this time. Even if the extended cut fixed some of the plot holes, the ending still fundamentally goes against every theme in the series.
Synthesis: This one is truly fucked up. You force every being in the galaxy to become a cyborg... and this is the "good" ending? Could you imagine waking up one morning to discover you had wires running underneath your skin and computer chips in your brain? It's fucking horrible. Not only that, but its pointless. The whole purpose of the Reapers was to stop synthetics from wiping out all life in the galaxy. How does being a cyborg stop that? Even if I was a cyborg, I would still drive a car, use a computer, etc. We would still use machines, and create synthetics to make life easier for us. And when we created synthetics, would us being half machine stop them from killing us? Of course not.
On top of that, this ending spits in the face of the whole "learning from our differences and working together to become a greater whole" theme this series has pushed from the beginning. The sythnesis ending basically says that "sorry, being different leads to conflict, we should all be homogenous", even though we spent three whole games making people see past their differences and work together. Synthesis wouldn't even bring peace either. We have already seen numerous example of conflict between the same group (ei, humans fighting humans, Geth fighting Geth, etc), so why would everyone being the same make conflict go away? The only possible explanation is that the synthesis ending also rewrites our brains to make us "peaceful". If that is the case, this is literally the most morally horrifying ending I have ever seen. Not only to you force everyone to be a cyborg, you forcibly rewrite their brains and strip away the personal freedom of trillions of intelligent beings. Holy fuck.
Control: Not as morally fucked up as synthesis, but still a fucking stupid ending. We spent 3 entire games watching every single being that tried to control the Reapers become indoctrinated and turned into a monster. Hell, we spent all of ME2 and 3 telling the Illusive man that his plan was crazy, that you couldn't control the Reapers. You even told him that seconds before the ending! Then, all that goes out the window and we are told by some random fucking glowing kid that you totally can control the Reapers. What? Why would I believe the leader of the Reapers! The entire series built up that the Reapers can't be controlled and that trying would lead to your demise. Thus, I can only assume that Shepard eventually becomes indoctrinated after being absorbed by the Reapers, and goes back to killing the galaxy.
Destroy: The least offensive to my intelligence, and thus the ending I went with, but it still sucks. Why the hell did every synthetic have to die? For fuck sake, the Crucible was accurate enough that it could rewrite the DNA of every living being in the galaxy, but it can't tell the difference between a Reaper and Legion? Come on. The only reason they made it so that Destroy destroyed all synthetics was because if they hadn't it would have been the obvious choice for everyone. And this is supposed to be the "bad" ending when it is the only option that doesn't leave the Reapers alive to kill everyone if they change their mind or rewrite the brains of everyone in the Galaxy, or both.
Even past the choices themselves. The entire premise of the ending goes against the rest of the series. "Synthetics will always destroy their creators"... Did you not read the news God Child?!? I just brought fucking peace to the Geth and Quarians and now they are living in peace! I just proved your entire concept wrong and yet I still have to make this stupid fucking choice.
Yeah yeah, "wall of text", "rant", "you mad bro". I guess I forgot how much I hated this ending. To this day I can't figure out why Bioware didn't just give a ton of endings. That way, everyone can be happy. They didn't need to worry about continuity because the next game is set somewhere else. It's just such a disappointing ending to such a great franchise.
+John Canuck I use the player modded ending as my canon. www.moddb.com/mods/mehem-the-mass-effect-3-happy-ending-mod
Totaly agree with what u said.machines can be rebooted.start legion up again.it would be like nothen happen.he would be none the wiser.god made man with souls and think and feel and have emotions and free will. real purpose.man made machines. They are not truly alive.they are just chips and wires and metal.they can be built or rebuilt.
+John Canuck There are more endings, you just forgot this is a role playing game, you just need to do things differently to get a different outcome, I had a different ending, and that was shortly after the game came out
+John Canuck I feel like it was an OK ending at best, but a mass effect ending? not by far. this is something Id expect from a b level game! not a badass trilogy.
+TheHatFactory
There is only 2 more endings,
The rejection ending, which is basically a f-you from EA. (The cycle continues and everyone dies.)
The other happens if you dont have enough miliary support, and again everyone dies.
It really should have come down to Harbinger vs Shepherd. Harbinger has been the main villain for two out of three games and his obsession with the anomaly that is Shepherd should have been the decision point.
I figure Shepherd should have been captured and the final fight would have been having the fleet holding the reapers off long enough for the crew to GET.HIM.BACK. Depending on your choices you can succeed or fail with varying degrees of success.
Harbinger could be then revealed to be suppressing a consensus divergence, similar to what happened with the Geth. Not all reapers might AGREE with Harbinger and his final solution, but he could be oppressing them. Those Repears were constructed from other bio-races. Its just that the ARROGANCE of the leviathan race was so great that they can never see bio-races as living in peace with synths because Leviathans always saw the other bio-races as inferior!
If you could fracture, or even turn Reapers themselves to your cause, then the outcomes could differ massively. Imagine if the Geth could convince one of the old-machines to turn to their side, protect them.
There are so many better endings they could have done...You could range from a control-style ending where the Illusive man and Sheperd and the Geth find a way to dominate the reapers, or you fracture them and the ally-reapers return to deep space forever, or the stay and help the young-races, or you just flat out fail and are killed because Shepherd is consumed by Harbinger. lol
So the reapers die
but Shepard is protected by *a bubble of love and friendship*
She flies down to earth and all of her friends are there.
Everyone hugs Shepard.
the end
Shepard punches the ghost child in the face and then usurps him as the creator of the reapers. she tells the reapers to bugger off back into deep space. She lives happily ever after in a suburban neighborhood with the whole crew of the Normandy and she lives in a house with Samantha Traynor and a dog with a white picket fence, like she promised. the end
ThunderCatsAreGo01 The way the citadel destroys the reapers is that shepard takes control of it and it turns into a giant mech that smashes the shit out of all of the reapers.
it turns out the crucible is a massive intergalactic communication device, and shepard broadcasts out to all the Reapers a paradoxical riddle, and with the Reapers' synthetic brains built on reason, they can't solve the riddle and implode out of sheer stress. the end
ThunderCatsAreGo01 Or it broadcasts a video of Shepard dancing causing them to explode.
Or a video of thane's death scene, and it causes the reapers to cry, and that's against their programming, so they explode
The stupidest thing about the synthesis ending is that...fine everyone is now half synthetic that doesn't mean that making purely synthetic AI is something we can't do anymore. Off course we would do it.
What exactly is stopping us?
The fact that we are now part machine, fuck does that help when you can create a group of machines to do shit for you.
The entire ending doesn't solve the reason of why we make machines in the first place. To make our live easier.
Plus even if everyone was made of the same stuff, we kill each other all the same.
The synthesis ending is something a hippy dreams up after doing acid.
Yeah it was dumb as shit and poorly thought out, probably the weakest and least plausible of the endings, a magical synthetic/organic harmonious utopia lmao so happy I didn't pick that one
Never forget Marauder Shields
He tried so hard to save us but don't forget the 3 husketeers
He died trying to keep us from the end.
Jonny Osborne lmaooooo the funniest part is I died like 3 times trying to kill that marauder ffs
the mass effect 3 ending totally ruined everything that happened in the trilogy and makes it so that none of the things you did mattered even in the slightest
TomeOfBattle yeah i still like mass effect but simultaniously hate that the whole lore is stupid bullshit just due to the ending and its explanation that they had to create synthetics that kill organics just so that the synthetics the organics will inevitably create wont kill them. Thats some increadibly stupid bullshit and also doesnt the peace between the geth and the quarians indicate that peaceful coexistence of synthetics and organics is in fact possible? I choose to believe that shepard got hit too hard on the head and hallucinated the ending
TomeOfBattle i was also expecting that there would be different endings and not just one with different colours
@hit on the head and hullicunated the ending. Is it sad that I can accept that idea as a better ending? You should go write for bio ware!
TheJinashura haha thanks
God it still hurts, after all these years... I was so hyped after Mass Effect 2.
Finished that shit this morning, spent the entire morning trying to understand why.
Writers at Bioware were indoctrinated by EA.
You got the better re-worked ending too, lol.
I know I may be a bit dramatic but I finished the ending back when it came out a few weeks later and I didnt even wanna play the series anymore, it just stunned me how bad the ending was, I had to chill out for a week and just think about everything before I went back
if you take EDI on the last fight joker returns to save her
Nah, it's good.
Besides, the Reapers being created to solve the "organic vs synthetics" problem is quite cheap, when we first spoke with Sovereign in the first game i thought of the Reapers being some kind of godly, unfathomable, eternal species, and yet at the end we find out they were just robots shittily programmed! I remember reading a theory that told that the Reapers, being eternal, worried about the organics using biotic powers, since this kind of hastened the "big rip". That would have being a far better motive for the Reapers, instead of just being just robots with bugged AIs.
ya, it feels pretty weak, especially since even up until the reapers spoke about how we could never understand their reasoning. Fucking hell, when Shepard asked Sovereign on virmire "why are you doing this" he should had just said "oh, cause the ai that made us saw that organic life crates synthetic life that surpassed their creators, kill them, and then poses a threat to all organic life in the galaxy. so the solution the ai came up with was to exterminate all advanced life before it has a chance to do that, thus making sure some organic life always exists in the galaxy." if you're gonna make it vague for a good part of the story don't have it so the reason could have been easily explained in two sentences.
*****
exactly! by the way, if the catalyst was so accomodating with Shepard, couldn't he have asked it to simply shut down the reapers, instead of, you know, blowing up the entire relay network and killing also all the other sentient synthetics like the Geth and EDI?
ARX 351 i know, the ending just throws all logic out the window. i mean even if for whatever reason the ai can't stop the reapers for whatever reason. the structure clearly has the ability to discriminate between reapers and other synthetic life cause it has the power to let you control just the reapers, and you don't control all synthetic life, so it makes no sense that it can't just shutdown all the reapers.
*****
I agree.
From what I've read, the original motivation for the reapers said by the creators was over dark matter. From what he said apparently the mass relays were causing dark matter to accelerate around the galaxy and was slowly destroying it. It was alluded in Talis recruitment mission on Hastrom with the dying star with its age being accelerated by the dark matter. The reapers were created to stop it form happening and resulted in the cycle. Apparently in the original idea, the final choice was to either destroy the reapers and hope we can find a way without them or allow them to continue the cycle to save the galaxy. This my not sound perfect, but that was thought out early on and could have changed in the final game. But from what I've read the idea was leaked out and Bioware not wanting anything spoiled decided to scrap the dark matter and rushed a different motivation with the out of nowhere organics vs synthetics bullcrap
The sad truth is that no matter what anyone says/does the endings will remain how they are. And that's what pisses me off the most. The only reason the endings were so shit is because EA forced Bioware to rush the ending. And as AngryJoe said "It's as if the endings were written by completely different people". That's because they were.
I don't know that it's ONLY because of Executive Meddling. The top guys, Walters and Hudson, sound pretty happy with what they made.
Most likely because EA told them to sound like they were happy with the outcome. Just remember, It's EA who has control over Bioware. Bioware had to do what EA told them to do. I almost feel like i want to help liberate Bioware from EA's grasp because it was EA who ruined the fucking series.
MikuHatsune10728
I know what you mean about towing the company line. That's what I get from original writing lead Drew Karpyshyn. But it seems like more with those two. You could be right though.
EA also ruined Dragon Age 2... Just sayin'. They believed they could make a Shepard-like character, adored by players with Hawke. (They basically wanted a main series character for more money).
morning morality
I know, but I think Mac Walters believes he wrote a great ending.
HAHAHAAHA YO FAM WE GOT YOUR ENDING IN *THREE DIFFERENT COLORS* MAKE SURE YOU BUY THE DLC $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Hahaha that was fucking hilarious.
Here have my 20 bucks for a purple ending, thank you.
My stupid ass read this as "but the DLC sssssssssssss *snake sound effects*"
But the DLC is free lmao
@@LVD3NS now. It wasn't initially.
I literally cry every time I see an ending for ME3. I don't ball my eyes out, but there are apparent tears. I love the trilogy more than any other game, but the ending sucks eggs. All of them.
Britney Richardson You have a good taste.
Britney Richardson me too
Nah, they're great.
3rd game was shit in total actually
at least you got an ending...i accidentally shot the child -.-
You can do that? What does the game do?
it shows a horrible 3 minute ending....search it on TH-cam
I feel like that ending was BioWare acting like a parent and flexing it's muscles saying, screw you, you can't have anything
gtb7878, Lol I thought I was the only one
Me too! And I couldn't figure out which of the 3 endings I got. What a let down.
I usually go for the destroy ending because that's the only ending that makes some sense. From the very first game Shepard's goal was to defeat the reapers which is what he achieved in the destroy ending.
The control ending is stupid because Shepard just spent an entire game telling the elusive man that controlling the reapers is a stupid idea that shouldn't be done. So I'm supposed to believe that one conversation with the Star child Shepard suddenly believes that the elusive man was right all along?
The synthesis ending is also stupid because essentially it just finishes what the reapers started. The reapers harvests organic DNA and merges it with reaper technology. By choosing that end Shepard is doing the reapers job for them.
Synthesis is just what the reapers want but much better morally doesn't matter if It was what the reapers wanted it's still the best ending, the geth dont die if they're alive and other ai like edi dont die also organics and synthetics get improved its literally a win win for everybody how is this hard to understand
Turns out casey wrote the ending himself with no input from anybody
@@Darthjojo47it’s easy to understand that it goes against the Shepard character
What prevents me from thinking that the destroy ending is the best is that Star kid said after the reapers and technology are destroyed shepards children will create them again.
@@bubblelaydy Not necessarily. What I noticed in the game is that the AI takes on similar traits of the organics that created them. The Geth are in some ways like the Quarians that built them in a way the share everything with each other and solve problems in a democratic way. Joker may not have created Edi but lot of her personality is what she learned from Joker by spending a lot of time with him but her original origins came from the Alliance military so her competence in the field comes from them or Shepard. The Reapers were created by Leviathan who believed themselves to be above everything so the "solution" as Reapers put it is the only right choice because their intelligence is "superior" to everyone else. It doesn't matter that the Geth or Edi decided to work with organics the Leviathan planted this idea of being superior to everyone around them so other organics or synthetics opinions don't matter.
Its been 4 years, but these fucking ending still get my blood boiling -_-
God I hope they don't do something like this with Andromeda...
andromeda left tons of loose ends to be wrapped up in the sequel, only for the sequel and dlc to get cancelled
EA be like TROLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO
They've done worse
at least me3 was still a me game and it was enjoyable till the end
This is realbeanhimself from the future don't play andromeda its terrible I repeat don't play mass effect andromeda its horrible
@Jerry C is this for real? Andromeda has so much potential, but it was so poorly written... I would buy a copy of the sequel in a heartbeat if it had any redeeming qualities!
the fact that are still people today who are watching this video and STILL complaining about the ending, tells me ea/rest of the bioware team really fucked the ending up
and yeah im still pissed to... and yeah i wish a ending with shepard, tali, quarians and the geth building up rannoch again
Selvares it's like people said, why did they have to go for something overly complicated that barely makes sense instead of something like mass effect 1 & 2: success and a happy ending would've much easier
Well, Bioware definitely succeeded at creating a memorable ending. Unfortunately for them, memorable does not equal good. When I first heard about Andromeda, my first though was "so how are they going to deal with the godawful ending they wrote themselves into a corner with?"
Simple they go to a different galaxy but sadly even then Andromeda still suffers from EA syndrome. We can only hope they somehow manage to get their staff members levelheaded. Which I doubt.
Dude, even replace the main story ending with shore leave ending would have been enough for me. Like Normandy got destroyed and everyone stands together looking at it.
2020 still pissed
wasn't the syntheses ending exactly what Saren did in the end of mass effect 1, combine both reaper and organics DNA "the strengths of both the weaknesses of neither" and even then Shepard thought that was a horrible idea
I wonder if Saren ran into the godchild as well and that's why he turned to help the reapers.... probably not
and the control ending was exactly what the illusive man wanted... as much as i like that ending i still feel like a godang hypocrite
The clarification dlc didn't help in the slightest. If anything, it added more questions. Like why the Normandy would swoop in to pick up your crew in the middle of a death charge, something completely out of character for what Shepard had just got them worked up for. All doubling down on the original bad endings.
Even if Indoctrination Theory wasn't their original plan, Bioware should have just rolled with it and made it.
Anyone else catch, "laria" ? Cmon dude, it's LIARA
even Saren is disappointed at the ending
He didn't die for this.
"Why the f*k not a happy ending too?" Dude, so many people need to think about this. I think the same.
And so many years later, it's still seen as "taboo" in the entertainment industry. Which is bullshit and I'm kind of sick of it. I agree with Joe that having a happy ending would have been the ultimate twist ending.
It's not just that I can't accept reality, I'm not stupid or naive. It's simply that if I choose to be invested and put effort into improving happiness but arbitrarily that *earned* reward is stolen, I'm pissed cuz I wasted my time and care. Idk, it's just all so depressing lol.
After everything they've done, lost, and been through, a happy ending would've been a kindness, a reward for sticking together the time it really mattered.
While I am against modding games most the time, MEHEM (Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod) was the one exception I made for Mass Effect
BeCaUsE DaRk equAlS EDgY anD PrOfOuND!!111
@@Overlord734 Yeah say that to Fant4stic.
3 years ago and i am still angry
+Jo$h Very!
I just finished the game today. Put in 100 hours total into the trilogy with no spoilers. Only a few tips from friends that played it.
This is the most disappointing ending I've ever seen. I feel so... empty.
Doomslayingrocker
we all had this feeling homie.
:(
+Doomslayingrocker Yeah, I know that feel bro. I just started the trilogy a couple months ago and got to the ending about two weeks ago. So many plotholes, unanswered questions and a lack of closure... I felt Bioware robbed me of my choices and an good ending.
+Jo$h if you still want a better ending enter here and help us:
www.change.org/p/bioware-corporation-we-want-a-remaster-of-the-mass-effect-trilogy-for-xbox-one-ps4-amp-pc?tk=YJnRtheG9It8fH-XlXJD3NnaYSpj7DgEvLyXf9mbdCo&
The vanilla ending of ME3 was like having a giant delicious cake all to yourself. You get down to the last piece, and just before you bite, someone pours a bucket of diahrea all over the piece. Doesn't matter how good most of the cake was; all you'll remember is that shit ending.
Just finished ME3 with all DLC ; I agree HEAVILY with reason number 5; I would have loved to see Rachni, geth and quarians fighting. Just unique cinematics with every war asset. I agreed SO HARD with number 5.
Mass Effect 3 remake? Anyone?
I agree
I would like that but if you remake one of them you pretty much have to remake them all. also alot of problems with mass effect three are in the foundation of the very game. it would be hard to get around that with just a remake. whereas something like mass effect one would become MUCH better because a majority of ME1'S problems come from gameplay Wichita can be circumvented with a new engine
joshua thomas i loved mass effect 1's gameplay and hated the other two's gameplays. they should havr stuck with the ME1 model and enhanced it instead
When I said gameplay I meant the lack of options in combat and the huge amounts of repeated environments that you go to, making every side missions feel the same.
joshua thomas i didnt mind those elements in me. Im a more role-playing focused, less-combat focused player, so me1's formula was good for me, even with its apparent flaws, which i didnt care about because of how large thr galaxy was. I hated me2 and me3 for consolidating, simplifying, and removing things like exploring uncharted worlds. I always hated the armor system in 2 and 3 and i still hate thermal clips. Pretty much my first reaction with first me2 playthrough was utter shock and appalment
Even after 4 years, I still think they should remake Mass Effect 3 BEFORE make another Mass Effect series. We are not done with Shepard yet.
Oh shit, this comment warned us...
Nah
Sadly they didn't change the endings
@@The.Usurper I mean he technically survived in the destroy ending if you have enough assets
Even in 2019, I remember this ending as the worst I have EVER witnessed. And don't forget, by this time we have already seen the ending of the Games of Thrones series too.
I don't know why Shepard never mentioned how he got the geth and quarians to co-exist. It was the first thing I thought of when the catalyst started talking. Bringing Javik back had no bearing on any events even though it had so much potential. The leviathan never did anything once Shepard left so that was pointless.
I can understand why he didnt mention javik. It was day-one dlc and it wasnt allowed to be to major in the plot, eventhough I think Javik is useless in the story anyways.
"They're mad because it had a sad ending. What did they expect?" - John Riccatello
That's what the industry thinks of you.
Best comment.
Good. Because not having a perfect ending is fine.
When I started played ME 3 I knew everyone hated the ending, but I thought "Come one, you are overreacting. How bad can it be?"
Well, now I finished ME 3 and now I understand why everyone hates it! And the little patch that Bioware released to "make it better" doesn´t make it slightly better! The only way to make such a horrible ending better is to fire everyone who thought this might be a good idea and reedo the whole last mission!
I was so totaly pumped when I encountered the Illusive Man on the Citadel, but then this dumb brat of a God-AI shows up and tells me that I die anyway and basically can only choose the coler in wich everything goes to hell!
God, hopefully they don´t do that shit anymore with Mass Effect 4!
Same as you.
I can't wait until they release mass effect 4
dont get high hopes for the new ME.
Well, Bioware proved that they can make amazing games and I gues after the shitstorm they got from the ME 3 ending they won´t take any chances.
Sergej K. it may not be in their power decide that.. they need better producers
ME3's ending didn't make sense until I played the games over again a few times to realize that the ending took place in Shepard's mind. Also, to the people like Joe saying that the extended cut destroys the Indoctrination Theory, I'd argue that it strengthened it, tenfold. I hate open endings because they split the fans and don't give them the closure that they need for a series that has spanned so many years. I can see why they'd go that route, though.
There are a ton of people who can explain this better than I can (people like CleverNoobs), but, if you give a shit, here are my reasons why the IT is a valid interpretation of the ending. Incoming TL;DR
1) Merizan and BioWare employees never rejected the Indoctrination Theory (IT). In fact, they stated over Twitter that the IT was a valid interpretation of the ending. If it wasn't, wouldn't it make sense to explicitly say, "this is not what we intended for?" Merizan even spills the beans when a fan states that they are disappointed about not being able to be with Tali. Merizan states something like, "then pick the Destroy ending and go be with her," implying that Shepard is alive in the destroy ending which only means that he never left the Citadel.
2) Destroy ending gasping scene: Shepard's body is surrounded by concrete and rebar (confirmed by BioWare dev), which the Citadel isn't made out of. Those are the materials used in London. There's no way that Shepard could have made it from space all the way back to the streets of London (pretty precise), especially considering his armor was beyond destroyed.
3) Right when Shepard beams up to the Citadel, there is a Keepertakig the helmet off of a soldier. When you regain control of Shepard and walk over to the body, it's gone. If you go into free cam during that scene, you'll see that it is, in fact, Major Coates. But Coates is alive. He is even shown in the end scenes. So why would BioWare do that? Because it's a DREAM.
4) In the decision chamber, there's no field encasing the surroundings so where is the oxygen coming from?
5) Why would the past civilizations, who are desperate to stop the Reapers, waste time constructing an option for synthesis and control? The only obvious choice would be Destroy. The fact that you are given 3 choices, 2 of which make no sense, is pretty suspicious.
6) Ending scene after credits where a grandpa is talking to a child: The background used is the cover for a song about undergoing indoctrination. Coincidence? Nope. It was obviously used with a purpose.
7) The ME franchise has always been about immersion and personalization. It's been about making you love and care about the characters, the story, the atmosphere/environment, etc. The reason why the IT isn't explicitly stated is because BioWare is making YOU go through Indoctrination. The people arguing which ending is correct are the same people who argue over whether or not their minds are theirs and if they're correct (Saren, Illusive Man, Rana Thanoptis). BioWare wants you to be conflicted because it effectively emulates the indoctrination processs. The decision chamber is a way of doing that because it is highly subtle. You get bombarded with information and then told to make a decision, while being subtley hinted that Destroy isn't the best option. This is how indoctrination works.
Wow... you just gave me the final piece of closure I wanted from the Mass Effect franchise. I never thought of it as Shepard dreaming but it all makes sense. But did the choice you made in the dream actually affect the real world? Oh great, now that needs answering.
and who is Major Coates?
I rather liked the ending, I think most people got their hopes up too high, but that might be because of over-hype.
karesneminus
Just because it's a theory doesn't mean it's not true. Gravity is still a theory (actually, it can be classified as theory and law depending on the context). Do you believe it doesn't exist? Not the writer's intention? How do you know that? Did you talk to the writers? Several developers and employees (i.e. Merizan) have been quoted stating that the Indoctrination Theory is a valid interpretation of the ending.
Also, you seem convinced that I'm wrong, but provide nothing to back up why you feel that way. Explain. Face value fans (i.e. you) always stick to the script as face value and claim that this is what the writers intended. When asked why, they say the same thing that you said, but never back it up with any evidence. What I would like to know is this:
Did BioWare say that the Indoctrination Theory is NOT a valid interpretation of their work?
There's more evidence pointing towards IE than face value so I choose to believe that which presents the most evidence.
I found the ending soul crushing to be honest
Garret1912 what's ur profile pic
Garret1912 yeah maybe soul crushing but not perfect
soul crushing makes it awesome , this is not bad. The Citra was terrible
I cried for hours. okay DAYS
Well, looking at things in retrospective, while the ending was never really changed, the stand people took made it into history.
Now, each time there's an ending to the game that people consider to be poorly written, they say "At least it's not as bad as the ending of ME3".
+Volthoom mass effect became "twilight love story" of games......how low it went.........
That’s game of thrones for you ehhh ... I meant Star Wars... ehhh I meant literally everything these days
Even with all of the DLC, the ending is still shit. Even though the journey to the end was amazing, the last ten minutes ruined it for me. I will not be purchasing another Mass Effect Game.
Have you ever heard of the 'indoctrination theory'? It's quite an interesting theory with very solid arguments. Maybe that would change your opinion :)
Yeah, and if the last DLC wrapped it up like that, THEN mass effect 3's ending would be legendary! But it's not... sadly. BioWare and EA fucked up big time.
Meh, I don't think you should blame BioWare that much. They probably had to rush because of EA.
Hym138 What confuses me the most is how ignorant the makers of the games seem nowadays. With a game like mass effect, you'd think the creators would have put more thought into what they were giving the fans. Do they even listen to us, or are they so stubborn and lost in their own world that they just can't put their ideas on paper properly?
Don't you think it's quite hard to really prove or bust the Indoctrination Theory? They'd lose half the community if they did... But I can understand what you mean. Then again, if they don't listen to their funder, they can't make a game at all.
I was just finishing the Priority: Earth mission, and when I was supposed to make the sprint towards the beam, the game froze on me and crashed. Could it have been trying to spare me from the awful ending(s)?
+Toshimi1043 Yes. Just run for it while it's not looking.
I don't take this ending seriously. I hope someday people in bioware will wake up and redo it. In my mind reapers are defeated and shepard is sipping drinks with Garrus.
Beating the reapers was impossible but Shepard did it but at a cost. Now with the cycle finished humans and other alien lives will evolve and move to andromeda . This ending is great
It is 2021, and I am still so salty and insulted, I still can't replay it. This was the greatest piece of entertainment I have ever experienced, until the final chapter of the third act. They fucked the end up so bad, I still can't go back.
I feel the same way 😡
I just finished the game and im so so mad. Absolutely loved everything about the game and was hyped for the ending only to be confused as fuck 😢😢 Shepard deserved better and so did all the other characters !
I legit want to play the series again but that ending has stopped me everytime from picking up a new playthrough....crazy how a God awful ending can bitter a great series.
@@MrAnimeFan4Eva Exactly. They did shepard dirty. I hope the new game involves shepard and they can have a crack at another good series again. But its a lot to hope for considering bioware's recent struggles
God when I hear that song in the beginning. . . makes me wanna cry man. What a good series.
I can relate to that, played through the whole series 3 times and it gets me everytime
I love the soundtrack sooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PixelGamer agreed, ME OST is brilliant
I want a complete remake of the Mass Effect trilogy! It would have to really be done right, though. Not something like the Halo: Anniversary editions, but an actual from the ground up rewrite. Same story, same voice actors (if they can get them), but more content, more polish, and a more satisfying ending. Something that honors and builds upon what is already there, not replaces it. The Bioware execs would have to get off the dev's backs for a release date and just keep the money flowing. Let them make the trilogy we always wanted, the one such an amazing story deserves. We didn't get it the first go-round. It was almost, but not quite, so I feel a remake is justified. I know I speak for many people when I say I'd be willing to shell out some serious cash for such a remake.
Update the graphics, physics, and NPC AI. Fix the damn bugs already. Listen to the community and address their concerns with the original trilogy. Make the gameplay consistent across all 3 games. I'm looking at you, ME1's infinite ammo and repetitive Mako assignments. Double the singleplayer campaign content with new missions, assignments, cutscenes, squadmates, conversations, codex entries, clusters and systems, and explorable planets. Even players who've been through the trilogy half a dozen times should feel overwhelmed at the sheer depth, complexity, and beauty of the universe they've once again stepped into. Give us more dialogue options while hanging out on the Normandy, let the characters grow in new and varied directions, and feel more alive. Expand the maps in exporable locations like the Citadel and Omega with more places to see, things to do, even some places that don't necessarily advance the plot but deepen the level of immersion. I want to walk into a bar and be able to hear 10 different conversations about anything from how much the Blasto sequel sucked to a Turian pitching the idea for a joint-species Lacrosse league. The galaxy is a big place, let us see what it has to offer.
But most of all, redo the ending to ME3. Imagine if it was done right, if we had more than a few different flavors of the same ending, but a plethora of different outcomes, each with a long and highly polished cutscene that gives the player real closure, even if the choices they made turn the story into a tragedy. We got a feel for this kind of REAL consequential decision making with ME2, but the potential was so much greater with ME3. What an incentive to go back and get it right, to see your favorite characters survive! The Suicide Mission was done so well. ME3's ending should have been even better, with the stakes so much higher.
+Robert Brown i would honestly pay some serious money for such a remake to be made to be honest.
+Robert Brown I actually preferred ME1's gameplay over the others it feels more free and the cover system for me at least was much better than the other two, at least i could fire from any position while in cover in the first and i liked the Mako missions... but i didn't like the crappy AI that almost always rushed you unless they are Geth, the music really was more original and somehow it had the nicest animations out of the three even tho it was the first.
All in all give me ME2+ME3 with gameplay like the first but better AI of course and the more RPG game styled loot like the first, once again tweaked of course and i would be so freaking happy. :P
fallenangel2100
Lol
Robert Brown are you insane? Sure would be plausible if devs got infinite resources which they don't. Do you realize how long a project like this would take? It would outlive the advance of graphics capabilities and hardware, causing them to go BACK and redo things. Game devs aren't magicions. People keep writing their own personal fan fictions not realizing that people have different opinions. I don't by any stretch of the imagination think mass effects ending was good. It was disappointing, but it wasn't BAD. The 3 conclusions were not even the worst part of the game IMO.
He lived as Marauder Shield, he died as Marauder Health.
R.I.P., last guard of our Mass Effect memories!
I was always curious what the joke was and I even thought this was a line in the series or a misunderstanding name of a character in game. I finished the game last week... I understand Marauder Shields now
@@MrChampionchimp Yeah, it was pretty bad. Especially, before the DLC.
How to kill a franchise that could have stood with Star Wars and Star Trek for generations *in only 10 minutes:* see Mass Effect 3
I chose to play the game in 2015, so about three years after it originally came out, and of course I ending up getting spoilers from a lot of my friends about it. I was told what the final decision was before I even started playing the franchise, actually-I wasn't told how that decision affected anything-and I was also told that only Destroying the Reapers with 4000+ war assets at the end of the game resulted in the survival of Shepard.
So, by the time that I actually got to that part of the game, I had my mind set. I wanted my Shepard to live, above all else. I knew that I was going to pick the Destroy option. And after listening to the God-child rattle on about order and chaos and all that bullshit, I would probably have gone with Destroy anyways.
I mean, seriously? Chaos and order? Really? That's what you're going with? I'm sorry, God-child, but I'm not really sorry when I say that saying organics harvested into Reapers are order and synthetics taking over the world are chaos. That makes no fucking sense. Synthetic life, which you especially see through EDI and Legion, are probably the most intelligent, logical-thinking things in the galaxy, and so having them be a civilization obviously wouldn't really be chaos. And I'm sorry, but all of these civilizations have lived with chaos for FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS. They built 'chaos', aka synthetics.
I don't even really understand what chaos/order have to do with it. Why are you harvesting civilizations anyways? What's the point? Why not just let them kill each other? Why do you, said god-child, even really care about what happens to the civilizations?
Another thing about the God-child: He says that because we finally found a way to create the Crucible, then obviously this 'solution' to the 'problem' (what problem, by the way? What's the problem here? What's so bad about synthetic life, instead of organic?) isn't working and they need to find another solution. So why is control the Reapers an option? I mean, the solution isn't working. We need to find another solution.
Doesn't make any fucking sense, but whatever. I was going to Destroy the Reapers, and that was my decision. Unfortunately, because I got distracted in the final cut scene due to other things that were going on, I looked back over at my monitor in time to make the decision...and I had no idea which terminal was linked to which decision. I went left, just to see what it was, because I knew Destroy couldn't be the middle. I figured out that the left was...Control. And when I got to Control, what couldn't I do? MOVE. Literally, I was stuck there, couldn't move, had to choose Control otherwise I would've been reverted to a completely previous save from about two hours before that point.
So, fuck me, I chose Control. Wasn't what I wanted, but whatever, I couldn't move, and I wasn't going to redo that. I would just watch the other ending on the internet somewhere. Wouldn't be as satisfying, but that was fine.
I chose Control, watched the ending. It was fine. Then I went on my phone and watched the Destroy ending...and, umm...wait. What? I was expecting something...more. Something different. But it was basically just a cookie cutter scene. The only real difference that I saw was the fact that the lights were red, rather than blue, the Reapers crashed instead of flying away, and EDI was on the ship in my ending but not in the Destroy ending.
The Mass Relays get destroyed, Shepard dies-and no, he didn't *live* or whatever in the other Destroy ending. He took a breath. That's not living. For all we know, he took a breath and then fucking died right after that, alright? And you COULD say that maybe he did live, maybe that was Bioware's way of saying "hey, nice job, player. Your Shepard lived!" But does it matter? Does it REALLY matter? Because the last part of the game is the old dude talking to his grandson. He died anyways, maybe from old age or maybe he was brain-dead from the blunt force trauma of the explosion or maybe he succumbed to his burns. Because maybe he got a life after that happened, but if he did, we sure as hell don't see it. Why does it matter if he lives or dies at the end, if we have no idea what his life is like?
It was basically cookie-cutter endings, and that really pisses me off. The fact that every decision I ever made throughout the entire game rarely fucking mattered besides Big Ben burning or lights changing when the Crucible explodes or a shattered, maybe last breath from Shepard, where he's probably in immense pain after being part of A FIERY EXPLOSION.
The choices in general really pissed me off, too. And I'm probably just rambling on about something that no one is ever going to read, but I don't care. If anyone does read this, maybe you'll agree with me. Controlling the Reapers-what. Why would I want to Control them? What benefit would that give me? An unstoppable force at my beck and call? Oh wait, that doesn't matter, cause I'm dead. Or maybe I took the place of the god-child, fuck if I know, cause it doesn't tell me. I mean, there's indoctrination and all that crap, but I've pretty much already proven that I can get a force to stand behind me in the span of just a few months/years by doing a few favors for them. And why am I the one whose able to Control them if the Illusive Man couldn't?
Fusing synthetic and organic life-wait. Aren't those Reapers? Why the hell would I want to do that? I've already proven on multiple accounts that I absolutely loathe the Reapers, that they are a threat for everything. Why would I want to make smaller versions of them? Plus, and forgive me for being a little too "real-world" here, but how the fuck do I even fuse synthetic and organic life without starting from scratch? There's no way that I can change every species DNA by just sacrificing myself. Maybe if I created a brand new species of synthetic/organics, I'll give you that. But I couldn't possibly just randomly fuse together DNA of synthetics and organics without some sort of surgery. What the hell is synthetic "DNA" anyways? And how would sacrificing myself fuse synthetic and organic life?
Fuck if I know.
Destroying the Reapers-I get the need for options. I do. But why isn't this the only option. I am serious right now. For three games, I have been adamant that the Reapers are the biggest threat not only to humanity but to every galactic race that exists in the Milky Way. Why does that change after a three minute conversation with a god-child? Seriously, when you are talking to the Illusive Man in the ending and how he is saying that Controlling the Reapers is the best option, YOU CAN'T EVEN SIDE WITH HIM. You can only say, "No. You're crazy. You've been indoctrinated. That's what they want you to think" or whatever. But after talking to the god-child...well...I guess I changed my mind. Control is the way to go.
NO. That makes no sense. Realistically, the only ending that makes sense here is Destroying the Reapers, which still doesn't really make any fucking sense, because why in the hell does Destroying the Reapers destroy all synthetic life? That's something I don't get. It doesn't make sense and really I think it was just a way for the developers to say, "Think about the weight of your decisions. Think of your synthetic friends."
And, finally, after reading my ramble (or not, do whatever the fuck you want), here is the one thing that, after thinking about this for all this time, I don't get about the ending to Mass Effect 3. I can justify the decisions. I can justify the chaos/order bullshit. I can even justify the cookie cutter endings, because maybe the Mass Effect team wanted to really say that "hey. Guess what? The ending really means that all of your decisions don't ultimately matter, and the only one that really counts is the final one. That's it." I mean, throughout the last thirty minutes to an hour, it is stressed THIS IS IT.
So what can't I justify? I can't justify why in the world the god-child even gives me these decisions. Why does he think that I should decide the fate for all of the galactic races? Why does he think that I am better equipped to come up with a new 'solution' than he is? After all, I may be a smooth-talker and have cool sword skills with my omni-tool, but I'm just a soldier. One of thousands. Maybe a good one, I'll give you that, but why the fuck didn't the god-child approach the Council with this decision? Why can't the god-child himself be the one to decide what happens to the Reapers and to himself?
This god-child, this Catalyst, the Citadel, whatever you want to call it, has been here for much longer than my species has been alive. It has obviously seen more with the galaxy than I have. I don't understand why it would just willingly give up its power to place in the hands of a random person. Fuck, the god-child doesn't even KNOW me.
That's what I don't get. I don't understand that part.
Oh, and here's another thing, if basically all of the endings to Mass Effect 3 result in the same endings, why even give us a decision?
Maybe someone else has the answers, but I sure as hell don't. If anyone feels like replying and clearing things up, go for it. I will probably read it.
There is actually one great ending for me 3
how to get it ?
be dick in all me games complete renegade always
kill as many of your teammates as you can
finally do control ending and become GALACTIC EMPEROR OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE
NOBODY WILL DEFY SHEPARDS REAPERS NOW
+ozis ponas Or just do this:
images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/33800000/Mass-Effect-3-Fourth-Choice-Ending-mass-effect-rp-33882638-1920-1080.jpg
+feco91 good god thats funny
+ozis ponas Its niot Shepard. Its a VI with the momorys of Shepard. He dies the Intelligence sais that too: He will lose everything he has. Its a cold hearted dictator, not even organic or Synthetic, just a VI trying to complete his job what he was build for(as every VI) to "defend the galaxy, and life itself". Just think. This is NOT a good thing! He can think logically that like if Sam buysa knife and tries to murder someone Shepard exterminates Sam, than the shop, the place where the knifes were made, the place were they were produced ect..because its his job to do that. Also he could "think" of a solution as worse as the Reapers. And eventually he will. The people will rebel ut then they will always be destroyed. Or worse. Indoctrinated. So yeah. Not cool.
Anyway i am a believer of the Indoctrination theory so i still think Destruction is the best choiche.
Natsu Dragneel bioware said that indoctrination theory is false long time ago
Quick question. Were not the Reapers allready a combination of organic and synthetic life?
Does that fact not make the Synthesis ending irrelevant (Despite the fact that Machines dont have DNA)
They weren't organic enough I guess.
Fuck Harbingers alternatives. Destroy, every time.
Urdnot Grunt The Synthesis ending closed the gap between Synthetic life and organic life by infusing synthetic and organic into a new DNA form. Essentially ending the cyclical nature in which Organics and Synthetics warred with each other after synthetic creation; this eventually led to the destruction of the creator race. The Leviathans gave this "god child" a job to stop this lost of life since the Leviathans couldn't receive tribute from an extinct race. The "god child" saw that converting organics into 'reapers'(synthetics), in which they retained their culture and philosophy of the race they harvested as the only way to preserve life. Technically, the "God Child" had a logical solution to the problem but it disregarded the right to have a organic life and natural evolution.
If one would look at a organic race as a whole as a machine, one can see the logic of "god child" in which a reaper would be a logical next step. Each individual has a job and function like every software/hardware in a computer. The "god child" saw that converting organic life into synthetic life was the only sure way to prevent a extinction of "life", with synthetic being its final form. Synthesis would create a bridge between these two forms of life, eliminating misunderstanding.
Also the Mass Effect trilogy story explains that Shepard is a unique force and that he was a new factor into this formula that the 'God child' was computing on saving of "life"
What I think people have a issue with is that the ending wasn't visually different, in that it didn't have drastic options (ex. spaceships destroying Reapers or a 'On/Off' switch with no consequences). The idea that their isn't any cost to making a solution is just naïve. The different endings depended on Shepard (a new factor in the 'life' formula) and that each option required his input with two of them requiring his dissolution as an organic to accomplish.
Each ending creates a different outcome (ex destroy reapers/synthetics, Shepard replaces 'God child' and synthesis-coexistence with organic and synthetic life.) One may see all three endings resulting in Shepard's death (except the high readiness- destroy option) as not being different but that isn't taking into account the choice Shepard made. Also the choices made in previous games were accounted for in the ending, the way that Bioware presented the impact of one's decisions was poorly presented (slideshows). This results of Shepard's past game decisions maybe explained in a future Mass Effect game. Bioware could have made the ending a little more resolute, allowing the gamer to feel like the story was complete but still allowing for a sequel to made.
P.S.- there is a fourth option: refuse (let the next cycle finish it).
Still the worst ending in history
Urdnot Grunt Your a krogan, dammit, don't be dramatic.
If this was made today. Joe would be called a toxic fan.
The best ending would when the crucible attached to the citadel would just attack all the reapers and the reaper would die without any other casualties that would be the best and proper ending bringing up the AI catalyst and the other bullsh*t wasn't nessesary at all. Why did bioware add all that to crap to ruin the ending
I think the thing that bugged so many people apart from the lack-luster ending was that from the very beginning of the franchise Bioware said your decisions will affect the outcome and they didn't (especially if you're colour blind) matter at all really.
Also the ending was changed after the original plans were leaked by a (I think) disgruntled ex-Bioware employee. The original ending sounded so much more interesting than that of which we got.
Such a shame it ended as it did but I still enjoyed it overall, it would have been a huge landmark in gaming if they had pulled it off and gave everybody an ending more fitting to our choices. It would've gave us all an extra incentive to replay the whole series again.
punksterdaddy agree.
original ending was much more interesting, shepard talking as a reaper on the extended version, was ridiculous.
he died in a pretty fucking heroic way and rescued everybody, thats all you need to know.
it should be our decision as gamers if we want a happy ending or not... you worked for it... and it was all for nothing... as Shepard ended up being the greatest and most effective reaper of all whether he/she was a paragon or a renegade
this end is realistic everything is not our choice
all that damn game play just to die or lose everything.
you could say the same about human life
i mean in the extended cut dlc it shows that shepard lives if u destroy the reapers and bioware says that him and the crew will be reunited eventually if u do that ending so thats good
I notice that the people who say they like the original ending and had no problem with it, never give a reasoning as to why. Where as, those that dislike the original ending(s) give specific reasoning to their argument. This even goes to the professional game reviewers who simply write, "personally, l like the original ending."
The only reason they can really good as to why Mass Effect 3 is a "good" ending is that "It was unexpected, and sad, and it didn't coddle anyone." So, basically a new rule should be added to Game Design 101: Always make endings that are sad with a plot twist... No matter how illogical.
Jay R
specifically, how did it end sad and 'didn't coddle anyone'. I got the same ending of; relays blowing up, Joker crash landing on a planet, and Buzz Alderan telling a child that someday they'll reach the stars again. All the same ending except in different colors. I can't tell if the ending is "good" or "sad" because I don't understand it.
gallopingLake6 I agree; The original endings made so little sense, it was really hard to tell what to make of them. I think the idea is that most fans assumed the galaxy was screwed in the original endings (Mass Relays destroyed means no way to travel back to their home planets; Food supplies are probably low and going to get worst; Turians and Quarians can't eat the food that grows on Earth; Etc. Etc.) and the Normandy and their crew MIGHT be able to live on that planet, but seems unlikely they could set up a colony... But again, it was kind of hard exactly what to make of the original endings... Hence why we got the Indoctrination Theory. xD
Jay R
Or,....the Mass Relays blowing up took out each individual star system that it was in, as described in the Arrival ME2 DLC which was released nine months before ME3 was released. So, we are talking about twenty star systems, all having the height of civilization within them....gone! The galaxy is going to start over again, but this time with what ever color you chose. I had to have that explained to me as a scenario for what the ending meant because I didn't play the Arrival dlc. That would explain why Bioware said people just wanted a happy ending.
gallopingLake6 Yeah, and why Bioware very quickly backtracked on the Relays thing and tried to say they didn't blow up and could be repaired (because the cutscene TOTALLY made it look like that. -_-) and why some players speculated on it being a "controlled" explosion while Arrival's was "uncontrolled" and how that would somehow make it better...
The destroy ending is the only viable ending.
Synthesis is stupid because what right do you have to alter the DNA of every living being in the galaxy without any input from them? It doesn't make sense anyway. How does the crucible make everyone half synthetic again?
"uh...well...ugh....LOOK AT THE COOL GREEN EFFECTS EVERYONE HAS NOW.
Fuck the control ending, because The reapers MUST DIE. We waited three games to kill those fuckers. Their logic is flawed and not a very good plot device. I'm sure Casey Hudson thought it was clever but the reapers were just fine as enemies when we all thought they were simply killing all life to remain the dominate species over the galaxy. It made sense, but no, they had fuck with it and leave us with a broken ending.
Starchild:"It's for your own good! Synthetics would've destroyed you!"
So you sent synthetics to destroy us to save us from being destroyed by synthetics? You just threw all logic out the window. My Shepard proves on Rannoch that synthetics and organics can co-exist but I guess that didn't count for anything.
I'm giving Bioware ONE MORE CHANCE, but only because I enjoyed the ride so much, and because they're taking their time with ME4 and not trying to fuck it up this time.
I'm not going to argue how it's actually possible because I don't think it's necessary to know. But as for Synthesis, one could ask what good individual freedom is if we almost exclusively use it for self destruction. It is not illogical. Antagonists can be benevolent. They don't have to be solely malevolent.
edgecrusherhalo
What a load of BS. You can't argue how it's possible because of simple bias. People who can see that the ending is broken almost always give valid reasoning for their arguments while fanboys never can. If you like the ending "just because", that's your business but don't waste my time.
Jack St john
Oh there are definitely things to be desired about it, but how to resolve the premise is not one of them. I've always said that I think it is unfortunate that it took DLC to get enough information, but I don't like it "just because." I like it because it turned out to be much bigger than I originally thought. Because the antagonist turned out to be benevolent, not malevolent. And because there is no right or wrong answer as it is up to the player to decide. There are plenty of ways to look at whats happening and plenty of pros and cons for all the choices whether people want to admit it or not. Is it really a surprise that the ending is morally ambiguous in a story that founded itself based on making such choices in the first place?
As for Synthesis being physically possible all I can say is, the Reapers were established as being significantly more advanced from the beginning. It is logical to assume that something that has survived for hundreds of millions would be capable of something a 50K year old species would not understand. Couple that with the Crucible being stated as basically just an energy source, so the Citadel and Relays are what distribute the energy. With that being said... So the giant space station made of an unknown material that we didn't build ourselves but found and know nothing about, that we let a race of docile alien creatures we can't communicate with that exist only here and aren't located on any terrestrial world maintain almost exclusively without question, that just so happens to be an enormous version of those other giant machines that we found and did not build ourselves made of that same unknown material that are the only reason we can travel the galaxy, all of which were put in place specifically for us to find as a means for controlling our advancement by the enemy... THAT station and the enemy had some secrets. BIG surprise...NEVER saw it coming..... -_-
edgecrusherhalo Advanced reaper technology still doesn't justify forcing your conclusion onto an entire galaxy, that's what the reapers were doing and for Shepard to do it makes him/her no better, But that's besides the point.
Bioware explicitly promised us multiple diverse endings prior to ME3's release, and we were basically left with "red, blue or green?". The destroy ending is the only viable one because it's the only that lets us do what we came to do in the first place: destroy the reapers. But no matter what you do, how you play or what decisions you make, your still faced with the same ending as everyone else, which is a slap in the face from Bioware, and if you're satisfied with that, I don't want to judge you but I feel sorry for you.
this is what i got from the control ending epically if your Shepard is full paragon aka ultimate good guy.When Shepard takes control of the Reapers he has in all essence ascended to godhood but he still keeps his memory, his conscience, his morality from when he was human. So know Shepard can use the Reapers as a force for good for all life in the galaxy. He passivized the reapers
One ending's red
Another is blue
Assuming control
This hurts you
7 years later and this still upsets me
Thank god that the Extended Cut address 9 out of the 10 issues and made my recent experience fun and gratifying.
It was still pretty bad. It is much better, though.
4 years have passed and i'm still back to these mass effect 3 ending videos to remember how sad and disappointed i was...
I've been true to my word though, i never once gave EA or Bioware another dime since then...
I feel that EA made the Extended Cut based on this video EXCLUSIVELY. Well a few more scenes, one-or-two screenshots, that'll do. STILL doesn't make sense
haha i remebered somethin when you said that'll do(that'll do pig that'll do:D
Yeah, they addressed the destroyed relay and joker landing with the love interest by thinking fuck it lets add another scene
5 years on and this video still breaks my heart and makes my eyes wet. The last few minutes, the music combined with Joe's speech never fail to bring a tear to my eye.
What the fuck was going through their heads when they were making that bullshit ending? I'm still fucking pissed about it. I spent so much time playing this series.
GodChild: Wake up. Shepard: Fuck off!
Personally mass effect 2 was the best one they made
Nothing's more satisfying than seeing your entire team of badasses survive and you making the the jump to Normandy with the epic music playing.
Jeremy Lebron I personally like the first one more. The second one was all about repetitive team collecting, and then doing their backstory which can be tedious if you have played the game several times.
daniel snow ME1 wins hands down for story and balance for characters while ME3 wins for character interaction.
Im a tali fan all the way. I will romance her throughout all three games, so the other girls dont interest me.
I played all 3 games and I still don't know what tali really looks like :-|
6 years later still pissed with the ending.
7 years, a full military contract, 2 kids, a divorce and a masters degree later. Still pissed off.
I just finished Dragon Age Inquisition's Trespasser DLC and the first thought that came to my mind.."How did they screw up the endings so bad in ME 3 yet make an epic ending in DA I?" Really, the way it ended is how ME 3 should have ended. I would actually like to see the next Dragon Age come out instead of Andromeda due to the difference in quality now
+Cole Cash lol Yep it makes no sense why they would try to get cute with their greatest franchise ever, when in the past they wrapped up their games so nicely. Just give us the ending where we "win," it was really that simple..We don't need it all perfect either. Like you said the Trespasser DLC ended things on a bitter sweet note(especially if you played an elven character). It really ruined the series for me in terms of replaying it. It's a damn shame but I'm glad this wasn't the end to the Mass Effect universe.
eureka0521 So wait..Trespasser ruined Dragon Age for you or ME 3's ending ruined ME for you?
***** Trespasser was great, ME 3's ending has really demotivated me from replaying the series I meant.
Not to mention Dragon age origins ending gave an entire epilogue of your choices and decisions throughout the the game, and it can end as good or as bittersweet as much as you want and gave you replay value to make you want to see what's would be different or change your mind about something. So Bioware has already done good endings before what the he'll happened here. Sure their is an epilogue in the extended cut but it only shows you a couple of decisions you made resulted and only give vague descriptions of what your decision at the citadel actually amounted to.
+Brandon Lyon Dragon Age Origins was Bioware Incarnate.
If you all notice, Mass Effect Trilogy and Origins has essentially the same plot except DAO offered a better ending than a whole trilogy.
Honestly, I'd have been happier if every single squad member had died in the battle no matter what. That at least has closure, they're dead. And it would mean something, you see all the time you spent fostering those relationships just evaporate in front of you. That would at least make me _feel_ something, even if that feeling is shitty. Instead we get "They lived......." with basically no other context.
for number 2 the Normandy picks up your two teammates just before you reach the teleport thingy
they are both injured and are evacuated just before harbinger hits you with his beam and everything goes slow mo
Yea I was like wtf is he talking about.
hell i did not realize that this video was pre extended ending
The Extended ending was to address most of the plot holes
Then the Normandy just flies away...
Joker, I had that Thanix cannon installed for a reason. Why the heck didn't you use it?
GTR Productions that doesn't make any sense either. It's the last mission, and they bail because of a twisted ankle. Who are they, Wedge Antilles? Shepard is almost dead when he gets to the relay, there is no reason loyal comrades like Garrus, Liara or Tali wouldn't show the same dedication. To say nothing of EDI who doesn't even need her "human" Avatar. That last-minute evacuation makes zero sense. And then there's the little fact that it's completely impractical. You're gonna bring a frigate down for evac right next to freaking Harbinger? No way that ends well for anyone.
Honestly, the only issue I had with the ending was the fact that it ALL turned out to be a bed time story for some generic kid we never saw before. that and a few minor things like how it ave you bad reputation to defend Cerberus and the Elusive Man yet in the end the option he'd choose is considered the "Hero" ending. Those are the things that pised me off a little
Actually they tricked you. The paragon ending was the bad ending that was giving into the indoctrination. I know that because Anderson picked the Renegade ending.
Supersparkjr i dont think you understood me right. How is it that throughout the entire game you get renegate points by agreeing with ceberus, basically going against everything the alliance stands for. Yet in the end, doing what the elusive man would have done is considered the Paragon ending? they should have swaped the colors for both choices
yes but that is a trick
morning morality
didnt they really announce a ME4? I remember hearing something like that
morning morality I see. Interesting^^
Nobody in the newer comments seems to understand that this came out before the extended cut :\
Even with the extended cut the ending fucking sucks it basically changes nothing but drag out the ending which I prefer without it as I have to experience this ending longer otherwise
Greatest dissapoint i have ever encountered in playing video games. The thought of it still depresses me, even 4 years later.
What a waste.... :(
I wish they would've made the refusal ending such that if you had enough war assets, you would destroy the reapers with conventional warfare, preserving Shepard, the citadel, and the mass relays
I agree . That would have meant actual free
i did a ME trilogy run in 4 days and yeah the ending kinda fucks the trilogy
Tigerlover1337 When you do a trilogy run then the inconsistencies become really apparant and the ending just feels even more disappointing.
Toby-wan yeah i agree with u
Tigerlover1337 same here just finished the game for first time, ME3 on it's own is meh, when you play the trilogy it just makes everything worse, no ending, no closure, I don't get why the crew has to leave shepard behind, it's the end of the world they should be throwing everything to get to that beam and after all they've been through, I would have loved if they made Shepard stand with at least his LI at the final front/ending while dying or anything, but no, not even closure to ME2 romance (jack, miranda etc.) even with citadel DLC, not good. It would have made sense to make a sad ending IF that was the direction we were heading from ME1, ME2, but throughout all those everyone believes in shepard and he's confident about himself, in ME3 they completely turn it around.. just.. sucks
Carlos Azar
Yeah their artistic vision and all but in a game where everything is about choices good or bad you can't have such a sub par ending where you have to live through their vision of how the ending should be like. One has to accept that in a game like that not all players are going to want to live through their artistic vision and stuff. In my mind Garrus and Shepard are sitting on the beach drinking beer and talking about the good ol days. With their respective LI nearby. That is my vision of how that game played out. But they went in the totally opposite direction.
Joe got his wish the the extended cut, the refusal ending. Which makes the most sense but is depressing. Honestly i feel sorry for anyone discovering ME for the first time and playing vanilla. This game practically forces you to go out of your way to mod the ending, thankfully there are happy ending mods that remove the starchild available.
I'm still seething with rage. Frostbite engine 3 full remaster including completely revamped endings. It will never happen, but I rub my pepperoni nipples to the thought everyday. Still the best series ever made tho.
I have several questions relating to your "pepperoni nipples" comment.
Still hating the ending, even with the patch, and 5 of these reasons sill exist even with the patch
I think this might be Joe's greatest work. Or at least his most authentic/real. Like nearly everybody, Joe was crushed by the lacklusterness of the endings. And you feel just how downright sad and disapointed he was (like many of us were) watching this vid.
Theres no yelling or screaming, and barely any comedy.
It's just Joe, solemn and defiant, laying out some of the games most glaring mistakes in video essay form. Its a side of Joe we rarely see.
Reason 10 nearly brought a tear to my eye.
The fact that they wasted the opportunity of a lifetime in giving us deep varied endings based on our choices throughout the trilogy is a colossal mistake. The game wouldve went down as the best video game series of all time had they nailed the endings, and made them meaningful. And varied.
Hell, I'm still disapointed by the endings all these years later... they arent terrible with the dlc that came, but it couldve been so much more.
Love this vid so much and the indoctrination theory one.
Just finished replaying it fully with Legendary out, and I had forgot how bad the ending even with the extended cut is. Completely undermines all the decisions and people you save through 1, 2 & 3. I'm still going to replay it all again, I think as a Vanguard this time... But once I get to priority earth I'll just stop it there and make up my own ending in my head tbh.
Here's how my personal headcanon ends; the god child never appears. The Reapers and their forces are annihilated by the Crucible. Shepard wakes up in a hospital bed to find Kaidan (my love interest) at her side. He fills her in on what happened while she was on board the Citadel, and the two of them hug, sharing in the relief and gratitude that the nightmare is finally over. Then it cuts to the Normandy, with *everyone* on board. Shepard adds Anderson's name to the memorial wall, and the crew shares a moment of silence, for him and everyone else that died. Yeah, I know that's cliché as fuck, but Goddamit, my girl *earned* a happily ever after!
That should have been the ending.
I pretty much am positive that it wasn't a lack of talent that made the ending so bad but the fact that they needed more time. The writers and artists said themselves two years wasn't enough
Mass effect 3 needs to be completely remade
This was my all time favourite franchise. I played ME1 and 2 several times a year. I was in love with the story and characters. After the ME3 ending (and even with extended cut), I NEVER played them again. And btw, Destroy is the only ending that makes sense considering Shep and his crew fought for 3 entire games to get rid of the Reapers.
I understand the feeling bro, I just end my game and I'm feeling so... Sad :/
My Shepard died and this feels like all my efforts in the game were useless.
I think you missed another big reason. We didn't see how the citadel got taken over. What happened to the people on the citadel. Why did they fall so easily. How did the Citadel move? I would have preferred if they left the citadel out of it. Maybe destroy the McGuffin just for them to say "glad we made 2, well tried to finish the one a previous cycled made" and even that could have been the McGuffin weapon thing.
You think they missed another in a top 10 list after they got to their tenth?
so many years ago and i am still pissed about the ending
You forget to mention the Synthesis is basically SPACE MAGIC.
A partial rebuttal to reason #4: the Quarians had agricultural liveships (depending on if you saved Zaal Koris's fleet) that may have been able to supply both the Turians and Quarians, so at least those people would have survived, given that you saved the Quarians and the Civilian Fleet.
But yes, everyone else would've starved to death. Still a big plot hole lmao 😂
9 years later I’m still pissed about the endings.
Same :(