Why Mass Effect 3’s Ending Was So Damn Terrible

Kotaku - There's an almost universal outrage at the moment over the ending of Mass Effect 3. After playing a series for what's usually over 100 hours, people are very upset at the manner in which the trilogy wound down.

[Double_Oh_Snap]

What ending? Will explain to those who have yet to pay a lick of attention during supposed ending? Play again this time pay attention to everything.

[Hufandpuf]

???

[NewMonday]

But the reviews rave about the ending, why are fans upset?

No spoilers pleas

[00]

Because they make no goddamn sense.

[militant07]

*****SPOILER***********SPOILER ******
*****SPOILER***********SPOILE R******
*****SPOILER***********SPOILE R******
*****SPOILER***********SPOILE R******

the chances of winning against repears goes slimmer and slimmer as you proceed and they still want shepard to end it like a miracle??

[ziggurcat]

@ newmonday:

the fans are upset because they think they're game producers and seem to think that they know better than the people who made the game.

that, and they're whiny little babies who had a much different ending in their narrow, ideologic minds.

[raytraceme]

I love how all scifi shooters in the past year all had the same ending. Crysis 2, Resistance 3, Gears Of War 3, and now Mass Effect 3 all had the rays from a machine destroy all enemies ending.

[DragonKnight]

@ziggurcat: Wrong. The fans know what they like and what they don't like. It has nothing to do with being a producer. And since when does being a producer mean you know what people like and thus tell them what they like instead of frickin' listening to them? Stop riding Bioware's @#$%, they aren't paying you for support.

[Tr10wn]

@newmonday fans are upset because they didnt understand it, the best way to understand the ending is to read the codex and some of the books and comics, other than that people dont like the endings is because non of the ending are

*MINOR SPOILER*
happy endings.
*MINOR SPOILER*

[MaxXAttaxX]

* They're all pretty much bad endings with minor differences.

* Everything is destroyed. 5 years of playing the series leave players unrewarded with no closure.

* Possible $10 DLC for a proper ending may be coming.

Take your pic.

[showtimefolks]

i know i am no producer or game writer but you mean to tell me after 3 games and more than 70 hrs of single player story excluding side mission that's the best ending bioware could come out with?

and spoiler for everyone there will be mass effect 4, you can pretty much confirm that, watch the ending and after credits

[beastlysensation]

yes, the indoctrination of the ending...there is no ending. Pay attention and youll realize the ending will come later, maybe as dlc? still a very shitty move by bioware

[Godmars290]

Don't want to believe it, but then again both ME1&2 have had connecting DLC to the next chapter, so why not offer the actual closing that way too.

Wonder how Bioware's going to try and spin that? How could they not expect fans to hit the roof if its true?

[beastlysensation]

bioware changed the scrip[t due to the leak earlier this year...the ending we have now i just a place holder for the real ending afterwards...which imo is a lot better and makes a lot more sense. All bioware has to do , is go through with this indoctrination theory and then they can easily continue the ending in the next dlc if they want, but thats only if they want to believe in this theory.

[Shadowstar]

Ah, yes, the indoctrination theory. It's clearly the product of a (talented) fanfic author. Just because you like fix-fics doesn't mean they're real. People don't want to face the fact that Bioware really, truly blew it. Maybe the theory will ascend to canon, but it's unfortunately not what they wrote.

The only way I'm going to believe they intended the indoctrination theory all along is if, without a patch or DLC, it shows up in a month or so. Show me it was on the disc the whole time. Then I'll say, wow, Bioware did an amazing job. Otherwise, it's wishful thinking.

[Kos-Mos]

But the producer of the game said it was hard to be a producer.

[ElementX]

All these ME3-ending articles are getting old

[Lord_Sloth]

I said that 3 months ago.

[StoneAgeWarfare]

here have a cookie

[Led-Zeppelin]

OMG "3 months"?

[Led-Zeppelin]

........and NO ONE CARES.

[Lord_Sloth]

Obviously you cared enough to reply twice. XXXP

[deruy343]

It's getting really boring now. Maybe 1 or 2 was ok..but we're up to about 20 and kotaku is repeating old shit as always

[lex-1020]

Unlike most of the other reports Kotaku's article provided a legitimate reason for why they felt the ending sucked. However I am getting rather annoyed with all the articles

[Lucreto]

I said it yesterday its a placeholder ending for the dlc. Broken Steel from Fallout 3 is a president for this.

[eak3]

you mean precedent??

[Lucreto]

Yes I was predicted text and I failed to notice the mistake.

[urwifeminder]

I havnt played it yet have no idea why a very small group of fans are bitching ,but please dont change it for people who havnt played yet i plan on getting it in a few months so far i know nothing about it .

[--Onilink--]

trust me, its not a small group of people, and right up until the final 5min you will be thinking "what the hell is everyone whining about?", and then those final 5min kick in and boy you are in for a dissapointment...

i really really hope this hallucination/indoctrination theory is right (really makes a lot of sense, be sure to read some of the post on bioware forums after you beat the game) and there is something else coming later on

[urwifeminder]

As far as i know only 30,000 or so fans complained not much if your game sells millions im sure ill be happy with the game if not ill take it like a man lol.

[Leio]

Yeah shut up while they slap you in the face and take your money ...is like a real man haha

[--Onilink--]

it may be too much for you to imagine, but not everyone that is displeased with something voices their discontent, they are happy by letting other people do it... so if this group reaches 50.000+ people, its not just that number, it represents something much bigger, imagine that for every 1 person that complains, 2 also dont like the ending but dont say anything(and 1:2 ratio is being very petty), we are talking about 150.000 people dissatisfied by Bioware's work....

[justpassinggas]

It is a huge number. For example, in the UK, 2.5 million people marched in London against the Iraq war. The population of the UK is about 30 times that. Does that mean it was only a vocal minority that was against the Iraq war? In fact, I can guarantee you, that if any government were to say that tomorrow, we are going to be poisoning the water supply, you'll only get a small percentage of the population protesting. Why? Because a lot of the people believe that their protests won't change a thing or they can't be arsed to get up off their sofas and voice their concerns. 30,000 people in a few days is a HUGE number. In fact, it is larger than any other Bioware poll combined. There are threads in the Bioware forums complaining about the ending, the combined posts of which exceed a million!

[urwifeminder]

Sounds like alot of spoiled brats to me.

[MaxXAttaxX]

Where are you getting those numbers.
The numbers are definitely much bigger than that across multiple sites and groups.

If you mean to say that only a few have voiced their disappointment, then yes. But no everyone that's displeased has done so.
So the numbers are larger and unknown.

[Tommy334]

But yet its getting high score on every site.

[aaronobst]

I don't hate a game just because its ending was shit (I still love God of War III)

But I'd be lying If I said ME3's ending didn't leave a fucking bad taste in my mouth. I was looking forward to seeing all my finely tuned decisions play out in the endgame but all it amounted to was "press any of these 3 buttons for your shit ending"

[ziggurcat]

what's your problem with the god of war III ending?

[BraveToaster]

Paid reviews.
Think about it, what popular game DOESN'T get good reviews on every site?

[mechlord]

Seriously, after Skyrim getting GOTY and being unplayable on a platform do you really still give a shit about reviews????

[WitWolfy]

What a hunk of crap, so basically all the decision making was just for the fun of it... I understand it must be sophisticated to make a game like this... BUT dont make us excited if the decisions bare no meaning at all.

[MysticStrummer]

It makes me laugh to think about all those comments on here, talking about how the PS3 version of ME2 and ME3 would suck because PS3 owners couldn't carry over the decisions from ME, because you know... all those decisions were very important to the story. Now watch as Bioware sells you the real ending as DLC and it becomes the biggest selling story based DLC ever, thus beginning a new age of gaming where you have to buy the end of your game separately. Then, the people who bent over and bought that ME3 DLC will complain about how companies nickel and dime them to death.

[WitWolfy]

Or complain that the DLC endings still didnt give the game justice. :P

[Xyle]

is this the same retard who is against the campaign to change the ending of the game? this low paid journalist who seems to think his opinion counts because he's on this crappy site. consumers can cross that line to change the end because it was a complete betrayal of the consumer so when this guy comes on here thinkin he can say things that other people are wrong, and saying it as a matter of fact is complete bull shit. the end is complete crap and commander shepard didn't even try to explain that the catalyst was wrong? It was horrible this should never have happened shoulda been a lot different and for the series to end like this I have no idea why the writers @bioware thought that the fans wanted this

[eak3]

Did you really just bitch about a guy complaining about the ending of the game and then proceed to bitch about the same ending yourself?

[isa_scout]

I absolutely loved the entire game, all the way up to those last 5 minutes, then I was like WTF??? Please god no please Bioware dont do what I think your about to do, and they did.What kills me the most is it was like some awesome badass writer wrote the entire game then some high school special ed writer wrote the ending. It was so god awful that I kinda dont wont to play it ever again until a new ending is introduced or until the endings are at least explained. So many plotholes an idiot should have been able to spot them. Very very disappointed in you Bioware first Dragon Age 2 and now freaking Mass Effect are you kidding me?

[djslapdash]

Mass Effect 3: "Why Always Me ?"

[Rupee]

OMFG WE GET IT THE ENDING WAS BAD!!!

[SITH]

I enjoyed the series and have no complaint. It is just a game.

I beat the game on insanity. The ending is longer I think and even details future DLC to continue building Shepard's legendary status.

[unknownhero1123]

I think bioware wanted to have a bittersweet ending however it was far from bittersweet. Everything you did in the past three games was ruined in the final 5 minutes and I mean RUINED!I was not expecting a happy ending with rabbits farting out rainbows but I expected something better than what we got. Not to mention the fact that despite what choice you made in the finale(which was very similar to dues ex: human revolution's style of button endings) it generally ended the same except for a few minor variables. If you guys love space magic then go nuts but in my opinion this is the worst ending I have seen on any game.To me, The ending is a big middle finger to the mass effect fans that have been following this series from the first game. I can't even bring myself to play this game or any other mass effect game; That's how bad this ending was to me. I don't expect nor do I demand bioware to make a redo on the endings but I learned my lesson. I will not buy another bioware game and I won't buy any DLC for Mass Effect 3. /rant

[Motorola]

No the thing is No matter how you played ME3, YOU GET THE SAME ENDINGS. No matter what decision u made in ME 2, ME 1, the same exact endings are available for u to CHOOSE at the end of Mass Effect 3.

[bobrea]

So people thought the ending was bad...so what? They already made the game, it won't change now. Anyway, I'm going to go back to playing because unlike a lot of people here, I can't spend every waking second of my life playing video games. I don't even see how so many people finished it so fast.

And if you DID finish it so fast, you obviously enjoyed playing, but you just didn't like the ending. Tough shit. Deal with it.

[EditorAtGNG]

Go finish it. Then we can talk.

[SneeringImperialist]

Take your one bubble and troll elsewhere.

[--Onilink--]

what most people dont seem to understand, probably because they havent reached the ending and just like to talk BS, is that people are not just complaining that there is no "good" ending, its really a lot of stuff that makes no sense. Technically there isnt even a bad ending as it is right now, just 1 mediocre ending, divided into 3 option each one with a diferent color for the explosion....

what people are really complaining about is why Bioware is simply dismissing everything that ME has been about in the 3 games and force you to take a decision that has nothing to do with what you have done.

Also the fact that you dont get any type of closure whatsoever, NOTHING.. you dont get to see how your choices influenced the galaxy, you dont get to see what happened to your friend, not even who the f*** survived.

And above all, every ending is filled with a HUGE amount of inconsistencies, you have no idea how many, not just within what happens at that moment, but basically disregard the entire plot of ME1

[listenkids]

The internet is full of kids who don't appreciate anything, "I'll jump on the hate bandwagon without forming an opinion of my own".
The end to ME3 is great, no super heroics, just a good ending to a game WE didn't write. Don't like it? Don't play it. Leave Bioware in peace you ungrateful cunts.

[EditorAtGNG]

Well, generalizing the gaming community will certainly cement your statement as true, right?

People tend to have higher expectations for a new product (a sequel or a follow up) especially if said product has established some high level of sophistication in terms of gameplay, story, narrative, graphics, characterization, etc. Bioware might have shot themselves in the leg expecting people will just gobble up that *SPOILERS* "choose one of three endings at your leisure" system and be done with it, especially since we have been given a steady and generally pleasing amount of awesome story conclusion and epilogue (in the previous games).

Don't get me wrong - the game is absolutely amazing in my book (awesome character's comeback, great combat, superb scenery and varied locations, improved graphics and control)... and above all else, the FEEL that YOU drive everything forward, and YOUR decision ULTIMATELY matter, just so the ending could dump a load of crap on everything is truly inexcusable.

[SneeringImperialist]

What ending? that monstrosity was not an ending lol

[Reborn]

Lol, no one is saying the game is bad. It's just I felt slapped in the face, since I spent a lot of time considering choices etc. Only to see, they 'may' have made no difference.

[Ashunderfire86]

After all this controversy about Mass Effect 3's ending I am surprise that Bioware still never speak out about it. I still like Mass Effect, but the ending was just terrible too terrible. I want to know what happen to the rachni army, Aria's army of thugs, The Quians/Geth army, The Han hars, The Elcor, and the Volus bomb patrol fleet. It would of been interesting if they show the Volus bomb patrol fleet, I always wanted to know how those little guys who like saying "Earth Clan," fight. For the Han hars, they could use their tentacles to fight. You would hear the Han har say, "This one will use tentacles to electrocute Reapers, and I am a talking jellyfish." The Volus would take a deep breath an say, " Reapers...(deep breath)...We will we destroy you...(deep breath)...And I own you...(deep breath)... Earth Clan unite... The Elcor(my favorite alien race) would say this, " Seriously, we had it with these Reapers terrorizing our worlds...Angry, these f**king reapers are pissing us off.

All this build up in the series, and the developers never take advantage of these memorable alien races, comparable to the ones in Star Wars. I hope there is a solution to this, where Bioware will come clean and tell us the truth, then delivery the goods for free.

[J_Cob]

Importing your character from ME1 to ME2 to ME3 doesn't even matter. You could create a new character and play in Action Mode to achieve the same endings. No dialogue trees required. That's my biggest gripe. In ME2 the choices you made didn't change the overall ending of destroying or not destroying the Collector's base; as with ME3's plot for destroying or not destroying the Reapers, but at least in ME2 the choices you made had some impact on the ending unlike ME3's. It's no longer about your decisions, just war assets and galactic readiness. Which is a reason why I believe those take precedent over decisions since Action Mode and multiplayer exists.

[--Onilink--]

anyone who still doesnt understand why people are complaining about the endings, or feel there is no reason to complain at all should read this article:

http://www.gamefront.com/ma...

it touches a lot of points of why people are really complaining, its not just "i want a happier ending", the endings are really not making sense. And even these article doesnt mention all the plot holes in the endings, because there are A LOT MORE

[GAMExxOVER]

I finished the game, both endings, had no problem with it. Did not know there was a problem with it until all the nerds went ape shit. You think this was a bad ending? you obviously did not watch the sopranos and the final episode. Compared to that POS, anything that actually has an ending, is a great ending.