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Posted by on Mar 14, 2012 in Uncategorized | 11 comments

Mass Effect 3 Ending Reaction *Spoilers*

Mass Effect 3 Ending Reaction *Spoilers*

Mass Effect 3

Warning: Full Mass Effect 3 story spoilers are contained so stay away if you haven’t played the game and don’t want to be spoiled.

The ending to Mass Effect 3 is easily the most controversial ending to any game in 2012 (granted it’s only March) and probably one of the most polarizing endings in gaming history. Thousands of fans have gone online to express their disapproval of the endings to the main story or to show their support for BioWare’s decisions. Critics have universally praised the game with many top notch sites and publications giving the game anywhere from 9s to perfect 10s.

But this isn’t about the reaction to the endings, the fans, or the critics. This is an extension of my review of Mass Effect 3 that will allow me to explain why I couldn’t stand the end of the story while leaving my original review basically spoiler free. These are my opinions (formulated after lots of long thought and reading through arguments on both sides) and should be taken as such. Imagine that this is my review, but only for the eyes of those that have actually played the game already.

Now that we have the semantics out of the way, let’s delve into why the ending of Mass Effect 3 is one of the most disappointing, depressing, and damaging endings in video game history. From the release of Mass Effect in 2007 all the way up to the release of Mass Effect 3 a few days ago, BioWare has promised gamers a new kind of immersive experience that takes the choices they make in one game and has them affect the rest of the games in the series and the overall storyline.

In Mass Effect a lot of gamer’s choices only had inferred consequences as things like saving/killing the Rachni Queen, saving/killing the Council, or who you nominate for humanity’s council seat are all things that are supposed to pay off later in the series. These choices are referenced the second game and can have some relatively significant impact on how the other characters in the galaxy perceive you, but they don’t truly make the story any different.

In Mass Effect 3, your choice of councilor is thrown out the window as even if you picked Anderson, he will leave the Council and Udina will take over. The Rachni Queen is captured and used by the Reapers so Shepard will have to make another tough choice on whether to save the Rachni again and sacrifice the Krogan squad he/she is with or vice versa. The Council will not be any more trusting of Shepard, even if he/she saved them in the first game and stopped the Collectors in the second game.

Mass Effect Council

But some of the choices have a profound impact on the story, with the Mass Effect 2 decision of whether or not to save Maelon’s genophage data being a key decision in curing the genophage and getting the Krogan on your side. This is good to see and delivers on the promises that BioWare laid forth when the series began, your decisions in one game will lead to death, victory, or something in between in the final game and that is all fantastic.

So what is the problem? Well, the problem is that the game was so strong until the final decision that basically made every other choice in all three games almost pointless. Let me explain the ending first in case you don’t quite remember or are reading this despite not having played the game. The Citadel itself is the “Catalyst” that the Crucible needs to work and to destroy the Reapers once and for all. Shepard leads an all-out assault on London to make it to a Reaper transporter to the Citadel. Once there, Shepard can open the arms and the Crucible can dock with the Citadel and take out the Reapers. Along the way, Shepard’s squad is utterly decimated by Harbinger and Shepard almost dies in the process. Shepard limps his/her way into the beam with Anderson.

Anderson gets teleported to another area of the Citadel and gets to the control panel first, but the Illusive Man is waiting and has the Reaper tech he needs to control them both. He makes Shepard shoot Anderson and then Shepard can choose to kill the Illusive Man before he has a chance to execute Anderson. Admiral Hackett then tells Shepard that the Crucible isn’t firing and it must be a problem on Shepard’s end. Shepard almost passes out but is lifted up on top of the Citadel and a holographic VI/AI/something talks to him. It takes the form of the small boy that Shepard saw killed at the beginning of the game and says that it (not the Citadel) is the “Catalyst.”

Here is where the story gets a tad confusing and very disappointing. The boy tells Shepard that he controls the Reapers and they are his “solution” to chaos in the galaxy. Apparently, the creator(s) of the Reapers believed that all organic life would create synthetic life that would eventually rise up and kill off organic life. Because of this, the Reapers harvest all the advanced civilizations before they have enough time to create synthetics advanced enough to destroy them and leave the other non-evolved species to grow. This “saves” the organics in Reaper form and lets the other species evolve until it is “their time.”

Shepard’s ability to find this out apparently proves that the system won’t work anymore and the “Catalyst” needs a new plan. He says that Shepard is the only one who can make the choice but three choices are given to end the game (only two if the Effective Military Strength isn’t high enough). The first is to “control” the Reapers and stop them from destroying Earth. The second is to destroy ALL synthetic life in the galaxy (including the Geth and EDI) to destroy the Reaper threat. The final choice is to combine Shepard’s DNA with the Crucible to merge all synthetic and organic life together, making one new mixed species of life.

 Mass Effect 3

Depending on military strength and the choice, Shepard will either die or be shown breathing under some rubble. But, regardless of military strength, prior choices, or anything else, the Mass Relays are all destroyed in a chain reaction. The Normandy flees the battle for Earth via a relay (for an unknown reason) and the shockwave of the Crucible crash lands the ship on an uncharted planet far from Earth. Shepard’s squad members (the ones we saw decimated by Harbinger) and Joker (plus EDI if all synthetic life wasn’t destroyed) emerge from the Normandy and look out on the new world. The credits roll and the game ends. An epilogue shows an old man and a young boy on the planet that the Normandy crash landed on saying that basically “that is the story of Commander Shepard” and that some of the details were lost in time. The boy asks when he can take to the stars and the old man simply says soon, referencing possibilities in space as if interstellar travel is still not possible.

So, if we are to take the already-established fiction of the Mass Effect universe and apply it to this ending here is what we have. With the Mass Relays destroyed, interstellar travel would be difficult even at FTL speeds, basically destroying the intergalactic community. The resulting explosion from the Mass Relays would destroy all life in the star system that the relay was in as we saw in the Arrival DLC for Mass Effect 2. With the Relay’s massive destructive force, all the fleets around Earth that Shepard amassed, Shepard, and everyone else on Earth would die, regardless of if you got the “perfect” ending where Shepard lived. Normandy’s crew would be the only people from the battle to survive and they would be stranded on a world far enough away from the remnants of civilization that it would be difficult for them to make it back.

In terms of endings, in might not be the worst in video game history, but it has to rank pretty high up there. There are numerous plot holes that could be mentioned but the real important problem with the ending is this: it undermines the entire unique selling point of the franchise that your choices matter. Did they matter? According to this ending they didn’t matter at all and everything you did was to barely save a galaxy that would probably die a slow death over time or might get back up and running but would never be the same.

But Shepard allows the races to live to see another day right? So how does it undermine choice? Think of it this way, the boy that gives these three choices is the person who controls the Reapers. Or is he? What is to say that he isn’t simply lying? We all know that the Reapers have advanced indoctrination methods and can make people believe what they want. Who knows if the boy is just the Reapers using Shepard’s fragile emotional state against him/her?

Either way, the Reaper creator or the Reapers themselves give Shepard three choices, all of which destroy galactic civilization as we know it and all of which destroy Earth and every alien fleet that Shepard amassed in the Sol system. How is this a good ending? Supposedly Shepard rids the galaxy of the Reaper’s influence but he made one of three choices that were offered by the Reapers or their creator.

Mass Effect 3 Guardian

The main idea of fighting the Reapers in the first place is that humanity (and by extension all races) deserve the right to choose their own destiny. The Reapers have no right to destroy galactic civilization for any reason and neither do their creators. None of these options allow you to go against the will of the Reapers and their creator’s ill-conceived logic of chaos (which is undermined by the fact that you stop the Quarian-Geth war (and the Geth actually HELP the Quarians re-populate their home world) and EDI is unshackled yet remains loyal to organics). None of these choices allow you to continue on with the galactic civilization that made the games so incredible and all of them see the characters you know and love stranded and separated from Shepard.

In the end, Shepard succumbs to the will of the Reapers/their creators and chooses one of three options that are placed before him/her, all of which are condoned by the Reapers/their creators. Shepard represents humanity’s choice to live its existence without the influence of anything else and that is what this ending kills. Why can’t Shepard make a choice that doesn’t involve simply blindly accepting this boy at his word at the end?

It undermines the entire idea of the series because regardless of any choices that you made in Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, or Mass Effect 3, Shepard will have to be pigeon-holed into three terrible choices made possible by the Reapers/their creators. Replaying the games almost seems pointless because regardless of what you do, you can’t achieve the best ending. In a game (in fact in a series) where choice is so important, shouldn’t both extremes be explored? Shouldn’t there be the option for Shepard to fail, win, or have a bittersweet victory through sacrifice? Why is there no possibility for an ending that doesn’t involve the absolute destruction of everything your choices worked towards in the whole series? Curing the genophage, helping the Quarians retake their home world and make peace with the Geth, destroying Cerberus, uniting the Krogan and Turians, and all of the other actions you take in the game seem like moot points when everyone ends up in a bad way regardless of what you do and those choices had no real effect on the ending. Three all-too-similar choices and no real distinction between the endings, even the really good ones, seem to make choices in the game a waste of time.

Another main problem that this ending has is its ambiguity. It leaves the player with a ton of questions and no real answers. What happens to the squad members marooned on the planet? If Shepard survived, is he/she ever reunited with his/her love interest? None of these are even remotely explained and if DLC is the only way to find out, that is a huge cop out on BioWare and EA’s part. The finale of the series needs to have some declining action but that doesn’t happen here.

Mass Effect 3

So what is the point? Well, Mass Effect 3 is an absolutely superb game that finds a way to destroy the essence of the entire series in the final few minutes. Instead of celebrating a player’s smart choices or punishing a player’s poor choices, the game makes them count for virtually nothing. Even if a new “choice” is added if you do well in amassing a large fleet (the Synthesis choice only comes about if you have a high enough military strength) the game still forces you to bow to the will of another and that is the antithesis of choice. Choices are so important to the whole series but the biggest one at the end of the finale is the one that isn’t a true “free will” choice. It’s like if a gun is pointed at your head and you needed to choose one of three horrible deaths, is that really free will? Shouldn’t the choice to try to fight off your attacker (regardless of how futile it is) be there?

Does the game need an ending where everyone lives happily ever after? Not really (though to include the entire spectrum based on choice would be best) but it needs an ending with closure and none of the endings give that. Choice is thrown out the window, depression abounds regardless of what you did, and Shepard is forced into choices that aren’t of his/her own volition. That is why this ending is so game breaking, it isn’t just depressing, bittersweet, or marred with plot holes, it is a complete undermining of the whole series and if BioWare doesn’t fix this with DLC, the entire series could be at least partially ruined for many fans.

Is Mass Effect 3 a great game? From just about every angle, the answer is an overwhelming yes but in a fantastic turn of events the game breaking finale ends the Mass Effect series on a horrible note and is why the game lost points for me. I can’t deny the absolutely fantastic 99% of the game, but I also can’t ignore this incredibly important 1% of bad.

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James Pungello

Editor in Chief
I'm a 24 year old graduate of Fordham University who loves gaming and loves writing about it. Feel free to e-mail me at james.pungello@vgu.tv

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  • Kenji

    Spot on Man!

  • Skurkanas

    Terrific review. Thanks

  • Xavier

    Bravo, I can feel your confusion about this in your writing, the same confusion and ‘dafuq just happened’ feeling 99% of Mass Effect fans felt during those horrible last 10 minutes.. Kudos mate! If you havent already joined us, come on in at ‘Demand a better ending to mass effect 3′ on facebook, already more than 30,000 strong!

  • Orthedos

    Life is not what we want, it is what we can make out, without the benefit of hindsight, at the critical moment of decision making, with the skill set and options we know at that point in time. We cannot hope for the best of everything and demand that it must be there for us to choose from, or we spam the internet and scream. The world will not stop revolving just because we do not like that.

    ME3 or the whole ME series, is about a hero, a Shep, trying to fight an uphill battle, against something much more powerful. Shep use the means he has, and rallies a lot of aliens as well as his kind, he lived a terrific life. At the end, he faced the music, the reality has him boxed in, and he has to make a choice out of 3. At that point in time, possibly a few seconds to ponder, he can pick one or try to fight.

    Can he fight? His team is decimated, the reapers are breathing down his neck. All the entities he is facing, the crucible (the boy), a huge unknown weapon that does not fire, everything is so powerful, that if he refuse to take one of the 3 options, the issue might be taken off his hands, and he will be swept away by the current of events and vanish into history.

    So he took the leap. Period. That is history, that is life. We can never look back and say, what if JKF was not killed back then, what if Napolean won the battle of Waterloo. What if is just an academic exercise, chitchat for big “man” after dinner. But life is what counts during the split seconds where you can make a choice, and choice means you do not have everything you want at once.

    Yes, choice sometimes means choose among the devils. That is what a leader does, take the leap and hope it works out, years down the road, generations later.

    I think the ME3 finishing is dark, deep and realistic. If we have a happy ending in which we can suddenly subdue all the big reapers with just a big gun and all the massive fleet sails home, all sailors drunk and singing, that would be an anti-climax. The fleet, the organised resistance slowed down the reapers, buying time for Shep to bring the crucible to the weapon, opening the chance for Shep to obtain the choice. The historical mission of the resistance front is done. Even if they got dessimated, they go down fighting to the end. That is, after all, what we expect from the bulk of the forces facing the reaper.

    Remember Garrius? In one of the “chitchat” with Shep, he said this is a fight he does not expect all the live through. He just does not realise practically all won’t live through. All that can change is the way most of them die, either harvested by reapers, or go down fighting the reapers one way or another.

    • Talestra

      @ Orthedos
      By your logic, there was no point even playing the games. It is established in first game that Reapers always destroy civilizations, they are too powerful and ancient. So, why fight the inevitable? And yet, Shepard tries, just to admit defeat in the end.

  • Skurkanas

    @ Orthedos

    I could go long ways arguing that games, by definition, are NOT real life and for all intents and purposes created to offer some sort of enjoyment. That includes a good tragedy. It doesn’t include soul shattering meaninglessness.
    But anyway, let’s follow your train of thought and say that games have to be measured by real life’s standards:

    Nobody is arguing with the fact that life is all about (ofttimes hard) decisions. What bothers me, and many others is, that the end of this game is NOT.

    It’s not that we need to choose among devils, it’s that we have no choice at all. We aren’t given the option to at least get an informed opinion before making our choices. We have to take whatever the star-child says at face value, without asking, without arguing, without any chance of defiance.
    After fighting the odds for so long, stubbornly denying the fact that it’s likely a lost battle from the beginning, we are now FORCED to cave in to the reasoning of what, for all intents and purposes, is the enemy?
    I wouldn’t do that. My Shepard wouldn’t do that.

    Heck, for all we know, Shephard shooting himself in the head right there might have been the “best” thing to do. There would’ve been the slightest chance for the united fleet to kill, or at least severely damage the Reapers – and even if they’d all die, the mass relays would’ve been left for the next cycle to create a new galactic community.

    Instead, a terribly tired Shepard, bordering the apathic now basically finishes what the reapers started. Destroying the galactic community he fought to protect, killing billions due to the mass relay overloads.

    That’s not realistic, that’s not choice. Even if they indeed wished for the ending of a series that always capitalized on the concept of fighting incredible odds, to be utterly nihilistic and depressing, at least give us the final choice of denial, spitting in the Reapers face one last time and refusing to become their pawn.

    Life would offer that much, at the very least.

  • Arvind

    Well said
    I was outraged by the endings , not because shep dies – i fully anticipated he would , but because of that &*%&^% boy who shows up for no foreseeable reason , puts a gun to your head and says choose. I could even accept the endings provided the mass relays weren’t destroyed. What’s the point of sending krogans to palaven if the turian economy collapses once they lose access to the volus (and this is assuming the “crucible effect” is less damaging than the asteroid in ME2). Why bother curing the genophage if the resultant population explosion cannot be accommodated in the krogan DMZ?- they’ll end up eating each other again. Who cares who you hooked up with since the normandy crew are marooned on an island far far away?.
    To quote legion – “does this game have a soul?” well , it did until the last ten minutes

  • jimbo32

    Nice summation of the problems with the ending. I have to say though – when the majority of players have a huge problem with the ending, it can hardly be referred to as “polarizing”. That term implies two fairly equal sides, which obviously is not the case.

    • James Pungello

      Thank you for the comment. I used the word “polarizing” because you’d be surprised at how many people I have talked to that liked the ending. In fact, some of the other editors on this site enjoyed the ending. While many on the internet are against it (indeed the majority) there is a good number of people who are arguing for it.

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  • Marcus

    I killed the Reapers because that was the mission objective and too many good soldiers died to give up on that goal. I’m pissed that the relays probably killed the major populations of all the major civilizations, and I’m confused as to why my Shepard is still breathing after being killed TWICE and after having faced numerous Reapers up close and personal. I’m also sad to a lesser extent for killing EDI and the Geth.

    I have seen mostly ME fans pissed at this, and communist intellectual types and/or Bioware PR people telling us to sit down and shut up. There’s even a bunch of tools claiming that if we didn’t like the ending we’re just stupid. I bet these are the same people who call the South and Midwest “flyover country,” and who think they are smarter and better than the inhabitants therein. What a bunch of arrogant pukes.

    There’s a few people out there claiming that the ending is really just a hallucination, and that everyone who doesn’t think the ending is awesome is stupid. This is a huge logic disconnect, as these idiots are arguing that ME has no ending AND that the lack of ending is a superior ending. Since when was ME Japanese anime? Bioware has some splainin to do.

  • Dark lion

    My biggest problem isn’t even the removal of choice… It’s the literal death of Mass Effect itself.

    Why? The Relays are destroyed no matter what you do. That’s it. The end of the intergalactic community. It’s almost Worse then the extinction of all advanced organic life to me.

    If you want a bleak ending, have at it! Kill Shepard, the crew, the fleet, all of them. But the destruction of the Relays just crushes all hope for the future of this franchise and everything we had come to enjoy.