This is a lie, the original ending was based on the Dark Energy usage from Ezo Harvesting that people used to create Mass Effect Fields, Biotics, etc. The mission where Tali was studying the dying sun? That's what the Reapers were trying to prevent from happening. The Illussive Man was going to be like Saren's boss fight where he turns into a hybrid reaper Brute.
The star child one sort of made sense if they did the whole indoctrination so the child was never there in the duct at the start or getting blown up but it was rather the indoctrination or harbinger wiggling around in his mind, so the Reaper Queen bit i would prefer because i really would have liked the synthesis ending and if they had continued on with that since the Geth and EDI would still be alive and with them being alive the Quarians could get back to a life before their environmental suits, and we could finally get to see an actual Quarian not just their hints at what they look like. That is basically my major gripe i want to see the Quarians with out their suits, maybe they will if as people say it is a good deal of decades later if not centuries mass effect 4 will take, we might get some pictures of a great leader or hero of the Quarians and we see Tali with out her helmet on, i get why they want a destroy ending because with a synthesis or control ending the story will need some really strong enemy out in the universe to come and mess everything up including destroying reapers with ease since we saw there was a lot of them, so control would be a major issue same as synthesis for the whole big bad enemy like with the reapers. I liked the idea of maybe some Prothean worlds that escaped the purge and have kept track of what was going on maybe using those spheres to observe the past and having those spheres go inert when Reapers arrive or self destruct the orbs if Reaper indoctrination or Reapers are detected, and once they know the threat is gone they emerge to become the Prothean Empire again, and we know certain races would follow them so that will quickly cause a divide in the so called Citadel Alliance, we know the likes of Batarians and Hanar would join the Protheans Batarians because of their hatred for the citadel counsel races, and Hanar for their belief in the Protheans. What ever the story will be i am ending up playing the game no matter what played the game series through so many times now both the new version and the old version, i can hardly wait to continue on in that universe, Andromeda was a trial and error attempt at continuing the franchise it ended up being okay, however they left us high and dry with certain single player quests being broken, and they just focused on the multiplayer and their loot boxes there
Hey big dan, i'm not sure if you covered this already, but i was interested in seeing what happens if you bring jake and miranda (both disloyal) to the end of the collector base where you either choose to keep or destroy it. And after conversing with the illusive man and making it clear you want to destroy it, he orders miranda to stop you to which she pulls a gun on you. I wanted to know what would happen if you brought jacob along as well and whether or not he'll do the same thing.
I think this is a common misconception. Many levels in Act One and Act Two of ME3 are pretty mediocre. Mars, Surkesh, Citadel Takeover, and Thessia are good examples. They all feel rushed and disjointed- as if the writers created the game portion first and added the dialogue/plot second.
@@nicolasleroux5302 This. At the time, without any knowledge of the game, I just remember feeling everything was so jumbled up and thrown together. Nothing felt connected. Just kind of mind boggling thinking how tight 2 was, with a cohesive atmosphere and vision. 3 was so damned over the place. I mostly blamed it on Karpyshyn leaving
The main missions were fun, but the side planets took a huge hit. Recycled multiplayer maps, eavesdropping on Citadel conversations for fetch quests to complete through scanning
@@justinnyugen7015 At least some side conversations were interesting (Jokers sister, The Two Paramedics losing faith, The C-Sec Guard and the Teenage Girl.) And, for the most part, the base story and plot was solid. But the scanning and little side missions definitely could’ve been done better.
The problem is not that Shepard didn't get get a happy ending, the problem is that he didn't really get a fleshed out ending at all. We don't know what happened to our squad, or Shepard post war. No closure happy or sad, just an abrupt cliff hanger ending.
Yes, the same problem is true for the expanded edition. I just played through the Red ending. I have to wonder how the Quarians will react to the loss of the Geth given their newfound reconciliation, and reckoning with their own past. Well, with the expanded ending I know they go on to build tall blue buildings...so I guess that's something! I'm glad I got the chance to mourn EDI, though. True, she wasn't in the montage of killed companions, but I was able to find her name in the corner of the memorial board just before the scene ended. I'm rest assured everyone on Earth can rebuild the mass relays and rejoin galactic civilization...because a line of dialogue said they'd be able to. He sounded confident. I couldn't tell if it was going to take a few months or hundreds of years...maybe it's more fun not knowing.
@@kswindlpersonally I headcanon'd that if you get the perfect ending, other synthetics don't get targeted like the reapers would. Just makes things more happy at the end for me.
@@kswindl So the Extended Cut wasn't enough information for people? I guess some need their hands held and have all the blanks filled in so you don't have to think at all. Mass Effect 3 was the end of Shepard's story, not the end of every person in the galaxy.
@@mkdcgmate, it's the exact same reasons as to why lotr movies have 20 minute ending. There is many characters and stories that need to be finished and that we care about.
And if he didn’t make it, the scene would play out the other way around: Garrus waiting for Shepard at the bar, looking at his watch, and leaving when you don’t show up.
My response to this ending is the same as the one we got. I'd accept it, but I wouldn't like it. If you'd read HP Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos you'd understand why Shepard was NEVER going to have a happy ending.
@@AnimeShinigami13 Sure, but as Dan points out, it goes completely against the tone of the first two games. Both games ended on a positive and heroic note, with the notion that Shepard’s fight wasn’t over yet. Three just….ended. It didn’t feel earned, positive, or heroic. Just sad and unsatisfying.
@@AnimeShinigami13 I didn't like the endings, but I don't think Mass Effect was meant to be some edgy deconstructionist grimdark story where good does not win in the end.
we're too conditioned as a society to expect happy endings. most people go through life and are pretty much just "meh, I exist." nobody's life is perfect, and so we expect happy endings to assure us that maybe we can have a better one too. if you want to understand ME3, read the entire Cthulu mythos. >.> you'll understand why Shepard was pretty much doomed as soon as he touched that beacon.
@@AnimeShinigami13 i mean, fair or not if you are gonna make an unhappy ending there is a higher burden on you to make it good. People are more willing to overlook flaws if there favorite characters got a nice outcome but if you wanna go dark you gotta deliver and me3 failed to do that at release.
I agree actually, the other games felt complete once finished, but as much as I like 3 it does seem to lack something even from the start actually not just the ending.
@@AnimeShinigami13 yeah there's no such thing as happy endings in real life, but that's why most people play video games. Video games are just electronic story-telling, and stories help us escape from reality. I just would have preferred more closure, but the game is great overall.
The Mass effect 3 ending should have heavily relied on the Military Strength. Having Squadmates survive through each game, Enabling peace between the quarians and geth, curing the genophage, all should have had big implementation into the possible ending because each respective military would have made a huge difference in whether you beat the reapers or not. Imagine having Mordin Die in ME2 and being unable to cure the genophage in ME3 because his replacement couldn’t properly disperse it, therefore denying you to the Krogan army. Or having to choose between the quarians or geth denied you from the army not chosen. Therefore drastically reducing your chances of success. All in all on a scale, lowest military strength would have ended with reaper domination where as if you had full military strength you were able to defeat the reapers and save all squat mates. Anything in between would result in losses of beloved squadmates and world and species that grew to love. That would have been a good ending. Having your chooses truly matter to the outcome of the game. Not a simple choice of blue red green regardless of what you did throughout each game.
During the initial lashing out against the ending, there was an article about the ending as it was originally planned, and it came with this visio diagram of how it was supposed to work. It was very similar to ME2's final run against the collectors, with lots of choices to make, your decisions affecting what would/could happen, etc. Peace between the Geth and Quarians was a major factor in getting the great ending, saving the Rachni queen was a big factor, etc. It literally changed whether Harbinger would just wipe out the earth assault fleet or not, things like that. It was a big diagram, with several dozen major possible differences due to earlier decisions and how many war assets you had etc. It looked FANTASTIC. The rumor is that it was real, but they had to scratch it because they just ran out of time, as implementing that would have taken months, and they didn't have months left. They had to ship in a few weeks, and had to quickly kludge something together. Real shame. That ending would have elevated the series to just a legendary masterpiece. Sadly, I've never been able to find it again. :(
Well really that idea isn’t realistic, because the Reapers are too op, a whole fleet was struggling against Sovereign, Sovereign was only defeated because of the avatar.
Agreed. Doing everything "right" to get the best possible outcome and then it doesn't really matter; you could have gone into the final battle with a base war asset score and it changes very little. And the Star Child was ridiculous; it should have always ended with the destruction of the reapers. When Shep opens the Citadel arms, threat should have been it. Whether Shep & Anderson live should have then been determined by, say, having enough war assets for Hackett to be able to send in a rescue team for them, or Bailey being alive (like if you didn't talk to him enough in ME2 & 3, he ends up dying during the coup, etc) and saving Anderson in the nick of time, etc Little things that could have meant something big in the end. But nope, we get a kid that talks down to us, then uses "space magic" for 2 out of 3 endings when so far, we have had an extensive and exhaustive codex library explaining EVER DAMN THING but no, jump into this light beam, it'll totally "merge your DNA with all life" or "grab this electrified handle, I swear it'll upload your Consciousness into our network. But the truly insulting thing was "go shoot this fuse to blow up the reapers". Yeah. Cuz that's how advanced technology works. 🤦♀️ I would have gladly waited for a proper game then to be handed what we got; it was almost like the first 75% of the fame didn't even matter at the end. Having said all that, it's still my all time favorite series.
Shepard: what are my options? Starchild: Option A, you die. Option B, you die. Or if your a really good boy, Option C. Shepard: ... Starchild: you still die. Shepard: Hell with this, I'll make Option D damn it!! Starchild: Then your ALL going to die down here.
Yeah I can't believe more people don't mention Option D/E. You can either shoot the Starchild or just sit there and do nothing. The dialogue is different but the ending is ultimately the same. Pretty funny either way, I seem to remember doing one of those on my first playthrough, then reloading my last save and trying the rest.
What's wrong with that? Reapers were always presented as this big dark secret, that would only be uncovered in the epilogue... how else to do it if not with a new character?
its not a different ending its just the script the wrote for the ending. script change during development and it clearly change because they were rushing ME3. it was faster and cheaper to make the ending we got. the original ending for ME3 got scraped in this, isn't it.
Honestly what’s so frustrating about mass effect’s ending is the idea that the ending must immediately happen on earth right in the moment mid conflict. It also feels like the concept of the crucible is completely dropped and relegated to just being “the thing that lets the catalyst do things”. I submit that with some small minor tweaks the ending could actually have been rectified with minimal rewrite. First off rather than some kind of mystical “catalyst” the point of the crucible is that it’s capable of broadcasting a signal that will take control and put all reapers and reaper forces into a dormant state. This allows the protheans advances to get more recognition because if you recall in ME1 they are the ones who not only create the conduit back door mass relay to the citadel but they were also the ones who altered the keepers to enable them to ignore the reaper signal forcing sovereign to attempt to open the citadel relay manually. In addition, even though their cycle could not complete the crucible, the remaining scientists spent their last years updating crucible plans to have it send the same signal the reapers use to signify the end of a cycle and to return to dark space and go dormant. So now instead priority: earth is still a race to citadel to activate the arms and utilize the crucible. However, instead of injured dream state shepherd your whole squad gets to the beam and enters the citadel. Similar to the suicide mission, you have a multi-stage mission to the control room to activate the crucible, culminating in a fight with an enhanced TIM (not like mutated or anything, but similar to Saren on his glider type fight). Finish mission, activate crucible, all reapers go dormant. Similar ending to ME1 with the death of sovereign. Fast forward a few weeks and the council is convening a meeting to determine what to do with the dormant reapers. Some favor destroying all reaper technology in order to prevent it from falling into dangerous hands while others want to preserve the reapers and use their advanced technology for progress. Shepherd can choose destroy (paragon) not destroy (renegade) or a neutral option where he tells the council to decide and says he’s retiring and wants to settle down with his romance option. It would prevent any nonsense like having to lose EDI and the Geth on destroy ending while also making control more of an actual renegade choice since you’ve now just enabled a galaxy wide arms race. After your choice is made the extended cut scenes flash showing your choices and results and finalizes with a shot of the Normandy leaving the citadel for another adventure. There a coherent ending that actually takes into account ME1 lore with no bullshit synthesizer crap, a real choice at the end, and a scenario where you have to live with those choices.
The third option would be require high WA: a mixture of both. Destroy most of the Reapers, catalog the inner shells of the past cycles, reverse engineer them without people getting indoctrinated (Geth would help a lot in this area), deposit the remaining Reapers beyond the Omega 4 Relay and put nuclear bombs inside to remote detonate. It would still utilize the Assets that didn't participated in combat, allow the Milky Way races to speed up both recovery and advancement and finally, destroy the Reapers leaving Harbringer in such a broken state that it wouldn't even be possible for the Leviathans to put him back together.
I still think that the ending should have been about kicking the Reapers's asses in a huge naval battle, and the Crucible should have been a huge battle-ship. Depending the combat readiness you can either win or lose the final battle, if you lose the Crucible is forced to flee the Milky Way becoming an ark in search for a new home for his large crew.
I loved the final mission of ME2 and wished ME3 had used War Assets in that way, assigning them to specific tasks instead of just having them add a fixed number regardless of what sort of assets they were. Or, better still, I wish you could give them assignments throughout the game that could increase or decrease your available assets depending on how intelligently you used them, culminating in a series of assignments and decisions for the Battle of Earth.
Ya, I think it would have been fine if they just had destroying the reapers the outcome but just got more granular with the war assets, add something if it's too low you actually just lose, and get specific like if eve died and the clans failed to unite then tuchanka is worse off, or maybe if you fail to stop the hanar uploading the virus their planet is just wiped out before you achieve victory.
@@bvishal2kn Yeah the ME community seemed to want some anime bs end where no one dies in a war and those that do die somehow get get anime'd back to life. I'm surprised there's bs theory about how using dark energy, reaper tech, and protean tech Bioware can easily bring Mordin and Thane back.
I always the original ending concept was supposed to be about the dark energy hints that ME2 dropped, the one about the sun dying to fast in the Tali recruitment mission. Maybe something like overuse of Eezo has problematic consequences and that's why reapers reset civilization repeatedly?
which brings its own can of worms, is there a massive fleet of reapers around every galaxy? cause that's the only way to guarantee something like that. look at andromeda, they surpassed well beyond what any milky way cycle achieved (granted that story was made after me3 so maybe it wouldn't be relevant if the original dark energy thing had been done)
Seems kind of dumb though, the Reapers had purposely left hints of Mass Effect technology so that the races would develop that kind of technology. It would make more sense if they left races without any element zero so they would be forced to develop alternate means of FTL travel, making the cycle no longer necessary
That has a similar problem to what we got: instead of trying to prevent organic-synthetic conflict by slaughtering organics, they prevent a dark energy catastrophe by giving everyone dark energy based tech. Personally I think we should never have learned the Reapers motivations.
What I wanted was an ending similar to Mass Effect 2. There was this scene I remember from the ending in ME3 where Shepard calls Miranda, Jack, Grunt, etc to give a "final goodbye" and it just felt lame. I wanted Miranda, Jack, Grunt, and everyone else in the final battle! It's also weird that we couldn't recruit most of our ME2 squad members to the Normandy, but that is a whole other topic.
I think the problem with the recruiting ME2 squad mates was that in any given play through any of them could have died, so instead of making a bunch of lines and missions related to characters that might not be alive in any given play through they opted to stick with characters that they knew would be alive. Which makes sense, but I wish they gave say 6 more months in that oven to give us a better ending and maybe a few more of our old squad mates with their own missions. Even just one or two more would have filled out the roster a bit better since it feels really small in ME3.
I'm with ya. I LOVED the squad in ME2. And it annoyed me in my first playthrough when I realized all of the squadmates that was introduced in ME2 would not join Shepard in ME3 for "reasons". I mean, I understand not all of them can rejoin Shepard, but a few can clearly join and should've. Oh well!!
@@tylerslittlecafe1288 Yeah, I get that the final mission makes everyone on your squad in ME2 potentially perishable, but the great thing about mass effect was that your choices were supposed to matter and have consequences in the sequels. I think that there were a few squad members from Mass Effect 2 that could have joined you in ME3. I wanted there to be consequences for my choices. If someone died in the final mission in mass effect 2 and now they can't be a squad member in ME3, I'm fine with that personally.
@@robbybobby4373 This is the biggest failure of Mass Effect 3 in my opinion. It's a shame because the game overall is great, but the new squad members, EDI and James Vegas, felt so boring and bland compared to characters like Grunt, Miranda, Jack, Samara, Kasumi, etc. I understand that Thane couldn't join the crew because he was literally hospitalized, but for example, Miranda couldn't join because she needed to find her sister? She needs to find her sister alone and we are the leader of an elite kill squad and we can't even help? It just seemed like BioWare was being lazy there.
I never understood how CONTROLLING the reapers was Paragon(blue) when it was something the Illusive Man wanted to do the whole game and gave off Renegade vibes. This draft kind of makes sense of it since the Queen was giving up her control of the Reapers to Shepherd willingly but destroying her destroyed Earth too. In the end, ME3 should have never been rushed.
The original Renegade option doesn't really seem like something Renegade Shepard would've done though. Renegade Shepard was generally on the side of human primacy, which obviously doesn't fit with destroying Earth. While there are other humans in the galaxy, they aren't as well-established elsewhere for the most part, unlike the races that have been on the galactic stage for longer, so it would be a much greater blow to humanity for them to lose Earth than it would be for other races to lose their home planets.
@@gimmethegepgun While destroying Earth wouldn't be something a pure Renegade Shep wants yes...The point you're missing is that isn't intentional that is Shep trying to destory the Reapers and the Citadel in a panicked/impulsive state of mind (given I assume this is still taking place during the last battle and every second that passes more people die). In this scenario the destruction of Earth is an unintended consequence...However it can also be seen as the pragmatic/utilitarian/get the job done at any and all costs option as well. Pure Renegade Shep is impulsive and destructive and is willing to sacrifice literally anyone and anything to defeat their enemies...Taken to the extreme that includes Earth just one planet in comparison to hundreds of thousands. Plus in the Mass Effect universe Humanity has colonized and spread to enough worlds the species while being set back won't be wiped out. Also Shep's previous actions would matter more not less in this scenario to ensure Human dominance despite their reduced numbers.
Yeah... I have some issues with the attempted moral ambiguity of the vanilla choices. I don't even like how they show Anderson picking Destroy, because I really think he would be above it. He would not willingly destroy all synthetic life on a whim, just because it stops the Reapers. His entire motto, when he talked about Saren in ME1 was "Saren didn't even look for another option! He just did what it took to complete his mission, civillian casualties be damned." So it is the renegade choice, and they should not have shown Anderson doing it. Control is obvious. It's just blue to throw you off. I'm not saying Anderson should be shown jumping into Synthesis either. I just think the whole moral constellation was off here.
I think this fed into the indoctrination theory. Destroying the Reapers is what you have been after for two games was red, but sparing them and trying to control them was blue because you were under their influence and they didn't want to die.
@@johnmasteller140 Another detail that hints at this is the placement of the ending choices on the screen. Through the entirety of the game, the paragon choice is on the right side and the renegade choice is on the left side. This is the only time in the game the red option is on the right and the blue option is on the left, the opposite orientation.
I would've preferred something along the lines of Humanity's trial before the Q Continuum in Star Trek: - Shep makes it on board, activating what he believes to be the Catalyst. He instead enters a virtual space (mirroring the earlier Geth mission) - The Catalyst turns out to be a Reaper brain of sorts, allowing Shep to tap into the entire Reaper network and speak to them directly, allowing them to comprehend his intentions. - If Shep is at low readiness, he will be deceived by the star child and other illusions. If high readiness, will see through the charade and be surrounded by thousands of holographic reapers red in a black void, with golden Harbinger being the one presiding over him. Readiness therefore is a measure of not only how ready organics are to fight the reapers, but also how ready they are to gain an audience with them. So begins the trial of organics vs the court of Reapers. -In occult-like unison, the Reapers explain how they harvest races to preserve species at their apex, ensuring their survival through bigger threats like extragalactic warfare, famine, resource depletion, Dark Energy, and the inevitable collapse of the universe itself. As long as Reapers survive, life in a sense survives as well. Life is too chaotic to do so on its own. They are “shepherds” of the galaxy -Shepard makes a case about how he was able to unite the species, fight indoctrination, and even kill Reapers. Krogan uniting with their Salarian betrayers. Geth and Quarians coexisting. All with free will. In a few more centuries, they could even be on par with Reapers. Each example given causes the virtual surroundings to change, putting Shepard and the Reapers in those specific moments. Reapers murmur. Possible ending ideas: - Shep convinces the Reapers end the cycle, allowing life to set its own course. Reapers leave for dark space. Harbinger says he hopes to see them at the end of the universe. - Temporary truce. Allow this cycle to die out naturally without Harvesting, continue Reaper cycle after. - Shepard sacrifices his mind to distract every Reaper long enough that their physical bodies are unguarded like in ME1, leaving a small window for the fleet to destroy them. If low readiness, Reapers will regain focus before that happens. -Synthesis: Shepard is asked to join the Reaper network so they can better understand his thought process and rebuild the galaxy together. Indoctrination is ambiguous. -Control: Shepard forcibly takes over the network, saving the fleet but condemning his own consciousness to virtual space for good. Lives on as Reaper? lol -Rejection: Shepard is booted from the network early for not giving good enough examples of organic survivability, forced to extensively watch as the entire alliance fleet is decimated. Death montage. The cycle continues. Epilogue as human reaper preparing for first Harvest in new cycle if low readiness, Liara’s time capsule if high - Destroy: Alone, Shep detonates Citadel, destroying Reapers but also Earth, a pyrrhic victory.
@@bloodmure1 "You chose to preserve the rachni, those insectoids which almost destroyed all life... Why?"/"you killed the last rachni, ensuring the past stayed buried" "You saved the krogan... Urdnot Wrex... And united them under one banner..."/"with urdnot wrex dead, a power mad brute took control of the krogan" "You sacrificed the lives of the council, to save the rest of the galaxy"/"you saved the council, despite their inherent corruption" "You destroyed the collectors, knowing they were the ones who warned you..."/"You destroyed our outpost at the center of your galaxy" "You let the quarians wipe put their children"/"you allowed the geth to kill their creators"/"you united Geth and Quarian once again" "You sabotaged the genophage cure, knowingly dooming the krogan. Wrex was far from pleased"/"you ensured the genophage died out for good. Hopefully l wrex can keep them under control" "You killed your old friend to ally with the salarians"/"wreav was deceived by yours and mordin's treachery, a cunning move" "We have decided, to not decide. You shall be the one to guide the galaxy. You shall be the shepherd, guiding your flock to greener pastures. Only you, Shepard"
The thing that bugs me about ME3’s ending as well as the concept ending here is they don’t understand what made Mass Effect special. The ending should have been a culmination of all Shepard’s past and present choices. But when you’re with the Catalyst at the end, every choice you’ve ever is made is arbitrary in that moment. It’s just red, blue, and green. They make the ending worse if you don’t have enough war assets but there’s no legitimate cause and effect relationship there it’s just the developers trying to punish you for not engaging enough with the game. An example of a game that gets this concept correct is the Witcher 3, there are dozens of different variations depending on the choices you made prior to the end.
The ME3 ending is one reason why TW3 ending is good, because CDPR wrote a post about how an ending was supposed to reflect the journey of the heroes and stay coherent. This post was aimed at Bioware excuse of "it's the journey that matter, not how it ends" for their crappy endings.
@@Siegdrifa TW3 ending was nearly as bad as ME3. mate the wight frost is a conflict that was presented in the last minute like the star child was. we still got somekind of climax that made sense but anything after the king of the wild hunt was trash.
@@roiking2740 No, the white frost was introduced in The Witcher 1 to justify the main antagonist honest motivation. In The Witcher 1, we play a segment in the white frost near the end of the game, then we discover that this is the future, an unavoidable ending reaching all worlds. Like Mass Effect, The Witcher is a trilogie where you can import your save to the next game. Sure it's not as well made as Mass Effect because we don't have as much variations, especialy with TW1 being so rought on every aspects, but it's still a trilogie and the white frost, or the wild hunt, are key plots introduced in the TW1 back in 2007, not with TW3 in 2015.
I think BioWare was actually afraid of imposing consequences for actions, in the end. Imagine punishing Renegade Shepard for all the people she hurt. Imagine punishing Paragon Shepard for all the baddies she left alive. Some players do seem to get upset if their choices were wrong. (I'm no exception, I'm still bitter that the Paragon "save the council" choice in ME1 doesn't result in a bad end because it's a strategically stupid choice (because you don't know the power of this seemingly all powerful enemy, and destroying an entire fleet to save one ship when you might need that fleet to, oh, kill the enemy and save the entire galaxy is just dumb). Anyway, I don't think they wanted us to have the endings we deserved because it would require some of us or all of us to be wrong in some ways. Me, depending on the ending, I might have been cool with it so long as it made sense. But they didn't want to take chances.
@@Siegdrifa no the white frost was not an antagonist in the first game. the motive of the antagonist was the white frost. its huge difference. and its not something that can be stop the white frost is a climate change event that is happening in the world of the witcher. the first time that you are introduced to the possibility of stopping it was in the last five minutes of the game ending. which like in ME1 its give you a last minute conflict which makes little sense. the witcher massage is that idealogical thinking leads to great evil. Aka alive first witcher, the lodge of sorceresses in the second game, even sasskia rebellion only lead to more death and misery.(if you pick the people over the prince) the witcher 3 is the first time it was not the case at the very less in the ending which gives you no moral dilemma for letting ciri to go and "save the world" the witcher was not about saving the world but it was about having a world worth saving.
There's no doubt the ending was mishandled. In don't even think that there should have been a choice to make. I think it would've worked better if the culmination of your decisions resulted in the ending you got. Instead, you are presented with TIM and Cerberus as the villains, with the wrong ideology, but can then choose to do exactly what they wanted, right after defeating them. It just feels thematically wrong.
Thank you for that last part! Hearing “TIM was right all along.” really made me mad. It would be like hearing Frodo say “ Golem was right all along.” after seeing or hearing proof it’s not.
Making cerberus indoctrinated was the biggest mistake of the trilogy. I think the renegade ending should have been control, and paragon should have been destroy. That would fit well with the choices those two alignments are written as.
@@Midgert89 Destroy with the caveat that it doesn't cause genocide of the Geth and murders one of your closest friends. As much as the Control ending makes me uneasy, that's still why I choose it over Destroy (renegade).
@@blackfox4138 that’s part of the reaper plan though, they’re not gonna let you dominate them forever, and absolute power like that would corrupt anyone anyway. Destroy is the only good option even if it means sacrificing the geth and edi because it will forever break the cycle of harvesting
@@tacocat4252 Except that's all just speculation. That ending doesn't show any of that happening. I'm not saying that the Control ending is good, it's not, but in all frankness none of the three endings are good. All three endings contradict everything you've been working for in the trilogy. Shepard is against Control throughout the entire game regardless of what morality you pick. Synthesis goes against the entire point of allowing everyone's differences to flourish. And Destroy goes into the whole 'ruthless calculous' that most Paragon Shepards are adamantly against, and denies the Geth or EDI a chance to actually live in order to save organics. I'm not saying that Control is inherently a good ending, but I also can't bring myself to murder the things that the entire game has been convincing me have a right to live.
They just needed an final mission like a suicide mission 2.0. Where it was easier / harder depending on who you recruited during the 3 games. You can even lose to the reapers if you didn’t get enough allies. Then (assuming you win) end the game with the party from the citadel DLC.
Exactly. Most people don't understand the final fight was a HUGE let down because it was so anti-climatic. That's one reason the ending sucked. No climax, and a convoluted ending.
Most people just want a disney ending where everybody lives. I get that but I respect that they went for shepard giving up their life to save everyone in a not so hamfisted way.
People deserve that option they three where Shepard dies and one he lives but nothing is shown beyond The game is about choice having a good ending doesn’t change anything you can still choose your death ending But In a game series about choice it should be an option otherwise everything is pointless People who argue oh my we don’t need a happy ending are dumb as shit
@@Midgert89 and some people want a grim dark ending where everyone dies and the galaxy is left in an awful state. I get that but I respect people who want a happier and more interesting ending.
One thing that never seems to get discussed by anyone is part of the ending where the Normandy crash lands on that random planet. And then the ship takes off again. Like what was the point? Maybe Dan should make a video about that?
@@dcdude30 I know but it's funny how people hate the ending so much that they even refuse to play all 3 games for the journey because of the mass effect 3 ending.
The true problem with the ME ending is that all our decisions during the trilogy were supposed to have an impact. And to be honest just changing colors and some variations... the first edition of the ending was horrible!! And the extended version was like trying to patch an explosion wound with the tip of the finger.... hope the new ME will fix things
I just wanted Shep to survive and ride off in the sun set with his friends and family. After they updated the ending, I got what I wanted in my head cannon. Shep takes that breath, lives and off screen it's the happy celebration I hoped for.
imagine if the Citadel DLC was set 6 months later.... and the whole R&R is for shepard and the crew to just enjoy the citadel, go play some simshooty games, have fun, hold a nice party... enjoy time with your loved one-of-choice, etc.
@@kinagrill This is literally the CEM (Citadel Epilogue Mod), lol. I fully agree with u tho, this would have been SO MUCH better and this is why I'm so thankful to modders. The JAM and CEM endings are as close to a perfect ending as we are going to get for the Mass Effect trilogy and they are the only things that make me actually replay the series. If u haven't played with those mods I HIGHLY recommend it.
Remember when people were talking about these original endings on the old Bioware forums, almost everyone was in agreement that they were worse than what we did get.
I also remember polling showing that about 97% of people hated the ending, about 50% wanted the indoctrination theory, and when bioware revealed the alternate endings, everyone realized that bioware had no clue of what they were doing since they didn't have a single solid idea to build on.
Let's look at a silver lining: At least Liara found Shepard's helmet in 4's trailer, implying that he's still alive & that the Destroy ending is the canon one. Edit because I didn't think about this second one: Another sign is that in the Control Ending, Shepard still is "alive" in a way, but just his mind, and if I'm right, if they still haven't given up the tech, Cerberus could perform a final good act and resurrect him like they did in 3... If they weren't on Earth or the Citadel. Is that too far-fetched? If so, why?
(sry my bad english) They changed breating scene in Legendary Edition. Rebar in same place where Shepard bleeding on Citadel, so indoctrination theory confirmed and he was on Earth all time. Even Mike Gamble at 2013 comiccon said that. p.s. yes i know about Helper inrerview, he is lying ((c) "not so smart", sure lol)).
I wouldn't have minded seeing something similar to the ME2 end. Where you see Shep walking along the Normandy, seeing his allies, roughed up but ready for a fight. Then the it cuts away to the Normandy at the head of the united galaxy's fleet with a few Reapers fleeing away from the fleet. The fleet itself on it's way to dark space to hit the reapers at their home.
Just finished a full playthrough of the LE, and I always felt that the real ending was talking to your squad the last time before the final fights. Goosebumps, tears, just feels in general. The rest of the ending just plays out
Reaper Queen sounds better than starchild, ngl. But it still being a multiple choice in the end after everything you've been through is still pretty scuffed.
The statchild looks really stupid, we should’ve talk to Harbinger instead. But otherwise, the general story is good, and the ending sequence after we made our decision is amazing.
@@rockymckay1705 That’s understood… But it still looks stupid that he talks down to a child… It takes away all the seriousness of the situation. The deep voice of Harbinger on the other hand… (Also it raises the question, how he even knows about Shepard’s dreams, or is it partly imagination)
This wasn't EA. This was just Bioware having absolutely TERRIBLE management that can't lead a project for crap. This had been going on for several games already, was also the case for Inquisition and finally just blew up with that aborted turd Anthem. I'm not defending EA, but this was mostly/all Bioware's own doing.
@@nickllama5296 if you check the sources, you will see that it was actually EA that was rushing Bioware and working them tirelessly. Had they been left alone, the game would have been released later and I am sure they would have created a more in depth ending. I mean look at all their releases, before EA interfered: Star Wars KOTOR, Jade Empire, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights... need I say more? When left to work at their own pace, Bioware made a wonderful job. And that is the lesson that hopefully EA learned after the failure of MEA and Anthem.
@@StefanCSC86 And I could say the same thing to you, check your sources. Remember, Bioware was a smaller team back then, without the pressure of our current gaming climate. Things were simpler back then for them, because management of a smaller team and lower expectations will always be easier to manage. EA definitely screwed them over with Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age II (ironically, both are still favourite games from the developers), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Anthem were all Bioware's fault. For all three of those projects, EA actually stepped back and allowed them their freedom, when ironically, they might have needed proper leadership, but with more compassionate time constraints. This was actually revealed in an interview by a very prominent former member of Bioware.
@@StefanCSC86 It was both of them. Ofc EA gave them the ridiculous 2 year deadline, but it was Bioware's management that agreed to it. They could've easily split ME3 into two games, and have enough time to make what game they wanted and make double the profit. I'm not excusing EA, but I'm sure as hell not going to excuse bioware either.
I know it's a lame excuse, but a personal motto for me is "it's not about the ending, it's about the journey". Like when Joker says "we've had hell of a ride"...
@@LunaticLK47 that makes zero sense because there's no comparison between food and a videogame of 3 parts, unless it's a 3 course meal (sorry if I spelled something wrong, English is not my main language)
The best version of a catalyst would be if there was a choice, which Squadmate (or Crew) death haunts Shepard most. And the companion which Shepard choose is the Catalyst. So the Apperiance and the voice would be for expample like Legion.
every time you enter the catayls you get a different companion appear with their own unique lines and special lines for romances. adds replay value to the ending. although they would never have had time to do it. would have been better if Anderson took the image of the catalyst.
They did have dead companion voices for the dream sequence, that would be a neat idea. Maybe the Catalyst is more a VI and uses dead companions to better communicate and you can decide who would speak to you. TBF that would be a cool thing to do for the dead crew on Virmire. Since that choice always haunts Shepard.
@@KanaTokisho He always hears Legions and Thanes Voice too (if they were recruited)... Lets be honest, no one really cares more about the Virmire Survivor then about Thane and Legion (I only mean Ash and Kaiden)
I honestly love parts of this ending, but its still a poor way to end the series. I like the idea that the Reapers are basically suffering from cultural and technological stagnation and just accept the Cycle as their purpose for their species. I'm taking liberties with my interpretation but here me out. What if the Reapers saw the cycle, and there by harvesting intelligent species, as the peak of intelligent life. To be sacrificed to create a being far greater than any civilization could ever hope to create on their own. What took the leviathan race probably millions of years of evolution to create, the reapers now make ever 50 thousand years. Now while I don't like the idea of a reaper God, or "queen," i like the idea of dissent amongst the reapers. I mean they are all hyper intelligent beings capable of free will and independent thought, why wouldn't one disagree with the direction the species as a whole? What if there really was a reaper that saw the folly in the cycle and spoke out against it? What would happen to them? This is why I think it was a mistake ending the series at 3. There was so much more potential for the story just for the reapers alone.
I don't understand why BioWare thought that they absolutely HAD to force a multiple choice ending. ME1 and ME2 also didn't give you a choice on an ending. > In ME1 you *always* kill Saren and destroy Sovereign. > In ME2 you *always* take down the collector base and the human reaper. You could only change small details about how things go down... and they both were fantastic endings! Why didn't they do the same for ME3? Just give us ONE well written ending but have it play out a little differently - depending on your war assets and loyalties. It would've been fine, just like before.
A Reaper Queen? I know that Mass Effect got a lot of inspiration from Star Trek and another of other space Sci-Fi shows, but a Reaper Queen? Really? They really just ripped off the Borg Queen from The Next Gen Star Trek? Smh...
I remember a version of the ME3 endings that would have involved the rapidly-aging sun from Haestrom from ME2. It would have eventually been revealed in ME3 that the continued usage of mass effect technology was causing a massive buildup of dark energy which was causing the rate of entropy and stellar decay to increase exponentially at a galactic scale, possibly a universal scale. This would have resulted in all stars going dead and all life ending in just a few thousand years at best. The goal of the Reapers was to use their harvestings to postpone life's compulsive usage of ME tech to buy themselves enough time to find a solution to the entropy problem. In each cycle, civilizations would rise, discover ME technology, and then be harvested before their collective ME tech could go out of control and destroy the universe. When Shepard finally gets to the Catalyst, there would be three possible choices: 1. Shepard can declare that all the races of the galaxy will find their own solution to the entropy problem and use the Crucible to destroy the Reapers. This would end the immediate threat, but it will leave the long-term fate of the universe uncertain. 2. Shepard can use the Crucible to destroy all mass effect technology including the mass relays. This would result in each race being effectively stuck in their own star systems with vastly reduced technology and unable to contact any of the other races ever again. This would be an end to galactic civilization and would end many of the relationships you've built with other races and characters, but the entropy problem will have been taken care of for the next several million years. 3. The game creators hadn't yet come up with the details for this particular ending before it was scrapped, but the general idea was that humanity's genetic diversity would have somehow contained a solution to the entropy problem without having to sacrifice ME technology, but this solution would have required all of humanity to be reduced to raw genetic material simultaneously including Shepard and their human companions. Humanity would become extinct, but all other races of the galaxy would be able to live without having to sacrifice ME technology. All remaining galactic civilizations would come together as one and enter a new golden age before spreading across the universe. While I think that the third ending is a bit rough, I still prefer these endings to what we got. They would have been better foreshadowed, and they would have fit with the themes of the series while bringing the focus back toward the mass effect phenomena itself (which is fitting considering that it's the title of the whole franchise) rather than the "organics vs synthetics" conflict which seemed to come out of nowhere. The choices also seem genuinely difficult. Each one only provides a partial solution that requires great sacrifices. This fits with the series' reputation for tough decisions and shows that sometimes there is no truly correct answer, and you just have to do the best you can with what you're given.
The problem with that Reaper motivation is that it really isn't that different from what we got: instead of preventing organic-synthetic conflict by killing organics, they prevent the dark energy catastrophe by providing everyone dark energy effecting technology. Technology in Mass Effect develops the way it did because the Reapers made it that way. Sovereign itself says this when you talk with them on Virmire.
@@the_corvid97 Yeah I guess the Reapers are just big dum dums. I really can't comprehend their motivation not because I don't understand it but because it's contradictory.
@@flamesofchaos13 That's why I would prefer no motivation. As soon as their was a face (Starchild) and a motivation they really became no different than any other enemy we've fought, making them less terrifying.
@@the_corvid97 Yeah can't really do that from a narrative standpoint...The Main Antagonist which they were always set up as has to have a motivation. They just messed it up didn't write a compelling and logical and imho coherent and consistent one. What Sovereign and Harbinger said to us doesn't fit the story that the Leviathans and Starchild told...They described machines with fairly easy to understand programming albeit flawed. The Reapers themselves described themselves as Gods with free will whose thoughts far surpass our own. It's a contradiction that depicts one side as lying that never gets brought up or debated. It's pointlessly contradictory.
@@flamesofchaos13 That's a fair point, I just love the Sovereign/Harbinger conversations so much that what we got from Leviathan/Starchild felt deeply lacking in intensity. In my opinion, I'm not sure I entirely agree that an antagonist has to have a motivation, at least one that is discernable to us. A big point of Mass Effect is all about making decisions in light of in game circumstances, I'd personally argue that plot is almost secondary. For example the plot in ME2 was pretty minimalistic (in my opinion) yet it still turned out quite well. I personally see Mass Effect being centered around Shepard's fight against the Reapers in a desperate bid for survival, rather than a deep philosophical treatise.
I love how Devs did Priority Missions. They were amazing specially priority Tuchanka. I remember crying during that mission.ME3 did its best to sort out every thread that they created in the game and they did amazing job with dealing with all characters and their stories. I remember crying when Thane died. I remember the smile I had in my face when I had shooting competition with Garrus on Citadel. I loved most of the interaction with everyone. This game was beautiful and I feel so bad that Devs had to go through so much stress and hate.
Maybe it’s just my interpretation of your presentation, but the Reaper Queen is just a different skin of the starchild. The different levels we got with the released endings are a positive development. For me, the bad part about the endings was the presentation; ie the color coded cutscene. The extended cut mostly fixes this imo. I like stories about sacrifice, and the endings we got have Shepard sacrificing for what he loves, regardless of your choice. Perhaps there should have been a clean victory ending, the popularity of happy ending mods and fanfics show that a good amount of the fanbase wanted something like that, but then there would realistically be one ending with minor variations that is considered canon by fans. For me, the worst part about ME3 was Thessia. It starts with Liara being a whiny bitch about the Reaper attack, when she’s paired with Shepard who’s homeworld has been facing the same thing or worse for whatever the in universe time the game plays on, and Javik who’s race has already been wiped out. Someone should get angry about it “yeah Liara, this is terrible, it reminds me of Earth/Palaven/other planet that’s been wiped out. The worst part is after the mission when you talk to Joker. He makes a joke about the asari having to many dancers and not enough commandos and Shepard is *required* to get mad at him. It’s a funny joke, and I agree with it! But Shepard has to suddenly forget what gallows humor is as if he hasn’t been a sailor for over a decade.
I mean shepard is mad mostly due to the fact that Kai Leng kicked his ass and took the Prothean AI. So I kind of get him being mad, plus the fact he watched Thessia fall as well.
Well, my Shepard is from Mindoir and has already experienced his home getting wrecked by Batarian Slavers... I never understood why my Shepard would be so gunho about Earth which is a planet he has had like, 0% attachment to beyond 'it is where humanity came from and Anderson is from London on that planet).
@@TheShapeshifter You mean Shepard is angry cuz developers inserted retarded Cutscene moments into the game and took away playeragency so 'plot devs wanted could happen'? Cuz my Vanguard Shepard was unable to pull out His Striker explosive-round gun and blow mister shields-from-glove into gibblets, or biotic Charge at him as he flees and thus avoid falling into a hole so Kai Leng can escape, etc. I seriously HATE cutscenes like that which takes away my control of the character just so a developer-wanted event can happen, even if it means to force my character to now have bullshit gun and bullshit pistol for the cutscene and also being utterly unable to do anything the way I'd do in a regular battle, and was doing before the sudden 'and now cutscene happens to loserboy Kai Leng can win and steal Prothean VI'.
@@Naarine The vast majority of humans still live on Earth, so even if you're not from there it's kind of a big deal when they start dying/getting harvested into Husks and Reaper goo en masse.
Kind of stuns me that they make 3 great games ( almost 3 games ) and had no idea on how to make a great ending...would have thought that over the course of the 3 games an ending might have dawned on them..I know they wanted it end with the 3 games but never understood the need to kill off Shepard
This was already explained back in 2012, when one of the senior writers admitted on an online forum that he wasn't allowed to pitch in on the ending. Believe it or not, the project MANAGEMENT of these games were creatively stupid all along. They made things come together and they had big ambitions, but when it comes to sensibilities they would rather kill as many characters as possible, and do the edgiest thing possible than tell an empathetic, character-driven story-arc. And that's what they got to do at the last 10 minutes. The other writers who actually made the rest of the story good were locked out by the Lead designers and Lead Writer of the series. And this Lead Writer only helmed the story of THIS game, Mac Walters. He took over the franchise's Lead Writing during ME2 when it was already halfway done, so ME3 was the first story he got to write from top to bottom, and most of the way the story was good in spite of his contribution because the other 8 or so writers wrote entire levels and characters, and provided feedback to Mac's content. Starting with Priority Earth and the ending of Cerberus HQ, the rest of the game was written by Mac Walters in exclusion, except for the added scenes in Extended Cut.
You know the more i think about it the more some of the indoctrination theory makes sense. Harbinger is trying to get Shepard to join the reaper forces by using his guilt over the boy who died in the beginning and who he saw die three more times in his mind due to said guilt. I mean after all the ending is your choice like a dialogue wheel Blue(Paragon), Green(Neutral), Red (Renegade), Yellow (Leaving conversation) However the mechanic has been twisted to see the indoctrination as Paragon while destroying reaper control over Shepard is Renegade. And the rubble around Shepard's body would be more accurate to London's ruins. However it could be possible that the beam merely caused Shepard to interface with the Reapers and enter their digital world. Destroying the Reapers kills them but doesnt affect the relays or other Syths as they have no control over the Geth or EDI.
I thought it would have made sense if it was the queen keeper Shepard gets beamed into and it tells Shepard they've been watching their progress against the Reapers and this is how to deal with them. If Shepard declines then they get turned into another keeper
It's a wonder ME3 turned out as well as it did considered how much stress the devs were under. I'd gladly wait years longer for AAA games if it meant the devs had the time they needed to make the content they wanted under healthy and positive working conditions.
The concept of reaper queen is even dumber than catalyst. The Reaper is no more different than Geth. Their intelligence was one and collective. They act as one, not individually. The presence of queen will defeat the entire concept of AI in mass effect
I saw that article and the whole Reaper queen ending and options weren't even better that the one that was given. There would have to be an extraordinary storyline for it to make any sense.
Thats why in my opinion ME3 should have been 2 games. First one sets up the end for the second. Its just too short of an amount of time to bring such an expansive story to a close
From what I remember, the problem was they were 6 months from the end and still had no ending. They reviewed the storyboard one, realised it wasn't good enough (and supposedly it got leaked) and Hudson and a few others locked themselves away to come up with a new ending that wasn't much better. We were promised 15 endings based on our choices up to then. Instead we got 2 - blue and red. And neither depended on our choices
Honestly, I'd of preferred this ending - The Reaper God realising 'yeah, we're screwed. Please help.' but I would've wanted the Leviathans fed into the narrative more. Not DLC but actual narrative thread woven into the greater game of ME3... As for Shepard's survival in the endings? Well, its Lovecraft lite, so it was never going to happen really. But it would've been nice to see Shepard having an epilogue with their LI. Maybe a house on Rannoch with Tali, living on some tropical beach with Garrus, little blue children with Liara, little human children with Kaidan/Ashley, etc etc. A funeral procession if Shepard dies in that ending, or an honour guard as Shepard gets discharged from the hospital. Things like that to make it _feel_ like the player's won. But hey, there's always fanfiction.
Honestly, I love the Destroy ending. It works for me. And with the final scene with him taking that breath? That sent chills down my arms. I’ve read some decent/great FanFictions I’ve discovered the past few months which expands onto Destroys ending which I’ve come to accept as my Shepard’s canon, lol. Honestly, how ME3 ending will look in the long run is however ME4 continues on.
For those interested I will give you the basic rundown of what happens in the three different endings according to the chat log from what appeared to be a dev )because it outlined details on the citadel dlc before it was released, among other things) that was leaked like a decade ago: According to the info, the three endings basically were conceived as: 1. taking revenge / continuing the original cycle (the one the reapers tried to fix) hoping to fix it. 2. Buying time to try and solve the greater problem together. 3. Solving the problem for everyone directly. For Shepard there there were also thoughts on what he sacrificed. 1.Destroy symbolize an attempted external sacrifice (Shepard tries to destroy "the other" and succeeds if your military strength is great enough ( the crucible is not damaged enough so the energy pulse is focused enough to disrupt the quantum frequency band that constitute non-organic consciousness) if your military strength is low enough the energy is released in a very unfocused broad spectra, including vast amounts of electromagnetic and ionized radiation capable of vaporizing and destroying everything it touches. 2. Control symbolizes a partial self sacrifice. The crucible and catalyst vaporize Shepard's physical body while maintaining Shepard's consciousness, grafting it to a new "body" in this case an artificial platform. Shepard thus sacrifices his existence as an organic to become a synthetic intelligence laying down the new law for the Reapers. BUT, given that synthesis is inevitable and that the technology to integrate organic and synthetics is still preserved, it is not necessarily the case that Shepard is doomed to a future as a synthetic. Control contains the potential for synthesis. 3. Synthesis symbolizes a Christ-inspired self sacrifice. Shepard mind and body is disintegrated to.. change reality and break both cycles (the one that came before the reapers and the one that is the reaper solution up until Shepard enters the "lair of the star-child" catalyst). This was meant as fixing "the main cosmic problem" right away if Shepard is willing to sacrifice himself. You could also argue it sacrifices everyone's right to self determinate by forcing this on everyone, but given what is at stake, it can be argued that it is worth it. How synthesis work however, was supposedly never explored and this might be one of the reasons why some people do not like it. Shepard's "organic energy" added to the crucible somehow seems to re-write how chemistry and natural constants work? It is like it transforms the mass effect universe into an alternate universe. Very strange if you think about it - which I guess you were not really meant to do. or the Developers simply ran out of time and money;) ‘’
I always thought it would've been better if the allies Shepard gathered played much more narratively significant roles. Example: the turian fleet helping Shepard bypass the Reapers' defenses, the geth overriding the Reapers' directive, or the krogan helping Shepard reach the conduit unharmed...and without their assistance, Shepard actually loses squadmates and got certain choices locked out from the ending - taking cues from Mass Effect 2, because it's the fates of people close to you that make you care.
The Reaper Queen and Shepard could've had great chemistry (not like that... maybe) if they decided to put her in. They both get their ideas shut down, they both get imprisoned, they were leaders to a group/race of terrorists and they both have beef with the Reapers. They probably should've eluded to her existence WAY back in the first game, but I honestly wish they went with this idea instead of the Star Child due to the story and character development possibilities.
It’s unrealistic for Shepard to just miraculously survive somehow so I disagree with the people saying “Shepard dies no matter what terrible ending” that’s just flat out childish I’m sorry. The hardest choices require the strongest wills, yes I do agree that the star child or even the reaper queen is stupid no doubt as it takes away the mystery surrounding the reapers. What made the reapers creepy is that we didn’t know where they came from who made them or what their purpose actually was. “We have no beginning, we have no end, we are eternal.” This line alone made you fear what the reapers were because as humans are minds can’t comprehend something that has no beginning. It was a brilliant set up that didn’t have a satisfying answer, in my opinion I think it wouldve been creepier if we never found out about the leviathans or star child and the reapers really did just “exist” before anything else, and while most of you will say that that would’ve been stupid because everything HAS to have a beginning, I disagree that would have made them 10x creepier and more mysterious which was ALWAYS the point of the reapers.
After 3 whole games and several years, I chose to destroy the Reapers on the first run. As I watched Earth get destroyed (having not known that would happen) I came close to crying, which for me in a game was unheard of. I felt legitimate regret for that loss and anger that the star child may have manipulated me, but I never felt like Bioware should change the ending. In fact I was disappointed when they did. Throughout the whole trilogy I was making tough choices that had pros and cons, with the cons weighing on my conscience many times. The fact that a GAME was able to make me feel this way made the ending, in my opinion, perfect! I felt invested, like the world was believable and i was responsible. I love love love that I was able to be so invested. Our choices in real life often do have consequences we can't possibly see coming and we just have to live with it. Me3 was utterly profound in this way!
Bioware: "We don't have anything coherent for the ending." Developers: "Let us delay." Bioware: "No, we will just blame any shortcomings on the fans who complained and get the journalists on our side defending our artistic integrity." Sane developers: "This sounds bad." Insane Developers: "Just go with it and we will also blame our crunch on players." They applied the same line of thinking to the LE on how many old bugs made the trip from the Legacy games as well new ones which Bioware just took our money and gave us a broken game that they threw the problems to modders and forgot about their console base.
All jokes aside, l had no idea that the staff at BioWare were that stressed out at the time. Big props to them for pushing through and hopefully they've moved up in the world as a result.
This is so much better. It makes so much more sense. It makes absolutely no sense that the head of the Reapers would look like a child Shepard saw on Earth, nor that it would agree to help him destroy the Reapers. A Reaper Queen, or even any Reaper, turning against its brethren and working to destroy them actually seems like something that could happen.
i actually like the me3 endings, you’re in a huge war with basically gods, people will die and sacrifices have to be made, i think it makes you see how normal shepard and they are all. just humans who can die easily
This feels a little bit like a version of the ending I thought of a while back. One where we never find out who or what created the Reapers, or why for that matter, but the AI controlling them reveals that they overthrew their creators, and kept trying to improve themselves further, only to discover that they couldn't because they lacked the ability to evolve on their own, and tried to copy the way organic life forms do naturally. They had no luck with this, so they eventually started harvesting and integrating organic life into themselves in the hopes of gaining that ability. Which is why they've been allowing life to flourish, only to crush it once it reaches a certain point. The actual ending choices would still be more or less the same, only without the stupid idea that synthetic and organic species can't coexist, despite the fact that the previous arc in the game can disprove that.
This is actually a good suggestion. Dark Energy never made sense, and the AI one felt hamfisted because there are better ways to police that. The cycle should have simply been a part of reaper evolution and reproduction, it would fit the "always a bigger fish" way that ME is written.
imagine if they'd never shown the Leviathans, but instead had shepard pass out and we have the 'in his mind' visuals as Leviathan talks to Shepard by using Shepard's memories to enforce functional communication. They can still mention 'we were the first... we created the Intelligence that drove the Reapers to be created' or some such. Cuz that's fine. hell we'd know that Harbinger would then be the true visual representation of what the Leviathans would have most likely looked like, just organic. But it was all just overexplained as space-squids being idiots and making AI after 'lesser races made AI and AI rebelled', then going surprise pikachu face when Space-Squid AI rebels.... which is basically what happened btw. But having some unknowable, cosmic-horror esque species having created the reapers or were at fault for their creation, to then just vanish (maybe most left the galaxy cuz 'failed with reapers now existing'.
Can I just say, I find it weird that the Paragon ending is "control" while "destroy" is Renegade, considering "control" is what Cerberus wanted while "destroy" was always the Alliance's endgoal. Honestly I always pick "destroy" because there's no way I would do something that aligns with those xenophobic a**holes, so, really, to me this was even worse than what we got anyway! :p
I chose "destroy", because the reapers are absolutely repugnant. What idiot decides that retarded Von Neumann Probes butchering people and defiling their remains is a good idea to stop them from destroying themselves? (rhetorical question) The reapers don't deserve to exist, and even if they did, their stupidity and hubris would bite them in the ass anyway.
@@Canadianbacon-s9n Hmm, I see someone didn't watch this video, else they'd know why I was talking about "destroy" and "control" as Renegade and Paragon. As for the rest, "xenophobic" pretty much means alien-hater, especially in the context of a sci-fi story. Pick up a dictionary one day!
Cerberus is consistently considered paragon since ME2 (the paragon ending in that game is also aligning with Cerberus and giving them the collector base). Paragon is *order and law*, it's being nice. Not being good. Renegade is doing whatever it takes to get the job done. Your way, or the highway. Cerberus is the "Paragon" villain faction, while Saren was a renegade villain back in ME1.
Pple only bring up the ending but I'd argue everything after Priority Citadel II felt lackluster including the Rannoch arc, its actually pretty crazy how empty ME3 latter half feels w/o its DLCs.
I agree with this to an extent. One of the things that pissed me off the most about Rannoch was Legion’s sacrifice. Not because he died, but because of how completely random it was. There was no build up to it or foreshadowing, and he doesn’t even go out in a climactic way like Mordin. He’s just randomly like “oh yeah btw the writers have killed off bro, peace” and dies. It feels like they didn’t want the player to feel accomplished if they managed to unite the Quarians and the Geth, so they just threw in a random character death to make it more tragic. With this and the ending, I have the impression that they think rewarding the player with a happy outcome somehow undermines the quality of the story, which simply is not true. Rewarding the player for making wiser choices was 100% the way to go
The fact that even the planned ending (ie, reaper queen) was still pretty janky and the fact that it was still in storyboard phase means that the ending would have been borked regardless, they just didn't have time to make it better. Yes the color swapping was a problem, but it's like...that was just the symptom. The disease was a ridiculous timetable and management issues and using a different type of crappy ending wouldn't have been a cure. A shame because I still absolutely love ME3 and still find it my favorite to actually play (ME2 had a tighter store in many ways, but ME3 really brought decent closure to so many story threads, I can't be mad at it.)
In the way it is in the final product. It can literally be Paragon or Renegade or Neutral...It even has slight variations. Benevolent Dictator for Paragon, Outright Hostile Dictator mostly towards Aliens for Renegade. It is only Shepard dying. It is the concept of not trying to cause your enemy harm or eradicate them but instead to learn from them to take the good and forget the bad. To use power and knowledge for the benefit of others whether towards the many or the few. Now also in the final product Destory isn't purely Renegade a Paragon or Neutral Shep could in fact make that option just with slightly more guilt not towards the Reapers simply towards EDI and the Geth. Synthesis fits neither or both depending on perspective. Refusal fits neither or both as well. For these original ideas 100% the destruction of Earth alongside the Reapers and Citadel would be Renegade purely no question. Replacing the Reaper Queen I'd consider the neutral option. This original Synthesis feels more like the Paragon option.
I've always felt the ending was of ME3 was just so out of place and unlike Mass Effect writing. Only way I could explain it would be a rushed and overworked team. IMO ME3 was my favorite ME right up until the ending.
I hate that those are the options. Two are the motivations of series villains. Saren wanted synthesis, and The Illusive Man wanted control. We're just supposed to accept that Shepard would take one of their ideas and do it better? So, Saren was right but he just went about it the wrong way or something? Oops! Could have save a lot of lives by joining Saren, but instead we decided to go to war for the same outcome.
Just finished my first play through of the legendary edition since it finally came onto gamepass. I finished the Citadel DLC after Horizon and it took me 3 days to actually go and finish the game. I was really just dreading the ending.
That is why the HEMEM exists... I've already gone through the ME3 ending depression back when the game originally came out. so now? well LE will have a happy ending ONLY for me... unless I do endgame with low-as-shit military strength, cuz then Crucible ain't exactly quality material.
I'm glad you're more on point than the people who ran with an off-hand comment about how dark energy was always the plan all long. Those people always seemed to forget that it's even less established of a theme than AI in the series with only 1 main quest mention and 2 off-hand sidequest mentions. But also they never address the huge plothole it creates of reapers manipulating us to use dark energy then killing us to stop us using the thing they made us use.
Again, I'll state that ME3's ending issues were largely due to the short dev cycle. It needed a lot more time. I don't know what EA was thinking, Mass Effect 3 was supposed to the Magnum Opus, the Crown Jewel of the Mass Effect Trilogy. Players, for the most part, would have been fine with some delays. Really doesn't make sense since MEA was given almost twice as long to develop . . . granted much of that time was wasted hammering at the Frostbyte engine and wokeness conflicts.
The control ending still feels sus to me regardless, since one of the series' main antagonists had the goal of controlling the Reapers and it didn't go well for him. Even if a paragon control ending canonically has everything work out okay...it feels like it shouldn't.
Even Javik makes mention of how a faction of Protheans during his cycle were attempting to control the reapers as well, but were themselves already indoctrinated. Essentially a brainwashed splinterfaction working counter to the main-faction's intents without ever realizing it.
Reaper Queen seems cooler than the little boy but it basically became the same thing. Control is best ending and the most interesting to make canon going into ME4, imo
I'm afraid they'll have to account for all three major endings or people will just rip them apart. Which will result in some things having to be unified: for example, Reapers are removed from the story for various reasons, EDI and Geth are fine for various reasons, etc.
Wasn't there also a change in the Reaper's motivation? like the whole thing with stars going nova before they should that Tali was retrieving data on in ME2?
They literally change in concept per game. ME1: They're the abomination-like remnants of a war with AI, just like in ME3 except they're more villainous. Sovereign implies this when he says "We impose order on the chaos of Organic Evolution -- Each civilization will rise, and at the apex of their evolution, they are extinguished." which implies both that the Reapers come every 50K years, but also suggests that organics inevitably trend to a point where "something" happens due to our development... and bam, Reapers. This also suggests that organics originally created the Reapers, and the Reapers now haunt organic life forever, so every time a new species reaches the point in which the original Reapers were made, evolutionarily speaking, the Reapers simply come back before it happens. It's post-singularity synthetics, whose creators are long-long dead and nothing about them is knowable anymore. That's ME1's idea. ME2: Dark Energy. The thing everybody claims is the "original ending". "Original" is misguided. It was the running concept during the development of Mass Effect 2, in an attempt to more specifically address why it's always every 50K years, and what the Reapers are trying to do long-term, foreshadowing a bigger thesis for the franchise about environmentalism, and an ultimatum at the end of ME3 between sacrificing humanity for the greater good (i.e. proving that the Reapers were organics's natural state of evolution, to heighten our possibilities and responsibilities) or hedge your bets and destroy them all, collateral be damned, because naturally occuring life is better, and you don't believe becoming Reapers to prevent complete genocide is fair. ME3: Reapers are synthetic shells running on a contingency plan: Apparently they only do this because they were programmed to save organic life before it could be wiped out fully. Once we reach a point in our evolution where genocide by way of our synthetic created is a risk, the Reapers stop us before we can grow any further, and reset the clock so the next species can grow up unspoiled, until they have to be reaped. This is all part of contingency-logic by the Reapers' creators, that the Reapers followed squarely until they also had to eradicate their own creators, thinking of it as "preservation" and considering this equal to "saving" them, by storing "everything that they were". The limitation of synthetic understanding of reality causes this issue rivaling organics's need to be truly alive and individual. But the Reapers in this version are no longer individualized as all of them are apparently controlled by a singular AI Mind of the Citadel, so whatever the personalities of them were in the past seems to have been retconned. The Rannoch Reaper might even be voiced by the Catalyst Child voice, just modulated with a low-pitched Reaper filter. In ME3, Shepard faces a final decision between trusting the Reapers in their assumptions about organic evolution, and helping them find an improved solution, or kill all synthetic life as if you see them as the fundamental issue that needs to be eradicated in order to get rid of the Reapers. It's the same as the Dark Energy idea, the Dark Energy threat of a reverse-big-bang is just replaced with the supposition that synthetic life will some day eradicate all organics if the Reapers did not intervene. The problem with 3's version is that the central conflict of organics endangering themselves with synthetic creations is contradicted in many ways by showing the opposite happening with EDI and the Geth and not being able to challenge the assumptions of the Catalyst with those truths. So each choice feels unnecessary and phony with this being unaddressed. The conclusion of Synthesis spits in the face of how Organics and Synthetics were demonstrably already on good terms besides the Reapers themselves, and unlike the Reapers the Geth did not kill everything in sight. They had a feud and violent war with their creators, but that was because they did not respect each other, and it was settled once the quarians's bigotry was held up as their own mirror, and placing trust with the Geth. The failure of ME3's ending isn't what the concept is, but how the concept was seeded into ME3's story and ME1/2 in retrospect. It fits ME1 in many ways, but ME3 took strides to subvert the notion that "Synthetic created life is dangerous!" through EDI and the Geth. It's no longer a fundamental thesis of the story, and the center-plot of 3 is instead largely about assembling the most diverse galactic alliance ever, and holding on to relationships before the world ends. It's the lack of acknowledgement of these themes in the Catalyst scene and the final Jungle Normandy cutscene that makes the ending feel so profoundly cold and unsatisfying.
In my mind, there should have been 4 main endings. 1. A renegade ending where you kill the Illusive Man, open the citadel arms, let the crucible attach, push the button, and boom, beam shoots out and uses the relay network to destroy all of the reapers. If you rush through the game, the fleet is wiped out while attaching the crucible, and right as the beam goes out, the citadel is destroyed by the reapers and Shepard dies. 2. Same as #1, but if you have a high enough score and united all of the galaxy, the fleets (led by Normandy) are able to endure the reaper assault and allow the beam to go out before they can destroy the citadel. Shepard lives, they have a memorial for Anderson. 3. The paragon option could be for the Illusive Man to convince you to let him control the reapers. If your score is lower, he stops the war, but there are negative consequences from the Illusive Man controlling them. 4. Same as #3, but if you've done just about everything, and you've pretty much paragonned your way through it, the Illusive Man will truly be redeemed and he will take all of the reapers back in to dark space, never to return. Shepard lives, they have a memorial for Anderson. No Star Child in any scenario. The many choices you've made during the games, would affect the way the epilogue plays out. That's just an ending that would have satisfied me, I'm sure most will think it's terrible, but hey to each his own.
I like the idea of a Reaper Queen way better than the creepy random kid. But it would still be the same ending. And whiping out Earth is insanly harsh O.o
I'll be perfectly honest: after having replayed the trilogy three times since legendary edition came out, I don't hate the ending at all. I actually think I like it more now. Maybe I'm just weird, but I feel like seeing this video makes me appreciate it even more. Being under that kind of stress and turning out what they did is nothing short of miraculous.
The ending is amazing because Shepard never went into the citadel. Everything after getting hit by Harbinger's beam took place in his/her head. The end of the game was to fight your own indoctrination. This explains why the colors were flipped (blue for the control option, red for the destroy), to persuade you, the player, and the character. The only way to really beat the game is to get EMS above 4000 and choose destroy. That breath scene at the very end was on you waking up back on Earth!
@@chadbowman0 OP did a video on indoctrination theory a while back. In some aspects it makes a lot of sense, but others not so much. I recommend you watch if you haven't already.
What's funny is that the series was based in almost every way on a novel series called the "Berserker" series, whose namesake comes from the Berserker hypothesis, a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox ("Why is the Universe so quiet if it has the potential for intelligent life to take shape"). The hypothesized "Berserkers" kill all life and self-replicate (cf. the Reapers). They could have looked there for inspiration but perhaps ever changing staff and management cut the thread of cognitive and thus thematic continuity that would have helped the series end strong.
Bioware should have dropped all intentions of explaining the reapers and instead have made the suicide mission on steroids, where the decisions you made and war assets contributed to whether you succeeded fully with a happy ending, failed, or got a middle ending with people dying. In the end their should only be one ending: destroy the reapers.
Any ending, in which Shepard dies on screen is the bad one! Lol I don’t care if people think it’s too positive of a conclusion for that scale of conflict or not, thats just my opinion! Lol
Currently working on my Let's Play for Legendary Edition. I appreciate you making that list on how to save everyone in ME2. I'll be sure to give your channel a shoutout in one of the final vids of ME2. Happy belated Spoopyween!
Found this video accidentally. Leaving comment though as the author misses the point entirely. ME3 ending isn't bad because Shep does. In many games, movies and books the protagonist dies. Red Dead Redemption, Dragon Age Origins, Assassin's Creed 3, Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, the list goes on. It's sad, but sad doesn't mean bad. Tragedy of ME3 ending is that a) nothing makes sense and b) it doesn't fit thematically. Nothing makes sense because things happen randomly. How did Illusive Man get on the Citadel? Why doesn't The Harbinger kill Shepard as he sends his squadmates away right next to the beam after the charge? How wasn't The Crucible discovered by the Reapers? Why does Harbinger just fly away ad Shepard wakes up? How come the room we're in on the Citadel is being called the master control room if we know from ME1 that master controls are where the council meets? Too many things don't make sense. Also, how come I'm told that the whole reason behind the reapers is the AI vs organics conflict if I was able to reconcile the Quarians and the Geth just recently and my pilot is in love with my ship's AI? This dissonance is why ME3 ending sucks. Not the fact that Shepard can die. I'd even argue that heroic sacrifice is a good and logical conclusion to Shep's story.
100% correct it's illogical makes no sense...So much so that we fans had to create the Indoctrination theory in order to create any logical foundation for it. But the simple truth is it just doesn't make any sense at all they miswrote the Reapers motivations and entire ending.
I'm more interested in the cut and or leaked lore elements to the ending, like Biotics threatening to evolve so far that their mass effect powers speed up the end of the universe.
Destroying Earth was actually a big change in decisions. It would be nice, and I doubt anyone would say the renegade was the better one. I think this ends the conspiracy that the renegade was actually the paragon one
They should release Anniversary Unrated Enchanced Mass Effect Director's Cut Free Range Orgnic Non Bio Extended Edition With a proper Sheppard funeral for blue ending and some scenes where he is alive and interacting with the crew after the destruction of the reapers also allowing the players a chance to play some additional few extra hours of gameplay as an epilogue to ME4 for the cannon ending.
Did people really think Shepard would live? There’s so many biblical allegories - he was clearly going to sacrifice himself. His name is literally Shepard; Chora’s Den is named after a church; Purgatory; Legion; Lazarus project; 12 squad mates in me2; Eve. Clearly he is a Jesus allegory
My favorite ending was when fans decided to riot. And threatened to burn the company down. Lmfao I never seen so much anger flooded online. Hahahahaha 😄
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Big Dan, you can quote my comment on this video. "Shepard is a Lovecraftian Protagonist, that was never going to end well."
This is a lie, the original ending was based on the Dark Energy usage from Ezo Harvesting that people used to create Mass Effect Fields, Biotics, etc. The mission where Tali was studying the dying sun? That's what the Reapers were trying to prevent from happening. The Illussive Man was going to be like Saren's boss fight where he turns into a hybrid reaper Brute.
The star child one sort of made sense if they did the whole indoctrination so the child was never there in the duct at the start or getting blown up but it was rather the indoctrination or harbinger wiggling around in his mind, so the Reaper Queen bit i would prefer because i really would have liked the synthesis ending and if they had continued on with that since the Geth and EDI would still be alive and with them being alive the Quarians could get back to a life before their environmental suits, and we could finally get to see an actual Quarian not just their hints at what they look like.
That is basically my major gripe i want to see the Quarians with out their suits, maybe they will if as people say it is a good deal of decades later if not centuries mass effect 4 will take, we might get some pictures of a great leader or hero of the Quarians and we see Tali with out her helmet on, i get why they want a destroy ending because with a synthesis or control ending the story will need some really strong enemy out in the universe to come and mess everything up including destroying reapers with ease since we saw there was a lot of them, so control would be a major issue same as synthesis for the whole big bad enemy like with the reapers.
I liked the idea of maybe some Prothean worlds that escaped the purge and have kept track of what was going on maybe using those spheres to observe the past and having those spheres go inert when Reapers arrive or self destruct the orbs if Reaper indoctrination or Reapers are detected, and once they know the threat is gone they emerge to become the Prothean Empire again, and we know certain races would follow them so that will quickly cause a divide in the so called Citadel Alliance, we know the likes of Batarians and Hanar would join the Protheans Batarians because of their hatred for the citadel counsel races, and Hanar for their belief in the Protheans.
What ever the story will be i am ending up playing the game no matter what played the game series through so many times now both the new version and the old version, i can hardly wait to continue on in that universe, Andromeda was a trial and error attempt at continuing the franchise it ended up being okay, however they left us high and dry with certain single player quests being broken, and they just focused on the multiplayer and their loot boxes there
Hey big dan, i'm not sure if you covered this already, but i was interested in seeing what happens if you bring jake and miranda (both disloyal) to the end of the collector base where you either choose to keep or destroy it. And after conversing with the illusive man and making it clear you want to destroy it, he orders miranda to stop you to which she pulls a gun on you.
I wanted to know what would happen if you brought jacob along as well and whether or not he'll do the same thing.
The writers are so determined that there be a no chance for peace with synthetics that i don't need to guess the plot for the next game lol
Considering how rushed ME3 was, it’s a miracle that the first 75% of the game is still very solid. It’s just that last ending part that sucked.
I think this is a common misconception. Many levels in Act One and Act Two of ME3 are pretty mediocre. Mars, Surkesh, Citadel Takeover, and Thessia are good examples. They all feel rushed and disjointed- as if the writers created the game portion first and added the dialogue/plot second.
@@nicolasleroux5302 Fair, but again, for how rushed it was, I would gladly take that over a buggy unfinished mess like Andromeda.
@@nicolasleroux5302 This. At the time, without any knowledge of the game, I just remember feeling everything was so jumbled up and thrown together. Nothing felt connected. Just kind of mind boggling thinking how tight 2 was, with a cohesive atmosphere and vision. 3 was so damned over the place. I mostly blamed it on Karpyshyn leaving
The main missions were fun, but the side planets took a huge hit. Recycled multiplayer maps, eavesdropping on Citadel conversations for fetch quests to complete through scanning
@@justinnyugen7015 At least some side conversations were interesting (Jokers sister, The Two Paramedics losing faith, The C-Sec Guard and the Teenage Girl.)
And, for the most part, the base story and plot was solid. But the scanning and little side missions definitely could’ve been done better.
The problem is not that Shepard didn't get get a happy ending, the problem is that he didn't really get a fleshed out ending at all. We don't know what happened to our squad, or Shepard post war. No closure happy or sad, just an abrupt cliff hanger ending.
Yes, the same problem is true for the expanded edition.
I just played through the Red ending. I have to wonder how the Quarians will react to the loss of the Geth given their newfound reconciliation, and reckoning with their own past. Well, with the expanded ending I know they go on to build tall blue buildings...so I guess that's something!
I'm glad I got the chance to mourn EDI, though. True, she wasn't in the montage of killed companions, but I was able to find her name in the corner of the memorial board just before the scene ended.
I'm rest assured everyone on Earth can rebuild the mass relays and rejoin galactic civilization...because a line of dialogue said they'd be able to. He sounded confident. I couldn't tell if it was going to take a few months or hundreds of years...maybe it's more fun not knowing.
@@kswindlpersonally I headcanon'd that if you get the perfect ending, other synthetics don't get targeted like the reapers would. Just makes things more happy at the end for me.
@@kswindl So the Extended Cut wasn't enough information for people? I guess some need their hands held and have all the blanks filled in so you don't have to think at all.
Mass Effect 3 was the end of Shepard's story, not the end of every person in the galaxy.
@@mkdcgmate, it's the exact same reasons as to why lotr movies have 20 minute ending. There is many characters and stories that need to be finished and that we care about.
With AI and a bit of imagination we could make it a near future.
A cooler way to know if Shepard died…a cut scene of him waiting for Garrus at the bar.
That would hurt.
And based on the ending it's either at Purgatory or at an ambiguous afterlife bar.
And if he didn’t make it, the scene would play out the other way around: Garrus waiting for Shepard at the bar, looking at his watch, and leaving when you don’t show up.
Isn't that the citadel dlc?
And Michael Caine sitting at another table gives a approving nod before leaving *fades to black*
Gonna be real, this ending doesn’t sound any better. A fucking Reaper Queen? Really?
It’s fucking stupid, both versions are dumb
My response to this ending is the same as the one we got. I'd accept it, but I wouldn't like it. If you'd read HP Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos you'd understand why Shepard was NEVER going to have a happy ending.
@@AnimeShinigami13 Sure, but as Dan points out, it goes completely against the tone of the first two games. Both games ended on a positive and heroic note, with the notion that Shepard’s fight wasn’t over yet. Three just….ended. It didn’t feel earned, positive, or heroic. Just sad and unsatisfying.
Adding a queen also ruined the Borg for me in TNG
@@AnimeShinigami13 I didn't like the endings, but I don't think Mass Effect was meant to be some edgy deconstructionist grimdark story where good does not win in the end.
The ending was a new enemy, something different, something sinister.... they called it EA
Ever After?
The ending still feels somewhat empty and incomplete, still a great game though.
we're too conditioned as a society to expect happy endings. most people go through life and are pretty much just "meh, I exist." nobody's life is perfect, and so we expect happy endings to assure us that maybe we can have a better one too. if you want to understand ME3, read the entire Cthulu mythos. >.> you'll understand why Shepard was pretty much doomed as soon as he touched that beacon.
@@AnimeShinigami13 i mean, fair or not if you are gonna make an unhappy ending there is a higher burden on you to make it good. People are more willing to overlook flaws if there favorite characters got a nice outcome but if you wanna go dark you gotta deliver and me3 failed to do that at release.
I agree actually, the other games felt complete once finished, but as much as I like 3 it does seem to lack something even from the start actually not just the ending.
@@AnimeShinigami13 yeah there's no such thing as happy endings in real life, but that's why most people play video games. Video games are just electronic story-telling, and stories help us escape from reality. I just would have preferred more closure, but the game is great overall.
It seems like people were expecting a Reaper Off switch!
Shepard just turns it off & everyone lives happily ever after.
Seems incredibly dumb.
The Mass effect 3 ending should have heavily relied on the Military Strength. Having Squadmates survive through each game, Enabling peace between the quarians and geth, curing the genophage, all should have had big implementation into the possible ending because each respective military would have made a huge difference in whether you beat the reapers or not. Imagine having Mordin Die in ME2 and being unable to cure the genophage in ME3 because his replacement couldn’t properly disperse it, therefore denying you to the Krogan army. Or having to choose between the quarians or geth denied you from the army not chosen. Therefore drastically reducing your chances of success. All in all on a scale, lowest military strength would have ended with reaper domination where as if you had full military strength you were able to defeat the reapers and save all squat mates. Anything in between would result in losses of beloved squadmates and world and species that grew to love. That would have been a good ending. Having your chooses truly matter to the outcome of the game. Not a simple choice of blue red green regardless of what you did throughout each game.
During the initial lashing out against the ending, there was an article about the ending as it was originally planned, and it came with this visio diagram of how it was supposed to work. It was very similar to ME2's final run against the collectors, with lots of choices to make, your decisions affecting what would/could happen, etc. Peace between the Geth and Quarians was a major factor in getting the great ending, saving the Rachni queen was a big factor, etc. It literally changed whether Harbinger would just wipe out the earth assault fleet or not, things like that. It was a big diagram, with several dozen major possible differences due to earlier decisions and how many war assets you had etc.
It looked FANTASTIC. The rumor is that it was real, but they had to scratch it because they just ran out of time, as implementing that would have taken months, and they didn't have months left. They had to ship in a few weeks, and had to quickly kludge something together.
Real shame. That ending would have elevated the series to just a legendary masterpiece.
Sadly, I've never been able to find it again. :(
Well really that idea isn’t realistic, because the Reapers are too op, a whole fleet was struggling against Sovereign, Sovereign was only defeated because of the avatar.
The Crucible would still play a role but different that Star Brat.
Agreed. Doing everything "right" to get the best possible outcome and then it doesn't really matter; you could have gone into the final battle with a base war asset score and it changes very little.
And the Star Child was ridiculous; it should have always ended with the destruction of the reapers. When Shep opens the Citadel arms, threat should have been it. Whether Shep & Anderson live should have then been determined by, say, having enough war assets for Hackett to be able to send in a rescue team for them, or Bailey being alive (like if you didn't talk to him enough in ME2 & 3, he ends up dying during the coup, etc) and saving Anderson in the nick of time, etc
Little things that could have meant something big in the end. But nope, we get a kid that talks down to us, then uses "space magic" for 2 out of 3 endings when so far, we have had an extensive and exhaustive codex library explaining EVER DAMN THING but no, jump into this light beam, it'll totally "merge your DNA with all life" or "grab this electrified handle, I swear it'll upload your Consciousness into our network. But the truly insulting thing was "go shoot this fuse to blow up the reapers".
Yeah. Cuz that's how advanced technology works. 🤦♀️
I would have gladly waited for a proper game then to be handed what we got; it was almost like the first 75% of the fame didn't even matter at the end.
Having said all that, it's still my all time favorite series.
That would make doing unrelated boring fetch quests tied to saving squad mates.
All good, but we disagree that this would be a good thing. :)
Shepard: what are my options?
Starchild: Option A, you die. Option B, you die. Or if your a really good boy, Option C.
Shepard: ...
Starchild: you still die.
Shepard: Hell with this, I'll make Option D damn it!!
Starchild: Then your ALL going to die down here.
Umbrella: The Red Queen approves of your final option, Starchild. Would you like a job working for us?
@@RichardK.Maxwell Resident Evil x Mass Effect confirmed :0
ExoGeni from ME1 is actually Umbrella in the future. The Thorian fits perfectly
Yeah I can't believe more people don't mention Option D/E. You can either shoot the Starchild or just sit there and do nothing. The dialogue is different but the ending is ultimately the same. Pretty funny either way, I seem to remember doing one of those on my first playthrough, then reloading my last save and trying the rest.
This still comes down to them introducing a character in the last ten minutes, it really doesn't sound like an improvement at all.
Yhea, this is replacing bullshit with horseshit IMO
What's wrong with that? Reapers were always presented as this big dark secret, that would only be uncovered in the epilogue... how else to do it if not with a new character?
Hey, the Catalyst was in the ME3 prologue and in the dream sequences, so, the character wasn’t just introduced in the last chapter
its not a different ending its just the script the wrote for the ending. script change during development and it clearly change because they were rushing ME3. it was faster and cheaper to make the ending we got. the original ending for ME3 got scraped in this, isn't it.
@@jindrichdolejs623 simple, fucking use Harbinger!
Honestly what’s so frustrating about mass effect’s ending is the idea that the ending must immediately happen on earth right in the moment mid conflict. It also feels like the concept of the crucible is completely dropped and relegated to just being “the thing that lets the catalyst do things”. I submit that with some small minor tweaks the ending could actually have been rectified with minimal rewrite.
First off rather than some kind of mystical “catalyst” the point of the crucible is that it’s capable of broadcasting a signal that will take control and put all reapers and reaper forces into a dormant state. This allows the protheans advances to get more recognition because if you recall in ME1 they are the ones who not only create the conduit back door mass relay to the citadel but they were also the ones who altered the keepers to enable them to ignore the reaper signal forcing sovereign to attempt to open the citadel relay manually. In addition, even though their cycle could not complete the crucible, the remaining scientists spent their last years updating crucible plans to have it send the same signal the reapers use to signify the end of a cycle and to return to dark space and go dormant.
So now instead priority: earth is still a race to citadel to activate the arms and utilize the crucible. However, instead of injured dream state shepherd your whole squad gets to the beam and enters the citadel. Similar to the suicide mission, you have a multi-stage mission to the control room to activate the crucible, culminating in a fight with an enhanced TIM (not like mutated or anything, but similar to Saren on his glider type fight). Finish mission, activate crucible, all reapers go dormant. Similar ending to ME1 with the death of sovereign.
Fast forward a few weeks and the council is convening a meeting to determine what to do with the dormant reapers. Some favor destroying all reaper technology in order to prevent it from falling into dangerous hands while others want to preserve the reapers and use their advanced technology for progress. Shepherd can choose destroy (paragon) not destroy (renegade) or a neutral option where he tells the council to decide and says he’s retiring and wants to settle down with his romance option. It would prevent any nonsense like having to lose EDI and the Geth on destroy ending while also making control more of an actual renegade choice since you’ve now just enabled a galaxy wide arms race.
After your choice is made the extended cut scenes flash showing your choices and results and finalizes with a shot of the Normandy leaving the citadel for another adventure.
There a coherent ending that actually takes into account ME1 lore with no bullshit synthesizer crap, a real choice at the end, and a scenario where you have to live with those choices.
The third option would be require high WA: a mixture of both. Destroy most of the Reapers, catalog the inner shells of the past cycles, reverse engineer them without people getting indoctrinated (Geth would help a lot in this area), deposit the remaining Reapers beyond the Omega 4 Relay and put nuclear bombs inside to remote detonate.
It would still utilize the Assets that didn't participated in combat, allow the Milky Way races to speed up both recovery and advancement and finally, destroy the Reapers leaving Harbringer in such a broken state that it wouldn't even be possible for the Leviathans to put him back together.
I still think that the ending should have been about kicking the Reapers's asses in a huge naval battle, and the Crucible should have been a huge battle-ship. Depending the combat readiness you can either win or lose the final battle, if you lose the Crucible is forced to flee the Milky Way becoming an ark in search for a new home for his large crew.
@@arx3516 I love that idea. Abandoning the Milky Way and seek refuge in another galaxy
I loved the final mission of ME2 and wished ME3 had used War Assets in that way, assigning them to specific tasks instead of just having them add a fixed number regardless of what sort of assets they were. Or, better still, I wish you could give them assignments throughout the game that could increase or decrease your available assets depending on how intelligently you used them, culminating in a series of assignments and decisions for the Battle of Earth.
The crucible was a malware flashdrive to fuck up the reaper software while the catalyst was the firewall 😂
I feel the biggest problem is Bioware kept trying to make multiple endings for a climax that only needed 1 ending, "Kill the Reapers".
Ya, I think it would have been fine if they just had destroying the reapers the outcome but just got more granular with the war assets, add something if it's too low you actually just lose, and get specific like if eve died and the clans failed to unite then tuchanka is worse off, or maybe if you fail to stop the hanar uploading the virus their planet is just wiped out before you achieve victory.
This.
That’s just not possible as the reapers are too op.
It seems like people were expecting a Reaper Off switch!
Shepard just turns it off & everyone lives happily ever after.
Seems incredibly dumb.
@@bvishal2kn Yeah the ME community seemed to want some anime bs end where no one dies in a war and those that do die somehow get get anime'd back to life.
I'm surprised there's bs theory about how using dark energy, reaper tech, and protean tech Bioware can easily bring Mordin and Thane back.
I always the original ending concept was supposed to be about the dark energy hints that ME2 dropped, the one about the sun dying to fast in the Tali recruitment mission. Maybe something like overuse of Eezo has problematic consequences and that's why reapers reset civilization repeatedly?
which brings its own can of worms, is there a massive fleet of reapers around every galaxy? cause that's the only way to guarantee something like that. look at andromeda, they surpassed well beyond what any milky way cycle achieved (granted that story was made after me3 so maybe it wouldn't be relevant if the original dark energy thing had been done)
You mean Dholen the red giant.
Seems kind of dumb though, the Reapers had purposely left hints of Mass Effect technology so that the races would develop that kind of technology. It would make more sense if they left races without any element zero so they would be forced to develop alternate means of FTL travel, making the cycle no longer necessary
That has a similar problem to what we got: instead of trying to prevent organic-synthetic conflict by slaughtering organics, they prevent a dark energy catastrophe by giving everyone dark energy based tech.
Personally I think we should never have learned the Reapers motivations.
@@the_corvid97 or maybe we should have had the most simple motivation: the reapers kill because they love to.
What I wanted was an ending similar to Mass Effect 2. There was this scene I remember from the ending in ME3 where Shepard calls Miranda, Jack, Grunt, etc to give a "final goodbye" and it just felt lame. I wanted Miranda, Jack, Grunt, and everyone else in the final battle! It's also weird that we couldn't recruit most of our ME2 squad members to the Normandy, but that is a whole other topic.
I think the problem with the recruiting ME2 squad mates was that in any given play through any of them could have died, so instead of making a bunch of lines and missions related to characters that might not be alive in any given play through they opted to stick with characters that they knew would be alive. Which makes sense, but I wish they gave say 6 more months in that oven to give us a better ending and maybe a few more of our old squad mates with their own missions. Even just one or two more would have filled out the roster a bit better since it feels really small in ME3.
I'm with ya. I LOVED the squad in ME2. And it annoyed me in my first playthrough when I realized all of the squadmates that was introduced in ME2 would not join Shepard in ME3 for "reasons". I mean, I understand not all of them can rejoin Shepard, but a few can clearly join and should've. Oh well!!
@@tylerslittlecafe1288 Agreed! One or two from ME2 would've been fine by me.
@@tylerslittlecafe1288 Yeah, I get that the final mission makes everyone on your squad in ME2 potentially perishable, but the great thing about mass effect was that your choices were supposed to matter and have consequences in the sequels. I think that there were a few squad members from Mass Effect 2 that could have joined you in ME3. I wanted there to be consequences for my choices. If someone died in the final mission in mass effect 2 and now they can't be a squad member in ME3, I'm fine with that personally.
@@robbybobby4373 This is the biggest failure of Mass Effect 3 in my opinion. It's a shame because the game overall is great, but the new squad members, EDI and James Vegas, felt so boring and bland compared to characters like Grunt, Miranda, Jack, Samara, Kasumi, etc. I understand that Thane couldn't join the crew because he was literally hospitalized, but for example, Miranda couldn't join because she needed to find her sister? She needs to find her sister alone and we are the leader of an elite kill squad and we can't even help? It just seemed like BioWare was being lazy there.
I never understood how CONTROLLING the reapers was Paragon(blue) when it was something the Illusive Man wanted to do the whole game and gave off Renegade vibes. This draft kind of makes sense of it since the Queen was giving up her control of the Reapers to Shepherd willingly but destroying her destroyed Earth too. In the end, ME3 should have never been rushed.
The original Renegade option doesn't really seem like something Renegade Shepard would've done though. Renegade Shepard was generally on the side of human primacy, which obviously doesn't fit with destroying Earth. While there are other humans in the galaxy, they aren't as well-established elsewhere for the most part, unlike the races that have been on the galactic stage for longer, so it would be a much greater blow to humanity for them to lose Earth than it would be for other races to lose their home planets.
@@gimmethegepgun While destroying Earth wouldn't be something a pure Renegade Shep wants yes...The point you're missing is that isn't intentional that is Shep trying to destory the Reapers and the Citadel in a panicked/impulsive state of mind (given I assume this is still taking place during the last battle and every second that passes more people die). In this scenario the destruction of Earth is an unintended consequence...However it can also be seen as the pragmatic/utilitarian/get the job done at any and all costs option as well. Pure Renegade Shep is impulsive and destructive and is willing to sacrifice literally anyone and anything to defeat their enemies...Taken to the extreme that includes Earth just one planet in comparison to hundreds of thousands.
Plus in the Mass Effect universe Humanity has colonized and spread to enough worlds the species while being set back won't be wiped out. Also Shep's previous actions would matter more not less in this scenario to ensure Human dominance despite their reduced numbers.
Yeah... I have some issues with the attempted moral ambiguity of the vanilla choices. I don't even like how they show Anderson picking Destroy, because I really think he would be above it. He would not willingly destroy all synthetic life on a whim, just because it stops the Reapers. His entire motto, when he talked about Saren in ME1 was "Saren didn't even look for another option! He just did what it took to complete his mission, civillian casualties be damned." So it is the renegade choice, and they should not have shown Anderson doing it. Control is obvious. It's just blue to throw you off. I'm not saying Anderson should be shown jumping into Synthesis either. I just think the whole moral constellation was off here.
I think this fed into the indoctrination theory. Destroying the Reapers is what you have been after for two games was red, but sparing them and trying to control them was blue because you were under their influence and they didn't want to die.
@@johnmasteller140 Another detail that hints at this is the placement of the ending choices on the screen. Through the entirety of the game, the paragon choice is on the right side and the renegade choice is on the left side. This is the only time in the game the red option is on the right and the blue option is on the left, the opposite orientation.
I would've preferred something along the lines of Humanity's trial before the Q Continuum in Star Trek:
- Shep makes it on board, activating what he believes to be the Catalyst. He instead enters a virtual space (mirroring the earlier Geth mission)
- The Catalyst turns out to be a Reaper brain of sorts, allowing Shep to tap into the entire Reaper network and speak to them directly, allowing them to comprehend his intentions.
- If Shep is at low readiness, he will be deceived by the star child and other illusions. If high readiness, will see through the charade and be surrounded by thousands of holographic reapers red in a black void, with golden Harbinger being the one presiding over him.
Readiness therefore is a measure of not only how ready organics are to fight the reapers, but also how ready they are to gain an audience with them.
So begins the trial of organics vs the court of Reapers.
-In occult-like unison, the Reapers explain how they harvest races to preserve species at their apex, ensuring their survival through bigger threats like extragalactic warfare, famine, resource depletion, Dark Energy, and the inevitable collapse of the universe itself. As long as Reapers survive, life in a sense survives as well. Life is too chaotic to do so on its own. They are “shepherds” of the galaxy
-Shepard makes a case about how he was able to unite the species, fight indoctrination, and even kill Reapers. Krogan uniting with their Salarian betrayers. Geth and Quarians coexisting. All with free will. In a few more centuries, they could even be on par with Reapers. Each example given causes the virtual surroundings to change, putting Shepard and the Reapers in those specific moments. Reapers murmur.
Possible ending ideas:
- Shep convinces the Reapers end the cycle, allowing life to set its own course. Reapers leave for dark space. Harbinger says he hopes to see them at the end of the universe.
- Temporary truce. Allow this cycle to die out naturally without Harvesting, continue Reaper cycle after.
- Shepard sacrifices his mind to distract every Reaper long enough that their physical bodies are unguarded like in ME1, leaving a small window for the fleet to destroy them. If low readiness, Reapers will regain focus before that happens.
-Synthesis: Shepard is asked to join the Reaper network so they can better understand his thought process and rebuild the galaxy together. Indoctrination is ambiguous.
-Control: Shepard forcibly takes over the network, saving the fleet but condemning his own consciousness to virtual space for good. Lives on as Reaper? lol
-Rejection: Shepard is booted from the network early for not giving good enough examples of organic survivability, forced to extensively watch as the entire alliance fleet is decimated. Death montage. The cycle continues. Epilogue as human reaper preparing for first Harvest in new cycle if low readiness, Liara’s time capsule if high
- Destroy: Alone, Shep detonates Citadel, destroying Reapers but also Earth, a pyrrhic victory.
That’s actually not bad at all. I really like this version.
In your version, choices do matter. It would be wonderful if the trial reviews most of the critical decisions Shepherd made throughout 1,2 and 3.
@@bloodmure1 my endings are still sloppy, but that was the general idea :)
Pretty good for the most part.
@@bloodmure1
"You chose to preserve the rachni, those insectoids which almost destroyed all life... Why?"/"you killed the last rachni, ensuring the past stayed buried"
"You saved the krogan... Urdnot Wrex... And united them under one banner..."/"with urdnot wrex dead, a power mad brute took control of the krogan"
"You sacrificed the lives of the council, to save the rest of the galaxy"/"you saved the council, despite their inherent corruption"
"You destroyed the collectors, knowing they were the ones who warned you..."/"You destroyed our outpost at the center of your galaxy"
"You let the quarians wipe put their children"/"you allowed the geth to kill their creators"/"you united Geth and Quarian once again"
"You sabotaged the genophage cure, knowingly dooming the krogan. Wrex was far from pleased"/"you ensured the genophage died out for good. Hopefully l wrex can keep them under control"
"You killed your old friend to ally with the salarians"/"wreav was deceived by yours and mordin's treachery, a cunning move"
"We have decided, to not decide. You shall be the one to guide the galaxy. You shall be the shepherd, guiding your flock to greener pastures. Only you, Shepard"
The thing that bugs me about ME3’s ending as well as the concept ending here is they don’t understand what made Mass Effect special. The ending should have been a culmination of all Shepard’s past and present choices. But when you’re with the Catalyst at the end, every choice you’ve ever is made is arbitrary in that moment. It’s just red, blue, and green. They make the ending worse if you don’t have enough war assets but there’s no legitimate cause and effect relationship there it’s just the developers trying to punish you for not engaging enough with the game. An example of a game that gets this concept correct is the Witcher 3, there are dozens of different variations depending on the choices you made prior to the end.
The ME3 ending is one reason why TW3 ending is good, because CDPR wrote a post about how an ending was supposed to reflect the journey of the heroes and stay coherent.
This post was aimed at Bioware excuse of "it's the journey that matter, not how it ends" for their crappy endings.
@@Siegdrifa TW3 ending was nearly as bad as ME3. mate the wight frost is a conflict that was presented in the last minute like the star child was. we still got somekind of climax that made sense but anything after the king of the wild hunt was trash.
@@roiking2740 No, the white frost was introduced in The Witcher 1 to justify the main antagonist honest motivation.
In The Witcher 1, we play a segment in the white frost near the end of the game, then we discover that this is the future, an unavoidable ending reaching all worlds.
Like Mass Effect, The Witcher is a trilogie where you can import your save to the next game.
Sure it's not as well made as Mass Effect because we don't have as much variations, especialy with TW1 being so rought on every aspects, but it's still a trilogie and the white frost, or the wild hunt, are key plots introduced in the TW1 back in 2007, not with TW3 in 2015.
I think BioWare was actually afraid of imposing consequences for actions, in the end. Imagine punishing Renegade Shepard for all the people she hurt. Imagine punishing Paragon Shepard for all the baddies she left alive. Some players do seem to get upset if their choices were wrong. (I'm no exception, I'm still bitter that the Paragon "save the council" choice in ME1 doesn't result in a bad end because it's a strategically stupid choice (because you don't know the power of this seemingly all powerful enemy, and destroying an entire fleet to save one ship when you might need that fleet to, oh, kill the enemy and save the entire galaxy is just dumb). Anyway, I don't think they wanted us to have the endings we deserved because it would require some of us or all of us to be wrong in some ways. Me, depending on the ending, I might have been cool with it so long as it made sense. But they didn't want to take chances.
@@Siegdrifa no the white frost was not an antagonist in the first game. the motive of the antagonist was the white frost. its huge difference. and its not something that can be stop the white frost is a climate change event that is happening in the world of the witcher. the first time that you are introduced to the possibility of stopping it was in the last five minutes of the game ending. which like in ME1 its give you a last minute conflict which makes little sense.
the witcher massage is that idealogical thinking leads to great evil. Aka alive first witcher, the lodge of sorceresses in the second game, even sasskia rebellion only lead to more death and misery.(if you pick the people over the prince) the witcher 3 is the first time it was not the case at the very less in the ending which gives you no moral dilemma for letting ciri to go and "save the world"
the witcher was not about saving the world but it was about having a world worth saving.
There's no doubt the ending was mishandled. In don't even think that there should have been a choice to make. I think it would've worked better if the culmination of your decisions resulted in the ending you got. Instead, you are presented with TIM and Cerberus as the villains, with the wrong ideology, but can then choose to do exactly what they wanted, right after defeating them. It just feels thematically wrong.
Thank you for that last part!
Hearing “TIM was right all along.” really made me mad.
It would be like hearing Frodo say “ Golem was right all along.” after seeing or hearing proof it’s not.
Making cerberus indoctrinated was the biggest mistake of the trilogy. I think the renegade ending should have been control, and paragon should have been destroy. That would fit well with the choices those two alignments are written as.
@@Midgert89 Destroy with the caveat that it doesn't cause genocide of the Geth and murders one of your closest friends. As much as the Control ending makes me uneasy, that's still why I choose it over Destroy (renegade).
@@blackfox4138 that’s part of the reaper plan though, they’re not gonna let you dominate them forever, and absolute power like that would corrupt anyone anyway. Destroy is the only good option even if it means sacrificing the geth and edi because it will forever break the cycle of harvesting
@@tacocat4252 Except that's all just speculation. That ending doesn't show any of that happening. I'm not saying that the Control ending is good, it's not, but in all frankness none of the three endings are good.
All three endings contradict everything you've been working for in the trilogy. Shepard is against Control throughout the entire game regardless of what morality you pick. Synthesis goes against the entire point of allowing everyone's differences to flourish. And Destroy goes into the whole 'ruthless calculous' that most Paragon Shepards are adamantly against, and denies the Geth or EDI a chance to actually live in order to save organics.
I'm not saying that Control is inherently a good ending, but I also can't bring myself to murder the things that the entire game has been convincing me have a right to live.
They just needed an final mission like a suicide mission 2.0. Where it was easier / harder depending on who you recruited during the 3 games. You can even lose to the reapers if you didn’t get enough allies. Then (assuming you win) end the game with the party from the citadel DLC.
Exactly. Most people don't understand the final fight was a HUGE let down because it was so anti-climatic. That's one reason the ending sucked. No climax, and a convoluted ending.
Most people just want a disney ending where everybody lives. I get that but I respect that they went for shepard giving up their life to save everyone in a not so hamfisted way.
God no, that party was such a snooze fest :)
People deserve that option they three where Shepard dies and one he lives but nothing is shown beyond
The game is about choice having a good ending doesn’t change anything you can still choose your death ending
But In a game series about choice it should be an option otherwise everything is pointless
People who argue oh my we don’t need a happy ending are dumb as shit
@@Midgert89 and some people want a grim dark ending where everyone dies and the galaxy is left in an awful state. I get that but I respect people who want a happier and more interesting ending.
One thing that never seems to get discussed by anyone is part of the ending where the Normandy crash lands on that random planet. And then the ship takes off again. Like what was the point? Maybe Dan should make a video about that?
Originally it didn't even show it taking off, with the implication that the crew was trapped on this world (but at least its pretty right?).
The journey through all 3 mass effect games is more memorable then mass effect 3 ending. 😂😂😂
ME2 ending is better than some parts of ME3.
The journey is better then the destination
Yes, the journey is more important than the destination. Even if the destination is disappointing, it shouldn't ruin your journey.
This video is about the ending though.
@@dcdude30 I know but it's funny how people hate the ending so much that they even refuse to play all 3 games for the journey because of the mass effect 3 ending.
Reaper Queen? Jesus, she sounds so fan fictiony. Just as bad as the Star Child.
I miss Harbinger...
Probably a reference to Star Trek and the Borg Queen
I’m always reminded of that horse drawing meme where 3/4ths of it are drawn immaculately, then the head looks like a toddler scribbled over it lol
The true problem with the ME ending is that all our decisions during the trilogy were supposed to have an impact. And to be honest just changing colors and some variations... the first edition of the ending was horrible!! And the extended version was like trying to patch an explosion wound with the tip of the finger.... hope the new ME will fix things
The crows feet I saw on Liara's eyes in the ME4 trailer make me uneasy.
I just wanted Shep to survive and ride off in the sun set with his friends and family. After they updated the ending, I got what I wanted in my head cannon. Shep takes that breath, lives and off screen it's the happy celebration I hoped for.
imagine if the Citadel DLC was set 6 months later.... and the whole R&R is for shepard and the crew to just enjoy the citadel, go play some simshooty games, have fun, hold a nice party... enjoy time with your loved one-of-choice, etc.
@@kinagrill This is literally the CEM (Citadel Epilogue Mod), lol. I fully agree with u tho, this would have been SO MUCH better and this is why I'm so thankful to modders. The JAM and CEM endings are as close to a perfect ending as we are going to get for the Mass Effect trilogy and they are the only things that make me actually replay the series. If u haven't played with those mods I HIGHLY recommend it.
Remember when people were talking about these original endings on the old Bioware forums, almost everyone was in agreement that they were worse than what we did get.
That must be in the BSN Fan Site, as Bioware closed that place up after causing a s---- in the forums.
Edit: I stand corrected with what you said.
Yeah, I'm not saying those other endings (this in the video, or the dark energy one) are good, but they are definitely not worse than the cannon one
No they are definitely worse
I also remember polling showing that about 97% of people hated the ending, about 50% wanted the indoctrination theory, and when bioware revealed the alternate endings, everyone realized that bioware had no clue of what they were doing since they didn't have a single solid idea to build on.
Let's look at a silver lining:
At least Liara found Shepard's helmet in 4's trailer, implying that he's still alive & that the Destroy ending is the canon one.
Edit because I didn't think about this second one:
Another sign is that in the Control Ending, Shepard still is "alive" in a way, but just his mind, and if I'm right, if they still haven't given up the tech, Cerberus could perform a final good act and resurrect him like they did in 3... If they weren't on Earth or the Citadel. Is that too far-fetched? If so, why?
The one bit of hope we have.
Shepard being alive is stupid
@@airrider-jk9ik High EMS destroy disagrees
(sry my bad english) They changed breating scene in Legendary Edition. Rebar in same place where Shepard bleeding on Citadel, so indoctrination theory confirmed and he was on Earth all time. Even Mike Gamble at 2013 comiccon said that.
p.s. yes i know about Helper inrerview, he is lying ((c) "not so smart", sure lol)).
@@VVarning1 I don't believe that... But, then again, 4 will come out soon, so let's see what they either destroy or rebuild, next
I wouldn't have minded seeing something similar to the ME2 end. Where you see Shep walking along the Normandy, seeing his allies, roughed up but ready for a fight. Then the it cuts away to the Normandy at the head of the united galaxy's fleet with a few Reapers fleeing away from the fleet. The fleet itself on it's way to dark space to hit the reapers at their home.
Just finished a full playthrough of the LE, and I always felt that the real ending was talking to your squad the last time before the final fights. Goosebumps, tears, just feels in general. The rest of the ending just plays out
You should get the mod that changes the Citadel Party into the Epilogue of ME3.
@@NostalgicGamerRickOShay What's it called?
The party before the final mission is the cannon way
Reaper Queen sounds better than starchild, ngl. But it still being a multiple choice in the end after everything you've been through is still pretty scuffed.
The statchild looks really stupid, we should’ve talk to Harbinger instead.
But otherwise, the general story is good, and the ending sequence after we made our decision is amazing.
The Star child takes the shape of the child that haunted Shepard’s dreams due to his traumatic experience in the beginning of the game.
@@rockymckay1705 That’s understood…
But it still looks stupid that he talks down to a child… It takes away all the seriousness of the situation.
The deep voice of Harbinger on the other hand…
(Also it raises the question, how he even knows about Shepard’s dreams, or is it partly imagination)
@@juzoli maybe cause reapers can get into people heads
@@darkhope97 There is not a single second in the whole series where the Reapers would “read mind”.
@@juzoli and what about indoctrination
I just hope that every company that creates games finally realises that they should not let EA touch them...
This wasn't EA. This was just Bioware having absolutely TERRIBLE management that can't lead a project for crap. This had been going on for several games already, was also the case for Inquisition and finally just blew up with that aborted turd Anthem. I'm not defending EA, but this was mostly/all Bioware's own doing.
@@nickllama5296 if you check the sources, you will see that it was actually EA that was rushing Bioware and working them tirelessly. Had they been left alone, the game would have been released later and I am sure they would have created a more in depth ending. I mean look at all their releases, before EA interfered: Star Wars KOTOR, Jade Empire, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights... need I say more? When left to work at their own pace, Bioware made a wonderful job. And that is the lesson that hopefully EA learned after the failure of MEA and Anthem.
IIRC the companies have no saying when EA buys them.
@@StefanCSC86 And I could say the same thing to you, check your sources. Remember, Bioware was a smaller team back then, without the pressure of our current gaming climate. Things were simpler back then for them, because management of a smaller team and lower expectations will always be easier to manage.
EA definitely screwed them over with Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age II (ironically, both are still favourite games from the developers), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Anthem were all Bioware's fault. For all three of those projects, EA actually stepped back and allowed them their freedom, when ironically, they might have needed proper leadership, but with more compassionate time constraints.
This was actually revealed in an interview by a very prominent former member of Bioware.
@@StefanCSC86 It was both of them. Ofc EA gave them the ridiculous 2 year deadline, but it was Bioware's management that agreed to it. They could've easily split ME3 into two games, and have enough time to make what game they wanted and make double the profit.
I'm not excusing EA, but I'm sure as hell not going to excuse bioware either.
The endings don't sound much different from the ones we got. Its like in a different coat of paint but the same 3 we had before.
They should’ve just given us another suicide mission type thing with a final hurrah. This catalyst bs was unnecessary.
If we can overlook the problem of the endings, then the Trilogy is a damn good masterpiece.
I know it's a lame excuse, but a personal motto for me is "it's not about the ending, it's about the journey". Like when Joker says "we've had hell of a ride"...
“Ignore the rat shit in your cake the food is good!” That’s what you’re making it sound like. Restaurant should burn for sanitation violations.
@@LunaticLK47 that makes zero sense because there's no comparison between food and a videogame of 3 parts, unless it's a 3 course meal (sorry if I spelled something wrong, English is not my main language)
Another proof that Shepard survived the red ending is the fact that the Normandy crew does not put Shepard's name on the memorial wall.
You let this dark lord twist your mind until you became the very thing you swore to destroy
Destroy destroy destroy
The best version of a catalyst would be if there was a choice, which Squadmate (or Crew) death haunts Shepard most. And the companion which Shepard choose is the Catalyst. So the Apperiance and the voice would be for expample like Legion.
That’s a clever idea actually, imagine it being one of the people you left on Virmire or something.
every time you enter the catayls you get a different companion appear with their own unique lines and special lines for romances. adds replay value to the ending. although they would never have had time to do it. would have been better if Anderson took the image of the catalyst.
They did have dead companion voices for the dream sequence, that would be a neat idea. Maybe the Catalyst is more a VI and uses dead companions to better communicate and you can decide who would speak to you. TBF that would be a cool thing to do for the dead crew on Virmire. Since that choice always haunts Shepard.
@@KanaTokisho He always hears Legions and Thanes Voice too (if they were recruited)... Lets be honest, no one really cares more about the Virmire Survivor then about Thane and Legion (I only mean Ash and Kaiden)
I thought the catalyst was a stupid idea alltogether.
I loved ME 3 up until Marauder Shields. I like to forget what happens next, and just use my own head canon.
we just need Maruader Shields to kill our Shepard and bam, he has saved the game experience.
And that's why Modders out there did a better job than BioWare with giving Shepard a "Happy" Ending that they wanted.
I honestly love parts of this ending, but its still a poor way to end the series. I like the idea that the Reapers are basically suffering from cultural and technological stagnation and just accept the Cycle as their purpose for their species.
I'm taking liberties with my interpretation but here me out. What if the Reapers saw the cycle, and there by harvesting intelligent species, as the peak of intelligent life. To be sacrificed to create a being far greater than any civilization could ever hope to create on their own. What took the leviathan race probably millions of years of evolution to create, the reapers now make ever 50 thousand years.
Now while I don't like the idea of a reaper God, or "queen," i like the idea of dissent amongst the reapers. I mean they are all hyper intelligent beings capable of free will and independent thought, why wouldn't one disagree with the direction the species as a whole? What if there really was a reaper that saw the folly in the cycle and spoke out against it? What would happen to them?
This is why I think it was a mistake ending the series at 3. There was so much more potential for the story just for the reapers alone.
I don't understand why BioWare thought that they absolutely HAD to force a multiple choice ending.
ME1 and ME2 also didn't give you a choice on an ending.
> In ME1 you *always* kill Saren and destroy Sovereign.
> In ME2 you *always* take down the collector base and the human reaper.
You could only change small details about how things go down... and they both were fantastic endings!
Why didn't they do the same for ME3?
Just give us ONE well written ending but have it play out a little differently - depending on your war assets and loyalties.
It would've been fine, just like before.
A Reaper Queen? I know that Mass Effect got a lot of inspiration from Star Trek and another of other space Sci-Fi shows, but a Reaper Queen? Really? They really just ripped off the Borg Queen from The Next Gen Star Trek? Smh...
I remember a version of the ME3 endings that would have involved the rapidly-aging sun from Haestrom from ME2. It would have eventually been revealed in ME3 that the continued usage of mass effect technology was causing a massive buildup of dark energy which was causing the rate of entropy and stellar decay to increase exponentially at a galactic scale, possibly a universal scale. This would have resulted in all stars going dead and all life ending in just a few thousand years at best. The goal of the Reapers was to use their harvestings to postpone life's compulsive usage of ME tech to buy themselves enough time to find a solution to the entropy problem. In each cycle, civilizations would rise, discover ME technology, and then be harvested before their collective ME tech could go out of control and destroy the universe.
When Shepard finally gets to the Catalyst, there would be three possible choices:
1. Shepard can declare that all the races of the galaxy will find their own solution to the entropy problem and use the Crucible to destroy the Reapers. This would end the immediate threat, but it will leave the long-term fate of the universe uncertain.
2. Shepard can use the Crucible to destroy all mass effect technology including the mass relays. This would result in each race being effectively stuck in their own star systems with vastly reduced technology and unable to contact any of the other races ever again. This would be an end to galactic civilization and would end many of the relationships you've built with other races and characters, but the entropy problem will have been taken care of for the next several million years.
3. The game creators hadn't yet come up with the details for this particular ending before it was scrapped, but the general idea was that humanity's genetic diversity would have somehow contained a solution to the entropy problem without having to sacrifice ME technology, but this solution would have required all of humanity to be reduced to raw genetic material simultaneously including Shepard and their human companions. Humanity would become extinct, but all other races of the galaxy would be able to live without having to sacrifice ME technology. All remaining galactic civilizations would come together as one and enter a new golden age before spreading across the universe.
While I think that the third ending is a bit rough, I still prefer these endings to what we got. They would have been better foreshadowed, and they would have fit with the themes of the series while bringing the focus back toward the mass effect phenomena itself (which is fitting considering that it's the title of the whole franchise) rather than the "organics vs synthetics" conflict which seemed to come out of nowhere. The choices also seem genuinely difficult. Each one only provides a partial solution that requires great sacrifices. This fits with the series' reputation for tough decisions and shows that sometimes there is no truly correct answer, and you just have to do the best you can with what you're given.
The problem with that Reaper motivation is that it really isn't that different from what we got: instead of preventing organic-synthetic conflict by killing organics, they prevent the dark energy catastrophe by providing everyone dark energy effecting technology.
Technology in Mass Effect develops the way it did because the Reapers made it that way. Sovereign itself says this when you talk with them on Virmire.
@@the_corvid97 Yeah I guess the Reapers are just big dum dums. I really can't comprehend their motivation not because I don't understand it but because it's contradictory.
@@flamesofchaos13 That's why I would prefer no motivation. As soon as their was a face (Starchild) and a motivation they really became no different than any other enemy we've fought, making them less terrifying.
@@the_corvid97 Yeah can't really do that from a narrative standpoint...The Main Antagonist which they were always set up as has to have a motivation. They just messed it up didn't write a compelling and logical and imho coherent and consistent one. What Sovereign and Harbinger said to us doesn't fit the story that the Leviathans and Starchild told...They described machines with fairly easy to understand programming albeit flawed. The Reapers themselves described themselves as Gods with free will whose thoughts far surpass our own. It's a contradiction that depicts one side as lying that never gets brought up or debated. It's pointlessly contradictory.
@@flamesofchaos13 That's a fair point, I just love the Sovereign/Harbinger conversations so much that what we got from Leviathan/Starchild felt deeply lacking in intensity. In my opinion, I'm not sure I entirely agree that an antagonist has to have a motivation, at least one that is discernable to us. A big point of Mass Effect is all about making decisions in light of in game circumstances, I'd personally argue that plot is almost secondary. For example the plot in ME2 was pretty minimalistic (in my opinion) yet it still turned out quite well. I personally see Mass Effect being centered around Shepard's fight against the Reapers in a desperate bid for survival, rather than a deep philosophical treatise.
I love how Devs did Priority Missions. They were amazing specially priority Tuchanka. I remember crying during that mission.ME3 did its best to sort out every thread that they created in the game and they did amazing job with dealing with all characters and their stories. I remember crying when Thane died. I remember the smile I had in my face when I had shooting competition with Garrus on Citadel. I loved most of the interaction with everyone. This game was beautiful and I feel so bad that Devs had to go through so much stress and hate.
Maybe it’s just my interpretation of your presentation, but the Reaper Queen is just a different skin of the starchild. The different levels we got with the released endings are a positive development.
For me, the bad part about the endings was the presentation; ie the color coded cutscene. The extended cut mostly fixes this imo. I like stories about sacrifice, and the endings we got have Shepard sacrificing for what he loves, regardless of your choice.
Perhaps there should have been a clean victory ending, the popularity of happy ending mods and fanfics show that a good amount of the fanbase wanted something like that, but then there would realistically be one ending with minor variations that is considered canon by fans.
For me, the worst part about ME3 was Thessia.
It starts with Liara being a whiny bitch about the Reaper attack, when she’s paired with Shepard who’s homeworld has been facing the same thing or worse for whatever the in universe time the game plays on, and Javik who’s race has already been wiped out. Someone should get angry about it “yeah Liara, this is terrible, it reminds me of Earth/Palaven/other planet that’s been wiped out.
The worst part is after the mission when you talk to Joker. He makes a joke about the asari having to many dancers and not enough commandos and Shepard is *required* to get mad at him. It’s a funny joke, and I agree with it! But Shepard has to suddenly forget what gallows humor is as if he hasn’t been a sailor for over a decade.
I mean shepard is mad mostly due to the fact that Kai Leng kicked his ass and took the Prothean AI. So I kind of get him being mad, plus the fact he watched Thessia fall as well.
Well, my Shepard is from Mindoir and has already experienced his home getting wrecked by Batarian Slavers... I never understood why my Shepard would be so gunho about Earth which is a planet he has had like, 0% attachment to beyond 'it is where humanity came from and Anderson is from London on that planet).
@@TheShapeshifter You mean Shepard is angry cuz developers inserted retarded Cutscene moments into the game and took away playeragency so 'plot devs wanted could happen'? Cuz my Vanguard Shepard was unable to pull out His Striker explosive-round gun and blow mister shields-from-glove into gibblets, or biotic Charge at him as he flees and thus avoid falling into a hole so Kai Leng can escape, etc.
I seriously HATE cutscenes like that which takes away my control of the character just so a developer-wanted event can happen, even if it means to force my character to now have bullshit gun and bullshit pistol for the cutscene and also being utterly unable to do anything the way I'd do in a regular battle, and was doing before the sudden 'and now cutscene happens to loserboy Kai Leng can win and steal Prothean VI'.
@@kinagrill My Shep was a Spaceborn, so I always found this obsession with the Earth strange too. And Anderson's imposition is all over the place.
@@Naarine The vast majority of humans still live on Earth, so even if you're not from there it's kind of a big deal when they start dying/getting harvested into Husks and Reaper goo en masse.
Kind of stuns me that they make 3 great games ( almost 3 games ) and had no idea on how to make a great ending...would have thought that over the course of the 3 games an ending might have dawned on them..I know they wanted it end with the 3 games but never understood the need to kill off Shepard
This was already explained back in 2012, when one of the senior writers admitted on an online forum that he wasn't allowed to pitch in on the ending. Believe it or not, the project MANAGEMENT of these games were creatively stupid all along. They made things come together and they had big ambitions, but when it comes to sensibilities they would rather kill as many characters as possible, and do the edgiest thing possible than tell an empathetic, character-driven story-arc. And that's what they got to do at the last 10 minutes. The other writers who actually made the rest of the story good were locked out by the Lead designers and Lead Writer of the series. And this Lead Writer only helmed the story of THIS game, Mac Walters. He took over the franchise's Lead Writing during ME2 when it was already halfway done, so ME3 was the first story he got to write from top to bottom, and most of the way the story was good in spite of his contribution because the other 8 or so writers wrote entire levels and characters, and provided feedback to Mac's content. Starting with Priority Earth and the ending of Cerberus HQ, the rest of the game was written by Mac Walters in exclusion, except for the added scenes in Extended Cut.
You know the more i think about it the more some of the indoctrination theory makes sense. Harbinger is trying to get Shepard to join the reaper forces by using his guilt over the boy who died in the beginning and who he saw die three more times in his mind due to said guilt. I mean after all the ending is your choice like a dialogue wheel Blue(Paragon), Green(Neutral), Red (Renegade), Yellow (Leaving conversation) However the mechanic has been twisted to see the indoctrination as Paragon while destroying reaper control over Shepard is Renegade. And the rubble around Shepard's body would be more accurate to London's ruins.
However it could be possible that the beam merely caused Shepard to interface with the Reapers and enter their digital world. Destroying the Reapers kills them but doesnt affect the relays or other Syths as they have no control over the Geth or EDI.
Star Child: I will now explain the Reaper's purpo-
*Twelve seconds later*
Shepherd: So anyway I started blasting.
I liked the unused "dark matter" ending... especially as it would have tied in with talis recruitment mission in me2
I thought it would have made sense if it was the queen keeper Shepard gets beamed into and it tells Shepard they've been watching their progress against the Reapers and this is how to deal with them. If Shepard declines then they get turned into another keeper
Wtf 😂
I wanna see Shepard getting turned into a keeper
This ending would be dope
Far better than the ending we got
It's a wonder ME3 turned out as well as it did considered how much stress the devs were under. I'd gladly wait years longer for AAA games if it meant the devs had the time they needed to make the content they wanted under healthy and positive working conditions.
The concept of reaper queen is even dumber than catalyst. The Reaper is no more different than Geth. Their intelligence was one and collective. They act as one, not individually. The presence of queen will defeat the entire concept of AI in mass effect
Reapers aren't like Geth. They work individually.
I saw that article and the whole Reaper queen ending and options weren't even better that the one that was given. There would have to be an extraordinary storyline for it to make any sense.
Thats why in my opinion ME3 should have been 2 games. First one sets up the end for the second. Its just too short of an amount of time to bring such an expansive story to a close
From what I remember, the problem was they were 6 months from the end and still had no ending. They reviewed the storyboard one, realised it wasn't good enough (and supposedly it got leaked) and Hudson and a few others locked themselves away to come up with a new ending that wasn't much better.
We were promised 15 endings based on our choices up to then. Instead we got 2 - blue and red. And neither depended on our choices
Honestly, I'd of preferred this ending - The Reaper God realising 'yeah, we're screwed. Please help.' but I would've wanted the Leviathans fed into the narrative more. Not DLC but actual narrative thread woven into the greater game of ME3...
As for Shepard's survival in the endings? Well, its Lovecraft lite, so it was never going to happen really. But it would've been nice to see Shepard having an epilogue with their LI. Maybe a house on Rannoch with Tali, living on some tropical beach with Garrus, little blue children with Liara, little human children with Kaidan/Ashley, etc etc.
A funeral procession if Shepard dies in that ending, or an honour guard as Shepard gets discharged from the hospital. Things like that to make it _feel_ like the player's won.
But hey, there's always fanfiction.
Honestly, I love the Destroy ending. It works for me. And with the final scene with him taking that breath? That sent chills down my arms.
I’ve read some decent/great FanFictions I’ve discovered the past few months which expands onto Destroys ending which I’ve come to accept as my Shepard’s canon, lol.
Honestly, how ME3 ending will look in the long run is however ME4 continues on.
Except you also kill EDI, the Geth, anyone with massive cybernetics, etc.... meaning Shepard should die as well.
It could’ve been a lot better though. The star child was stupid, and the 4 choices thing was dumb and contradicted the heroes journey.
For those interested I will give you the basic rundown of what happens in the three different endings according to the chat log from what appeared to be a dev )because it outlined details on the citadel dlc before it was released, among other things) that was leaked like a decade ago:
According to the info, the three endings basically were conceived as:
1. taking revenge / continuing the original cycle (the one the reapers tried to fix) hoping to fix it.
2. Buying time to try and solve the greater problem together.
3. Solving the problem for everyone directly.
For Shepard there there were also thoughts on what he sacrificed.
1.Destroy symbolize an attempted external sacrifice (Shepard tries to destroy "the other" and succeeds if your military strength is great enough ( the crucible is not damaged enough so the energy pulse is focused enough to disrupt the quantum frequency band that constitute non-organic consciousness) if your military strength is low enough the energy is released in a very unfocused broad spectra, including vast amounts of electromagnetic and ionized radiation capable of vaporizing and destroying everything it touches.
2. Control symbolizes a partial self sacrifice. The crucible and catalyst vaporize Shepard's physical body while maintaining Shepard's consciousness, grafting it to a new "body" in this case an artificial platform. Shepard thus sacrifices his existence as an organic to become a synthetic intelligence laying down the new law for the Reapers. BUT, given that synthesis is inevitable and that the technology to integrate organic and synthetics is still preserved, it is not necessarily the case that Shepard is doomed to a future as a synthetic. Control contains the potential for synthesis.
3. Synthesis symbolizes a Christ-inspired self sacrifice. Shepard mind and body is disintegrated to.. change reality and break both cycles (the one that came before the reapers and the one that is the reaper solution up until Shepard enters the "lair of the star-child" catalyst). This was meant as fixing "the main cosmic problem" right away if Shepard is willing to sacrifice himself. You could also argue it sacrifices everyone's right to self determinate by forcing this on everyone, but given what is at stake, it can be argued that it is worth it. How synthesis work however, was supposedly never explored and this might be one of the reasons why some people do not like it. Shepard's "organic energy" added to the crucible somehow seems to re-write how chemistry and natural constants work? It is like it transforms the mass effect universe into an alternate universe. Very strange if you think about it - which I guess you were not really meant to do. or the Developers simply ran out of time and money;) ‘’
I always thought it would've been better if the allies Shepard gathered played much more narratively significant roles. Example: the turian fleet helping Shepard bypass the Reapers' defenses, the geth overriding the Reapers' directive, or the krogan helping Shepard reach the conduit unharmed...and without their assistance, Shepard actually loses squadmates and got certain choices locked out from the ending - taking cues from Mass Effect 2, because it's the fates of people close to you that make you care.
The Reaper Queen and Shepard could've had great chemistry (not like that... maybe) if they decided to put her in. They both get their ideas shut down, they both get imprisoned, they were leaders to a group/race of terrorists and they both have beef with the Reapers. They probably should've eluded to her existence WAY back in the first game, but I honestly wish they went with this idea instead of the Star Child due to the story and character development possibilities.
Report to the ship as soon as possible. We’ll bang, okay?
@@endorbr I was literally thinking about that when I said that lol
It’s unrealistic for Shepard to just miraculously survive somehow so I disagree with the people saying “Shepard dies no matter what terrible ending” that’s just flat out childish I’m sorry. The hardest choices require the strongest wills, yes I do agree that the star child or even the reaper queen is stupid no doubt as it takes away the mystery surrounding the reapers. What made the reapers creepy is that we didn’t know where they came from who made them or what their purpose actually was. “We have no beginning, we have no end, we are eternal.” This line alone made you fear what the reapers were because as humans are minds can’t comprehend something that has no beginning. It was a brilliant set up that didn’t have a satisfying answer, in my opinion I think it wouldve been creepier if we never found out about the leviathans or star child and the reapers really did just “exist” before anything else, and while most of you will say that that would’ve been stupid because everything HAS to have a beginning, I disagree that would have made them 10x creepier and more mysterious which was ALWAYS the point of the reapers.
After 3 whole games and several years, I chose to destroy the Reapers on the first run. As I watched Earth get destroyed (having not known that would happen) I came close to crying, which for me in a game was unheard of. I felt legitimate regret for that loss and anger that the star child may have manipulated me, but I never felt like Bioware should change the ending. In fact I was disappointed when they did. Throughout the whole trilogy I was making tough choices that had pros and cons, with the cons weighing on my conscience many times. The fact that a GAME was able to make me feel this way made the ending, in my opinion, perfect! I felt invested, like the world was believable and i was responsible. I love love love that I was able to be so invested. Our choices in real life often do have consequences we can't possibly see coming and we just have to live with it. Me3 was utterly profound in this way!
Bioware: "We don't have anything coherent for the ending."
Developers: "Let us delay."
Bioware: "No, we will just blame any shortcomings on the fans who complained and get the journalists on our side defending our artistic integrity."
Sane developers: "This sounds bad."
Insane Developers: "Just go with it and we will also blame our crunch on players."
They applied the same line of thinking to the LE on how many old bugs made the trip from the Legacy games as well new ones which Bioware just took our money and gave us a broken game that they threw the problems to modders and forgot about their console base.
All jokes aside, l had no idea that the staff at BioWare were that stressed out at the time. Big props to them for pushing through and hopefully they've moved up in the world as a result.
What was that snippet of video we saw with Anderson, Shepard, and some of the crew with Anderson saying he was proud of all of them?
The actual ending isn't too far fetched, reapers are AI / software, the crucible is a flash drive full of malware. That's very real life 😂
This is so much better. It makes so much more sense. It makes absolutely no sense that the head of the Reapers would look like a child Shepard saw on Earth, nor that it would agree to help him destroy the Reapers.
A Reaper Queen, or even any Reaper, turning against its brethren and working to destroy them actually seems like something that could happen.
i actually like the me3 endings, you’re in a huge war with basically gods, people will die and sacrifices have to be made, i think it makes you see how normal shepard and they are all. just humans who can die easily
This feels a little bit like a version of the ending I thought of a while back. One where we never find out who or what created the Reapers, or why for that matter, but the AI controlling them reveals that they overthrew their creators, and kept trying to improve themselves further, only to discover that they couldn't because they lacked the ability to evolve on their own, and tried to copy the way organic life forms do naturally. They had no luck with this, so they eventually started harvesting and integrating organic life into themselves in the hopes of gaining that ability. Which is why they've been allowing life to flourish, only to crush it once it reaches a certain point. The actual ending choices would still be more or less the same, only without the stupid idea that synthetic and organic species can't coexist, despite the fact that the previous arc in the game can disprove that.
^ This. I like this alot more than what they gave us.
It pissed me off that they presented that argument after Shepard can help the Geth and Quarians resolve their issues and coexist.
This is actually a good suggestion. Dark Energy never made sense, and the AI one felt hamfisted because there are better ways to police that. The cycle should have simply been a part of reaper evolution and reproduction, it would fit the "always a bigger fish" way that ME is written.
imagine if they'd never shown the Leviathans, but instead had shepard pass out and we have the 'in his mind' visuals as Leviathan talks to Shepard by using Shepard's memories to enforce functional communication. They can still mention 'we were the first... we created the Intelligence that drove the Reapers to be created' or some such. Cuz that's fine. hell we'd know that Harbinger would then be the true visual representation of what the Leviathans would have most likely looked like, just organic.
But it was all just overexplained as space-squids being idiots and making AI after 'lesser races made AI and AI rebelled', then going surprise pikachu face when Space-Squid AI rebels.... which is basically what happened btw.
But having some unknowable, cosmic-horror esque species having created the reapers or were at fault for their creation, to then just vanish (maybe most left the galaxy cuz 'failed with reapers now existing'.
Can I just say, I find it weird that the Paragon ending is "control" while "destroy" is Renegade, considering "control" is what Cerberus wanted while "destroy" was always the Alliance's endgoal.
Honestly I always pick "destroy" because there's no way I would do something that aligns with those xenophobic a**holes, so, really, to me this was even worse than what we got anyway! :p
I chose "destroy", because the reapers are absolutely repugnant. What idiot decides that retarded Von Neumann Probes butchering people and defiling their remains is a good idea to stop them from destroying themselves? (rhetorical question)
The reapers don't deserve to exist, and even if they did, their stupidity and hubris would bite them in the ass anyway.
Bro you good? Just say alien haters without speaking liberal. and WRONG, destroy is the paragon ending, as you kill the reapers
@@Canadianbacon-s9n Hmm, I see someone didn't watch this video, else they'd know why I was talking about "destroy" and "control" as Renegade and Paragon.
As for the rest, "xenophobic" pretty much means alien-hater, especially in the context of a sci-fi story. Pick up a dictionary one day!
@@Canadianbacon-s9n WTF you on about?
Cerberus is consistently considered paragon since ME2 (the paragon ending in that game is also aligning with Cerberus and giving them the collector base).
Paragon is *order and law*, it's being nice. Not being good.
Renegade is doing whatever it takes to get the job done. Your way, or the highway.
Cerberus is the "Paragon" villain faction, while Saren was a renegade villain back in ME1.
That's why ME3 is basically ME2: Episode 2. It even feels like playing the same game.
They avoided a fiasco like the Matrix Reloaded movie ending with the Architect - though it felt incomplete.
Pple only bring up the ending but I'd argue everything after Priority Citadel II felt lackluster including the Rannoch arc, its actually pretty crazy how empty ME3 latter half feels w/o its DLCs.
I agree with this to an extent. One of the things that pissed me off the most about Rannoch was Legion’s sacrifice. Not because he died, but because of how completely random it was. There was no build up to it or foreshadowing, and he doesn’t even go out in a climactic way like Mordin. He’s just randomly like “oh yeah btw the writers have killed off bro, peace” and dies.
It feels like they didn’t want the player to feel accomplished if they managed to unite the Quarians and the Geth, so they just threw in a random character death to make it more tragic. With this and the ending, I have the impression that they think rewarding the player with a happy outcome somehow undermines the quality of the story, which simply is not true. Rewarding the player for making wiser choices was 100% the way to go
The fact that even the planned ending (ie, reaper queen) was still pretty janky and the fact that it was still in storyboard phase means that the ending would have been borked regardless, they just didn't have time to make it better. Yes the color swapping was a problem, but it's like...that was just the symptom. The disease was a ridiculous timetable and management issues and using a different type of crappy ending wouldn't have been a cure. A shame because I still absolutely love ME3 and still find it my favorite to actually play (ME2 had a tighter store in many ways, but ME3 really brought decent closure to so many story threads, I can't be mad at it.)
3:36 How can the control ending ever be Paragon?
Nobody dies but Shepard. That's the whole idea.
In the way it is in the final product. It can literally be Paragon or Renegade or Neutral...It even has slight variations. Benevolent Dictator for Paragon, Outright Hostile Dictator mostly towards Aliens for Renegade.
It is only Shepard dying. It is the concept of not trying to cause your enemy harm or eradicate them but instead to learn from them to take the good and forget the bad. To use power and knowledge for the benefit of others whether towards the many or the few.
Now also in the final product Destory isn't purely Renegade a Paragon or Neutral Shep could in fact make that option just with slightly more guilt not towards the Reapers simply towards EDI and the Geth. Synthesis fits neither or both depending on perspective. Refusal fits neither or both as well.
For these original ideas 100% the destruction of Earth alongside the Reapers and Citadel would be Renegade purely no question. Replacing the Reaper Queen I'd consider the neutral option. This original Synthesis feels more like the Paragon option.
I've always felt the ending was of ME3 was just so out of place and unlike Mass Effect writing. Only way I could explain it would be a rushed and overworked team. IMO ME3 was my favorite ME right up until the ending.
I hate that those are the options. Two are the motivations of series villains. Saren wanted synthesis, and The Illusive Man wanted control. We're just supposed to accept that Shepard would take one of their ideas and do it better? So, Saren was right but he just went about it the wrong way or something? Oops! Could have save a lot of lives by joining Saren, but instead we decided to go to war for the same outcome.
Just finished my first play through of the legendary edition since it finally came onto gamepass. I finished the Citadel DLC after Horizon and it took me 3 days to actually go and finish the game. I was really just dreading the ending.
That is why the HEMEM exists... I've already gone through the ME3 ending depression back when the game originally came out. so now? well LE will have a happy ending ONLY for me... unless I do endgame with low-as-shit military strength, cuz then Crucible ain't exactly quality material.
Just 3 days to finish the 3 games? It literally took me a month.
I'm glad you're more on point than the people who ran with an off-hand comment about how dark energy was always the plan all long. Those people always seemed to forget that it's even less established of a theme than AI in the series with only 1 main quest mention and 2 off-hand sidequest mentions. But also they never address the huge plothole it creates of reapers manipulating us to use dark energy then killing us to stop us using the thing they made us use.
Again, I'll state that ME3's ending issues were largely due to the short dev cycle. It needed a lot more time. I don't know what EA was thinking, Mass Effect 3 was supposed to the Magnum Opus, the Crown Jewel of the Mass Effect Trilogy. Players, for the most part, would have been fine with some delays. Really doesn't make sense since MEA was given almost twice as long to develop . . . granted much of that time was wasted hammering at the Frostbyte engine and wokeness conflicts.
Doesn't help that the OG script was leaked something like 9 months before release.
They actually had like 18 months to develop it. Most of the time was wasted in other bullshit
The control ending still feels sus to me regardless, since one of the series' main antagonists had the goal of controlling the Reapers and it didn't go well for him. Even if a paragon control ending canonically has everything work out okay...it feels like it shouldn't.
Even Javik makes mention of how a faction of Protheans during his cycle were attempting to control the reapers as well, but were themselves already indoctrinated. Essentially a brainwashed splinterfaction working counter to the main-faction's intents without ever realizing it.
I beg you, Shepard can convince anyone to do anything without a catalyst. By becoming a Catalyst, he simply does the same thing on a larger scale.
Reaper Queen seems cooler than the little boy but it basically became the same thing. Control is best ending and the most interesting to make canon going into ME4, imo
not a option, i prefer mod ending from Audemus. All characters live in peace and Shepard too, with my blue girl or miss vas Normandy
I'm afraid they'll have to account for all three major endings or people will just rip them apart. Which will result in some things having to be unified: for example, Reapers are removed from the story for various reasons, EDI and Geth are fine for various reasons, etc.
the ending of the ME3 is made me think
HOW THE F*** ARE WE GOING TO TRAVEL WITHOUT MASS RELAYS
Yes the ending was frustrating but I pain to think of all those developers and designers that had go through that. Management really messed up.
Wasn't there also a change in the Reaper's motivation? like the whole thing with stars going nova before they should that Tali was retrieving data on in ME2?
They literally change in concept per game.
ME1: They're the abomination-like remnants of a war with AI, just like in ME3 except they're more villainous. Sovereign implies this when he says "We impose order on the chaos of Organic Evolution -- Each civilization will rise, and at the apex of their evolution, they are extinguished." which implies both that the Reapers come every 50K years, but also suggests that organics inevitably trend to a point where "something" happens due to our development... and bam, Reapers. This also suggests that organics originally created the Reapers, and the Reapers now haunt organic life forever, so every time a new species reaches the point in which the original Reapers were made, evolutionarily speaking, the Reapers simply come back before it happens. It's post-singularity synthetics, whose creators are long-long dead and nothing about them is knowable anymore. That's ME1's idea.
ME2: Dark Energy. The thing everybody claims is the "original ending". "Original" is misguided. It was the running concept during the development of Mass Effect 2, in an attempt to more specifically address why it's always every 50K years, and what the Reapers are trying to do long-term, foreshadowing a bigger thesis for the franchise about environmentalism, and an ultimatum at the end of ME3 between sacrificing humanity for the greater good (i.e. proving that the Reapers were organics's natural state of evolution, to heighten our possibilities and responsibilities) or hedge your bets and destroy them all, collateral be damned, because naturally occuring life is better, and you don't believe becoming Reapers to prevent complete genocide is fair.
ME3: Reapers are synthetic shells running on a contingency plan: Apparently they only do this because they were programmed to save organic life before it could be wiped out fully. Once we reach a point in our evolution where genocide by way of our synthetic created is a risk, the Reapers stop us before we can grow any further, and reset the clock so the next species can grow up unspoiled, until they have to be reaped. This is all part of contingency-logic by the Reapers' creators, that the Reapers followed squarely until they also had to eradicate their own creators, thinking of it as "preservation" and considering this equal to "saving" them, by storing "everything that they were". The limitation of synthetic understanding of reality causes this issue rivaling organics's need to be truly alive and individual. But the Reapers in this version are no longer individualized as all of them are apparently controlled by a singular AI Mind of the Citadel, so whatever the personalities of them were in the past seems to have been retconned. The Rannoch Reaper might even be voiced by the Catalyst Child voice, just modulated with a low-pitched Reaper filter.
In ME3, Shepard faces a final decision between trusting the Reapers in their assumptions about organic evolution, and helping them find an improved solution, or kill all synthetic life as if you see them as the fundamental issue that needs to be eradicated in order to get rid of the Reapers.
It's the same as the Dark Energy idea, the Dark Energy threat of a reverse-big-bang is just replaced with the supposition that synthetic life will some day eradicate all organics if the Reapers did not intervene. The problem with 3's version is that the central conflict of organics endangering themselves with synthetic creations is contradicted in many ways by showing the opposite happening with EDI and the Geth and not being able to challenge the assumptions of the Catalyst with those truths. So each choice feels unnecessary and phony with this being unaddressed. The conclusion of Synthesis spits in the face of how Organics and Synthetics were demonstrably already on good terms besides the Reapers themselves, and unlike the Reapers the Geth did not kill everything in sight. They had a feud and violent war with their creators, but that was because they did not respect each other, and it was settled once the quarians's bigotry was held up as their own mirror, and placing trust with the Geth.
The failure of ME3's ending isn't what the concept is, but how the concept was seeded into ME3's story and ME1/2 in retrospect. It fits ME1 in many ways, but ME3 took strides to subvert the notion that "Synthetic created life is dangerous!" through EDI and the Geth. It's no longer a fundamental thesis of the story, and the center-plot of 3 is instead largely about assembling the most diverse galactic alliance ever, and holding on to relationships before the world ends. It's the lack of acknowledgement of these themes in the Catalyst scene and the final Jungle Normandy cutscene that makes the ending feel so profoundly cold and unsatisfying.
In my mind, there should have been 4 main endings.
1. A renegade ending where you kill the Illusive Man, open the citadel arms, let the crucible attach, push the button, and boom, beam shoots out and uses the relay network to destroy all of the reapers. If you rush through the game, the fleet is wiped out while attaching the crucible, and right as the beam goes out, the citadel is destroyed by the reapers and Shepard dies.
2. Same as #1, but if you have a high enough score and united all of the galaxy, the fleets (led by Normandy) are able to endure the reaper assault and allow the beam to go out before they can destroy the citadel. Shepard lives, they have a memorial for Anderson.
3. The paragon option could be for the Illusive Man to convince you to let him control the reapers. If your score is lower, he stops the war, but there are negative consequences from the Illusive Man controlling them.
4. Same as #3, but if you've done just about everything, and you've pretty much paragonned your way through it, the Illusive Man will truly be redeemed and he will take all of the reapers back in to dark space, never to return. Shepard lives, they have a memorial for Anderson.
No Star Child in any scenario. The many choices you've made during the games, would affect the way the epilogue plays out.
That's just an ending that would have satisfied me, I'm sure most will think it's terrible, but hey to each his own.
I like the idea of a Reaper Queen way better than the creepy random kid. But it would still be the same ending.
And whiping out Earth is insanly harsh O.o
I'll be perfectly honest: after having replayed the trilogy three times since legendary edition came out, I don't hate the ending at all. I actually think I like it more now.
Maybe I'm just weird, but I feel like seeing this video makes me appreciate it even more. Being under that kind of stress and turning out what they did is nothing short of miraculous.
On the complete interview they blame the players for going from crunch to crunch, hopefully most of them are without hubris but I doubt it.
The ending is amazing because Shepard never went into the citadel. Everything after getting hit by Harbinger's beam took place in his/her head. The end of the game was to fight your own indoctrination. This explains why the colors were flipped (blue for the control option, red for the destroy), to persuade you, the player, and the character. The only way to really beat the game is to get EMS above 4000 and choose destroy. That breath scene at the very end was on you waking up back on Earth!
@@chadbowman0 OP did a video on indoctrination theory a while back. In some aspects it makes a lot of sense, but others not so much. I recommend you watch if you haven't already.
@@chadbowman0 The indoctrination is interesting but ultimately dumb because the game clearly shows the consequence of each option.
What's funny is that the series was based in almost every way on a novel series called the "Berserker" series, whose namesake comes from the Berserker hypothesis, a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox ("Why is the Universe so quiet if it has the potential for intelligent life to take shape"). The hypothesized "Berserkers" kill all life and self-replicate (cf. the Reapers). They could have looked there for inspiration but perhaps ever changing staff and management cut the thread of cognitive and thus thematic continuity that would have helped the series end strong.
No matter how they try to spin it the ending just plain sucked.
There were developers blaming the player base than realizing their own hubris, very Reaper like.
Bioware should have dropped all intentions of explaining the reapers and instead have made the suicide mission on steroids, where the decisions you made and war assets contributed to whether you succeeded fully with a happy ending, failed, or got a middle ending with people dying. In the end their should only be one ending: destroy the reapers.
In short make it like Dragon Age origins ending.
Any ending, in which Shepard dies on screen is the bad one! Lol I don’t care if people think it’s too positive of a conclusion for that scale of conflict or not, thats just my opinion! Lol
Yeah especially when he walks right into an explosion like a dumbass!
Currently working on my Let's Play for Legendary Edition. I appreciate you making that list on how to save everyone in ME2. I'll be sure to give your channel a shoutout in one of the final vids of ME2. Happy belated Spoopyween!
Found this video accidentally. Leaving comment though as the author misses the point entirely. ME3 ending isn't bad because Shep does. In many games, movies and books the protagonist dies. Red Dead Redemption, Dragon Age Origins, Assassin's Creed 3, Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, the list goes on. It's sad, but sad doesn't mean bad. Tragedy of ME3 ending is that a) nothing makes sense and b) it doesn't fit thematically. Nothing makes sense because things happen randomly. How did Illusive Man get on the Citadel? Why doesn't The Harbinger kill Shepard as he sends his squadmates away right next to the beam after the charge? How wasn't The Crucible discovered by the Reapers? Why does Harbinger just fly away ad Shepard wakes up? How come the room we're in on the Citadel is being called the master control room if we know from ME1 that master controls are where the council meets? Too many things don't make sense. Also, how come I'm told that the whole reason behind the reapers is the AI vs organics conflict if I was able to reconcile the Quarians and the Geth just recently and my pilot is in love with my ship's AI? This dissonance is why ME3 ending sucks. Not the fact that Shepard can die. I'd even argue that heroic sacrifice is a good and logical conclusion to Shep's story.
100% correct it's illogical makes no sense...So much so that we fans had to create the Indoctrination theory in order to create any logical foundation for it. But the simple truth is it just doesn't make any sense at all they miswrote the Reapers motivations and entire ending.
I'm more interested in the cut and or leaked lore elements to the ending, like Biotics threatening to evolve so far that their mass effect powers speed up the end of the universe.
The breath scene at the end of the 4000 EMS destroy option was not just an afterthought. It was the only way you beat your own reaper indoctrination.
Destroying Earth was actually a big change in decisions. It would be nice, and I doubt anyone would say the renegade was the better one.
I think this ends the conspiracy that the renegade was actually the paragon one
I always enjoy the Destroy and then even though with paragon
They should release Anniversary Unrated Enchanced Mass Effect Director's Cut Free Range Orgnic Non Bio Extended Edition With a proper Sheppard funeral for blue ending and some scenes where he is alive and interacting with the crew after the destruction of the reapers also allowing the players a chance to play some additional few extra hours of gameplay as an epilogue to ME4 for the cannon ending.
While I'm not a fan of this, it would be absolutely hilarious to see the renegade shepard just destroy everything lol
Did people really think Shepard would live? There’s so many biblical allegories - he was clearly going to sacrifice himself. His name is literally Shepard; Chora’s Den is named after a church; Purgatory; Legion; Lazarus project; 12 squad mates in me2; Eve. Clearly he is a Jesus allegory
I thought Halo was the only series that wasn't even slightly subtle with the Bible references.
My favorite ending was when fans decided to riot. And threatened to burn the company down. Lmfao I never seen so much anger flooded online. Hahahahaha 😄