The Inside Story of Mass Effect 3's Endings, Finally Told 

Funnily enough, now the old thumbnail is showing up for me.

@@dominateeye they probably changed it back again to see if it brings more views 🤷

I still 100% stand beside Indoctrination theory. If ME4 doesn't go that route; they're missing an amazing 'twist' that they 'totally planned'. Also that guy who says it doesn't make sense is the kind of problem that caused the ME3 ending. It does make sense. The trilogy has been telling us that control and snythesis *does. Not. work*. also, bragging that gamergate came after you is perhaps not a good take. p.s: I LOVE all three games, even enjoyed Andromeda. And the remake helped with some of the lingering feelings of no closure. But I cannot accept Me3's ending... It flies in the face of everything the trilogy did.

You guys should get former DICE developers to talk about BF and what the fuck is going on with that series since BFV as DICE has been fighting fans and underdelivering for years now and we never really get to hear their side, outside of like the heads of the projects who do not know how to handle internet people. Talking to Blizz devs would also be amazing to hear

This was a terrible video , should have just had the writers and have them explain why they went in the direction they did .

Yeah, I agree. It feels like Bioware early on made the decision to have a big choice at the end and then never really questioned if that was even a good idea. In my opinion, just a plain old battle victory by activating the crucible and making the reapers go boom would have provided a much more satisfying ending. Rather than the big choice between 3 colours at the end, I would have just stuck with the military readiness point system to determine just how much gets destroyed. Maybe have the previous choices actually impact that score more, so that e.g. renegades get a higher score than paragons, but paragons obviously have the more just world. After that bombastic cinematic ending, I would then include a sort of epilogue, which would be another cut scene, but a much simpler one, so sort of slide-show like instead of fully animated. That epilogue could tell you how the world developed after the war, which would offer plenty of space where all your choices from across the series could come in to shape the kind of legacy that you are leaving. The paragon/renegade thing could come in there as well, renegades might get higher military score and therefore win the war with fewer losses, but their post-war world might be a lot darker, whilst for paragons the losses would be big, but the galaxy is a lot more just and hopeful

This is what I've been saying ever since the game came out. It isn't just a flaw in the ending, but in the entirety of ME3's storyline - the Reapers had always relied on their ability to control FTL in the galaxy to slowly and methodically exterminate the galactic civilizations, and without controlling the Citadel they instead have to contend with enemy fleets able to move around, reinforce each other, and cooperate - and the Citadel races could even figure out control of the system and selectively shut down Mass Relays to inhibit Reaper fleet movements. One big mistake in the story was the idea to focus on Earth - who gives a shit about Earth in the Mass Effect universe? 2/3rds of Shepards aren't from Earth and the ones that are had a horrible life there. The players themselves have no connection with Earth because we've never been there in the games, we can only transpose our real feelings of home to this fictional place, which doesn't really do much when all we see of it is the generic city in the intro and then a blasted black landscape that might as well be Tuchanka at the very end. The Citadel, on the other hand, we've spent 3 games getting to know, exploring it all over and meeting all sorts of people on it - and it is central to the story in all ways. The Reaper's end goal should be to take control of the Citadel again, since that *is* their win condition - once they have it, they can shut down the relays and mass forces against isolated systems, continuing the cycle. Players would care about the Citadel being attacked - Bioware obviously knew this, because the Citadel _does_ get attacked _twice_ in ME3, but the Cerberus attack is just nonsensical, and the finale is... well, what it is. ME1 set an incredibly strong foundation for what a Reaper invasion should be like, but they didn't care to adhere to their own continuity - so now the plan had no purpose, the Reapers just zerg rush dreadnoughts in a way that completely negates not only their original menace as secretly being more than just "RAWR BIG MONSTER SHIP" but it ALSO contradicts their new lore of building *one* Reaper per cycle to "preserve species" (which is... lol) because they lose far more Reapers than they make.

@@HellbirdIV I agree 100%. I feel like ME3 was written and created with new players in mind (hence the Earth angle). Therefore, the story was reduced, continuity wasn't at the forefront of the development.

@@alecross5255 I mean the reapers were basically controlling Cerberus at that point. Though if they intended to use Cerberus to take over the citadel, then the reapers did a mass effect ending level job of trying to secure it.

I feel like someone who didn't play videogames or someone who only plays casual games decided on the ending. Like rian johnson directing starwars movie. Because you're expected to select something at the end(so you can load a savefile right after the ending to see a different ending immediately) instead of seeing the culmination of all of your decsions throughout the trilogy. Not sure if that was done for convenience or something but that's probably what made the 3-color colorswap so jarring(because they're being seen back-to-back). The "massive choice" at the end invalidated most if not all of your decisions that got you that far(especially destroy ending - "so nice of you to make peace between quarian and geth, now geth dies anyway because fuck yo"u), and thus killed off relevance of the best part of the trilogy(story decisions that kinda mattered). One big final choice at the end is a massive copout move that belonged in linear games where choices didn't matter. If they had just taken out the choice and showed ending based on what players picked during gameplay(geth alive - control, quarian alive - destroy, peace between both - synthesis; for example, and I like to think that was at least considered during development)

The cupcakes were baked by a local bakery, delivered straight to BioWare as far as I remember (I wasn't involved, just read the forum thread about it at the time). So it wasn't physically harmful, and to be honest I think most of the participants had mostly just expected BioWare to eat them and kind of have a laugh about it.

....good point.

I reckon that backlash, valid or not (mostly not) sent a shockwave through multiple industries and has really damaged entertainment and artistic expression in the long run.

@@CodeMorseMusic lol Star Wars, Game Of Thrones would disagree

@@Cavemanner I think Star Wars sequels in particular are actually a really good example of made by committee and tick box checking

Idk, it can be pretty difficult talking about door textures for half an hour.

Hey look! It's Jacob. Hi Jacob! You're one of my favorite video essayist. thanks for the amazing work. Nice to see you out in the wild.

I mean you also make it look easy from time to time, your video about infinity is still one of my favorites. I also started piranesi (which I really love) because of you

@@marvinvogtde you've probs finished it by now, did you like it?

@@littledramaboy yeah it's great

BINGO! As with most situations like this (see Cyberpunk 2077), it's not the fault of the devs, and it's not the fault of the fans (although as in every fandom, there's always a group of fans that take it way too far). It's the management. Rushed timelines, not enough resources, cut corners. And EA is one of the worst for this kind of thing.

If I remember right, it was literally all down on one guy, one guy was given full control over the ending and he fucked up big time

ME3 was rushed just as much as DA2. EA put BioWare under insane pressure with the deadline and BioWare management isn't the most competent either as we know from Andromeda+Anthem which were more of a BioWare management disaster than EA interference.

I've lost count at how many games flopped or were disappointing because of mismanagement. Almost as if game dev hierarchies are toxic af...

Totally agree. When i got to the section where the guy was talking about "sticking with the artist's vision", I'm like...is that really the artist's vision tho?

Reminds me of the episode of the office where their old boss who was horrible to them came back to apologize as part of his 12 step alcohol rehabilitation and brought cupcakes

When life gives you sarcasm cupcakes, eat them.

To be fair, considering the death threats, it wasn't crazy for them to be careful since they very well could've been poisoned

See if I thought the cupcakes maybe poisoned I wouldn't have donated them

"NO NO I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO TASTE THE SARCASM FLAVORED CUPCAKE"

Well put. I feel the same. They always sold us on "player choice"... except for the choice to have a happy or ideal ending for Shep as it turns out. I got every galactic resource I could and played the MP of the game to have the maximum galactic readiness possible for the most optimum ending and.... I walked into an exploding tube that I was shooting with a gun for some reason.

@@1977Yakko Exactly this, I think the reason people were so angry was because for two whole games we were made to believe our choices mattered, that our decisions would have an impact on the world, only to find out that in the end none of it really mattered.

@@migzrub7114 and it wasn't just the ending (though that was the worst of it). There were choices as far back as ME1 that echoed through ME2, that when it came time for ME3, they were inconvenient, and thus ignored. Choose to destroy the Rachnii queen in ME1? Well... It's inconvenient for us now because we have an enemy that is based on the Rachnii. We can't just toss it aside for the players that destroyed the Rachnii queen, so... THE REAPERS CLONED her! It makes perfect sense and it won't piss anyone off at all! When you create a decision tree that branches and branches and branches, you can't just have all those branches come back together for the same result and expect nobody to get pissed.

13:00 mate

Chris does address the marketing in the video

For me the Citadel DLC was the perfect closure. I know this is a silly view, but it really was.

@@derFeef I've heard many of people have dealt this way but I only got Leviathan so I didn't have that luxury.

Same here. I never even bothered to play or look up videos of the new endings because I completely lost interest in the series after finishing ME3. Honestly I thought the entire game was severely lacking, but that may be because I played it without the precursor (or forerunner or whatever, I forget) character that was only included in premium editions. It still boggles me that they entirely cut out a living member of the legendary ancient species around whose mystery the trilogy revolved just to charge a couple of extra bucks for it.

@@StraightOuttaJarhois Oh yeah, I forgot about that.The funny thing is, I actually had the code for that DLC included in my purchase but I didn't realise that it hooked into the main storyline and assumed that it was just post-game DLC so I figured I'd just redeem it once I was done with the main story... Thanks EA!

Obviously. The extended cut at least gave you some minor insights into what happened to your companions etc, which has always been pretty much a staple of RPGs.

Yeah my problems with ME3 weren't just the ending but the writing in general. The Star Child saying peace between synths and organics wasn't possible, despite having Just brokered peace between the Quarians and Geth, and not being able to bring that topic up to the Star Kid, made me realise we were at Fallout 3 levels of writing now. Tbh, people complaining about just the ending made me realise I was in the minority with my own complaints though, and I quickly stopped being a part of that discourse when the harrasment happened.

@@Zeph101theoriginal "The Star Child saying peace between synths and organics wasn't possible, despite having Just brokered peace between the Quarians and Geth, and not being able to bring that topic up to the Star Kid," I think this is exactly the biggest issue. There is a huge disconnect between all the work you did in the games and the ending.

Exactly this. On a literary level, this is an invalid ending to this story. It just doesn't fit.

I feel like I should plug Shamus Young's epic "Mess Effect" book which compiles his multi-year essay series on the absolute story collapse of the franchise as a whole. I still love the trilogy, but it's undeniable they didn't know where they were going, or how to wrap it up, and just sort of threw their hands up at the last minute leading to the mess we got.

@@MrSnaztastic ME2 did have missteps... but ultimately it's just too good of a game and standalone experience for me to decry it like he did. Mass Effect 3 was forced to end, SOMEHOW, at its final sequence. It wasn't going to be easy given the narrative missteps it already had, but ME3 course-corrected so well despite of it, that it managed to put forth a thesis for the trilogy: "Unity through diversity." In whatever way it ended, there should've been an adversary to that theme (and there was: Illusive Man and the Reapers) and an ideological conflict coming to a culmination at the end between what Shepard and our cycle wants, and what the Reapers want, and a resolution. Introducing the Catalyst as some kind of proxy to all the Reapers was fine in theory... but to project the entire narrative's worth onto the topic of "Organics vs Synthetics" was such a fundamental misread, that it simply ruined the story at the 11th hour. They neglected the central conflict for something it never was, but they could've salvaged the story in spite of any missteps it previously had, by just having a final confrontation of some kind, and a plausible explanation of how the Crucible kills every Reaper (using the Relays, thus disabling them and leaving us in a dark age! NOT BAD!) but unfortunately, we were forced to dwell on the "what ifs" about "Synthetic life" instead of just driving home the theme of unity in spite of differences. To combat the Reaper homogeneity and bigotry with our common pursuit of freedom as organics, synthetics, whatever! Just give us peace, and explain what goal of the Reapers was against it... so that Shepard could say "No, that is your goal, not ours. Your Reaper Harvest was WRONG." And that's the issue at the end. They justify the Reapers with a fake conflict, and allow the entire trilogy to conclude on a false premise, rather than simply driving home the themes and ideas that already made it so good and popular.

@@linkenski Also I think that "diversity breeds inevitable destructive conflict, so forcibly homogenizing everyone is the ideal path to peace" might be the worst messages I've ever heard.

@@linkenski 'Organics vs Synthetics' is literally the first conflict introduced in the prologue of ME1. It's clearly one of the main themes. Just because ME2 kinda forgot about it doesn't negate that it needed to be addressed in the finale. The concept wasfine; the execution was garbled.

Same. That was the first ending I got, and I remember thinking: "This makes no sense, scientifically. Also, people are happy about this no-consent transformation?"

I agree with you. Technically, your nervous system is your circuit board. You literally send and receive electrical signals so you don't need an extra circuit board

@@Carakav I think it was more of a mass universe-wide thing that happened that you have no explanation for and have to live with. Remember,the person who made the choice doesn't survive so no one is told that they made that decision. This thing happened and life goes on.

It makes no sense on any level and gives rise to so many more questions. Like "Is all stuff now this synthesis? So even bugs? Bacteria? viruses? Did we just kill evolution as a function ? (Since Viruses are a big deal of spreading mutations between species) What's to stop these synthesis creatures from making more synthetics in the future? How did metal become part organic? What happens then to like computer systems? Is my HD drive now also a new life form?

@@TheRedAzuki Haha some of the stuf you wrote is daft haha. " Did we just kill evolution as a function ?" That was teh point of synthesis, to allow both type sof life to evolve further. "How did metal become part organic?" Like its already part of organic life NOW haha. You know iron, mineral etc. "What happens then to like computer systems?" Its wasn't affecting computers. JUST AI life and organic life. you can still have computers. "What's to stop these synthesis creatures from making more synthetics in the future" Nothing. Its an issue anymore though. Synthetic creatures or life is compatible with the hybrid life. Would like to point out i've never playe dteh game and only had to watch teh endings and a few wiki reads to glean this.

"The synthesis ending just comes out of nowhere and feels weird for the sake of being weird." "Now, sir, I want you to get all the way off my back" - ME3 Pitch Meeting

I do wish they had referred to it more throughout ME3, but synthesis was basically what Saren wanted to do all the way back in ME1

That IS the diference they ignore here, the first game USES a thime to tell a story. The second was using a Thime badly. The first is a choice of the component, the second is the EXECUTION.

@@nickgutierrez83 Synthesis was Saren's goal and Control was the Illusive Man's goal. Those were key parts to the indoctrination theory lol.

@@Leunenkoenig I absolutely agree with this. The one thing I really missed about the original endings is a slideshow with the consequences afterwards. ... You know what every RPG does since ... probably since computer RPGs exist. (And I imagine it would have been comparatively cheap to do as well.)

Not every system has a mass relay, you can clearly see that in Mass Effect 1 when going to different systems in the same "general area" you had the Normandy going super fast instead of the cutscene where it jumps into a relay. If we consider that the destruction of the relays from the crucible really was the same type as the one on Arrival, then yeah a good chunk of the intelligent life in the galaxy is likely dead, but there would still be dozens of systems that wouldn't be affected by it, and they would continue on living all isolated from each other without the possibility of traveling between themselves anymore. And that's considering that the destruction was on the same level and not like a smaller explosion caused by whatever method the Crucible used to damage the relays. But I do like the idea of a gigantic sacrifice of life on the galaxy to give a chance for the next intelligent lifeforms to have a chance to evolve without the threat of the reapers. It's not a good ending seeing as everything we fought for in the games is.. dead, but life will go on because of that sacrifice. It's neat. I particularly still prefer the indoctrination theory, I thought it fits pretty well and it hurt me to see that one guy being so against it.

THANK YOU!!! This is one of my biggest issues with the ending and they didn't even touch on it. You killed to galaxy to save the galaxy....yay?

Yeah, I could imagine my "Paragon" being bummed by seeing the kid die, though he had seen similar things over his career it would feel odd that seemed to give him PTSD or something. If it caused him to remember a past event, that would have made sense. My more "Renegade" Sheps would have not noticed the kid but for a moment, since they would have been thinking in terms of the transport itself being destroyed, so why they would have dreams about him would be OOC.

I never finished the game, but me seeing the kid seemed so out of place like Shepard was hallucinating. Obviously there weren't any children in the universe plus no other character acknowledged the child's presence and it was so jarring. It actually made me think that the indoctrination theory made more sense with intentional subtle writing choices fit into it overall.

This is why the indoctrination theory has merit. It explains why this rando-child exists and matters to shep, plus why they're everywhere and no one else sees it. I'm not sure how people can shit on the theory as hard as they do; none of the arguments I've seen have been able to replace it with anything better. :/

shoulda replaced the ghost child with whichever crewmember you left behind on virmire, that would have had far more impact.

It's so cheap when they introduce all the main story elements in the last bit of the game. And even cheaper when it's done terrible. First off you have to chase the kid at a painfully slow speed all throughout the game while learning nothing about him. Then at the end when you find out leviathain was actually there before the reapers that was pretty cool. But then at the very end to say that there was someone here before the reapers, before leviathain, and that this creature is just gonna take the shape of that random kid. Like now they just have me thinking there is something there before the kid too lol. And then he gives you the dumbest options. COMMON this kid can control everything but all the options are exactly the same. WORST TRILOGY ENDING EVER

To be honest, most of the games wasn’t consistent as an ending. I think ME3 was, is and always will be a huge missed opportunity.

I think most people agree that the Extended Cut didn't really fix anything. It's just that the fervor died down and at least BioWare had listened and made an effort.

What the Extended Cut did was give the fans Closure. If we had gotten the Extended Endings to begin with, this video would not have enough of an audience to warrant being made - we would still hate the endings, but like with LOST, we would have gotten over it. Perhaps the biggest problem with the original 3 endings was that they were so abrupt that there was no time for closure. Yeah, we had that Rah Rah Rah scene on Earth just before charging into the Teleporter Beam where we said Goodbye to everyone, but no one expected that was going to be literally the last time we saw most of them (we would see one of them in the end cut scene, where the Love Interest would exit the Normandy with Joker - that's it) as a Player. So when we got to the end and there was NOTHING, there was no release to the tension that had been building up. And that tension had to be released somewhere... If the Extending Endings had been the Original Endings, we would have had most of that tension released. "Oh, Jacob is... fine, whatever. Ashley is... oh, that's nice. Garrus is doing what? Huh. Liara and Tali are doing what? Well, okay." etc. etc. It would have been unsatisfying, and we wouldn't remember the ending fondly, but most of the Hate would be defused before the console was turned off. In that way - and ONLY that way - the Extended Cut "fix" the endings.

Yeah, I didn't even bother playing the extended cut when I realised it didn't do anything to address the issues I had with the ending. The whole deus ex machina macguffin stuff that could have happened no matter what had happened before or who was present in the end was the issue I had.

A huge disappointment for me was the fact that no major decision from a previous game prevented or enabled any of the endings. Not even the big decision at the end of ME2 to save the collector ship or give it to Cerberus to study it. The Ranchni queen didn't matter, either did replacing the justice with an evil doppelganger. Then we had to beg them for an even cursory explanation for the really abstract ending they gave. They didn't seem to realize the fridge logic of the og ending meant the crew was doomed as well as a lot of the exotic species that fought in the final battle because they had no way of surviving away from home. I laughed when the stranded ship was suddenly fine and just took off -we fixed it! To be clear, I didn't ask for them to crunch. They should have taken their time in the first place and not rushed out a very fractured and thematically confusing ending that didn't honor player choices or even present any sense of agency in the final moments.

I believe that the "Choices Matter" is a complete strawman. Most of the initial outbursts were from the most critical fans, myself included, that the story just didn't add up. The fact that the promise of choices and amazingly different outcomes was broken was a disappointment, but the game IN GENERAL, had underperformed there. Anderson/Udina didn't matter. The Rachni Queen didn't matter. The Collector Base didn't matter. By the time I got to the ending there was already no way that it would live up to the hope I once had, because the game had already dropped the ball there. So why do people GENERALLY accept ME3 but NOT the ending? It's because the ending itself is a bad wrap-up to this STORY.

@@linkenski well it's what they were selling the game as... I can remember that I thought ...okay they won't end most of the lose ends during the game so there has to be a big epilogue like thing, referencing choices made....didn't happen obviously. So yes it wasn't just the end but ME3 as a whole, but most like myself where hoping for a good ending atleast.....so we could overlook the inconsistencies, the bloat, the bad GD and the lack of reference.

@@linkenski exactly, if the rest of the game had been better until that point, the ending wouldn't have sparked the hatred that it did.

@@linkenski Geth/Quarian/Both didn't matter. Samara/Morinth didn't matter. The Krogans didn't matter. Saving the council/letting them die didn't matter. Renegade/Paragon didn't matter. Nothing fucking mattered. ME3 is generally a bad game and the ending is just the turd sprinkled on top of the garbage fire.

It's almost like the writers didn't think the endings through, or at least didn't have the chance to because they rushed the ending choices altogether.

It's almost like the writers didn't think the endings through, or at least didn't have the chance to because they rushed the ending choices altogether due to perhaps a rushed development.

Yeah. This really sucks. I played the remaster and for the first time ever I got physical pain from the ending (didn't matter which ending I got). I have never felt PHYSICAL PAIN from an ending before. No matter what would have happened, ME3 would always end up as the worst ending in gaming history.

@@ReachStudioPro And the fact it has that kind of reaction still, even with the Extended Cut dlc, even with the Leviathan dlc trying to bandage up the out of nowhere Deus Ex Machina with supporting lore, etc. People hated it right out of the gate. There was no wait or people working themselves up, we HATED these endings from day 1. And the biggest insult, to a lot of us back then, was the fact once the credits roled, it loaded the final save from before the last mission, and gave the message to be sure to continue expanding Shepard's legacy by buying DLC. That message was, and I still feel rightully, recieved as "Don't like the ending? Buy a better one!" The message was removed pretty early, if not with the first post-release patch, then when the Extended Cut was released. The Extended Cut then did fix a lot of plot holes, like how the squad got back on the Normandy and how squad members who were with you (and implied vaporized by the Reaper attack at the end) were both alive and on the Normandy in the final shots. But the biggest thing, I think, that made it really blow up, was the EA PR people, and game journalists, then defended it, insulted people who didn't like it, and spent pretty much the months leading up to the Extended Cut trying to prop up the original ending with weak arguments that basically amounted to "shut up and say thank you regardless of what you get." They threw gasoline on the smolders which turned it into the full on fire. No, if there's any positive to come out of ME3's whole mess is a permanent and prominent lesson to the game industry and consumers about overpromising and overhyping far too long in advance.

@@freedantheeternal Too bad NO ONE from the industry ever learned this lesson.

The entire extended cut and fans demanding something different debacle is interesting, because I don't think any amount of patching or new content could have fixed the fundamental problems with the story. And even if it were possible to rewrite and rerelease the entire ending section (instead of just patching in some new scenes), that would've required people at the highest level to actually believe they had made something bad and invest a ton of resources in changing what was already finished. I hated the ending long before I was aware of the 'controversy' online, but I never thought of it as a consumer rights issue. That's the weird duality of games as product versus games as art. A poorly written book is not defective. It's just bad. Readers don't demand that it gets fixed, they just find better authors to read.

@@jabberw0k812 Except there is at least one case of an author "fixing" his book due to fan backlash. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, actually killed Holmes off at the end of one of the books by having both Holmes and his arch-enemy, Professor Moriarty, fall over a waterfall while fighting each other. Fact is this is the accepted canon ending to the series these days, long after the fact, but at the time it was first released, the backlash from the readers was so great that Doyle wrote an alternate version and re-released the book where Holmes survived. Difference is you can't "patch" a book, so the original released version is still out there, and actually was printed in greater number than the alternate version. Games are a different thing, since unless you've got the 1.0 disc copy of ME3, the changes to the ending are now permanent.

Large, large parts of ME3 are railroaded in a way that removes the "talk" option. I was actually surprised that I could talk TIM into killing himself, Saren style, because the later you got in the game, the more you were funneled into not having any choice about what happened. The whole Star Brat sequence was nothing but an idiot lecture. It didn't matter what you said; you'd get the canned dialog from the Brat until you got bored and picked a cupcake. Or blasted him...but even that didn't show up until the extended cut.

Yeah, basically the Captain Picard ending. Totally wrote a few paragraphs on that back then where the reapers would admit that this cycle was different and simply retreat to deep space, like the cosmic horror they should be.

@@kshadehyaena I had an alternate; a Bolivian Army ending. Shepard gets to tell the Reapers off, telling them "this time it is different. This time we are all united against you. We know your tricks and we are READY." And then gives a rousing speech and you see -- cockpit reaction shots or ships in space, but at least you SEE -- all the assets you have gathered. ALL of them, Rachnii and Geth and all...if possible, right down to Elcor tanks and Krogan riding dinosaurs. "All forces...Attack!" Fade to black, cue end titles.

The game sorta tied renegade decisions to gathering a larger fleet and paragon options usually meant choosing the morally right choice. It would have been nice if at the ending you could either make reference to all of the paragon choices you made in order to convince the Reapers to back off or in the best case work together with everyone else, or a large enough fleet would just be able to beat the reapers in this battle outright with some help and coordination from you. Perhaps the longer you distract the Reapers with conversation the more the battle would flow in your direction. It could also be similar to the ME1 ending where you could make choices in the battle to either do the morally right thing or choose more effective battle tactics, like maybe not giving room for a heavily damaged ship to retreat or even firing through allies.

@@notthemusewere People would've also hated that.

I think this is the perspective that gets missed in this discussion, at least from what I've seen. It's that this wasn't a blow to casual gamers who picked up ME3 because hype, it was a blow to those of us who spent countless hours roaming the galaxy in ME1 and 2 to make sure we ran down every lead, prepared every planet, researched every technology, and talked to every character we could. We had been promised since day 1 that the choices we made in the first two games would hold relevance later, only for that relevance to be a couple of side missions and loyalty quests that ultimately had no effect on the massive ending. I can respect creative vision and an artist having their own ideas on story resolution, but what we got didn't feel inspired at all. I was lucky enough to still be young enough to thoroughly enjoy the game, even the Control ending I got that very first time (since I hadn't touched the multiplayer for synthesis), but looking back now it rings so hollow. The words of these devs, too, ring hollow when you realize they have a vested interest in not shit-talking upper management considering those upper managers are still around and have the power to blackball anyone they deem "problematic".

Artistic integrity as a defense only works when its, you know, *art*. We have a lot of information on how ME3 not only had a short development cycle, but also the original Dark Energy ending was changed, at least partly due to bad fan reaction of leaks. So saying "we should have stuck to our guns" doesn't hold water because the ending itself was changed multiple times throughout development. I'm all for defending the line workers of Bioware, 95% of ME3 and its writing is a truly excellent game, and has some of my favorite moments in the whole series. The ending is unfortunate, but the ending not being "happy" wasn't people's biggest problem. The ending was a disaster of 00s era mismanagement of vital story information DLC like Javik and Leviathan, cut off from the main story and sold piece meal. Between that and "lots of speculation," not to mention the fact the writing team didn't co-develop the ending (it was thrown together in about a week between two people with no other team review) people were angry because the ending was exactly what its first impression gave: it was rush, rushed, RUSHED.

Absolutely this. I'd have rathered they gotten it right the first time and not have to do the extended cut at all. Hell, I still haven't played the extended cut cause I wasn't on board with the idea myself. Was still very disappointed with the ending though. Mass Effect 3's ending as a whole felt like it swerved in another direction than ME2 was taking things.

@@Scerttle Definitely, even in the game statements by Javik were clear that what happened in ME:3 had never been accomplished before. No previous cycle had managed to unify effectively all races in the galaxy both organic and synthetic against the Reapers. I would have liked to see an option for self-determination. IF you got all the species to work together and IF you maxed out your forces...you could unlock an ending where you don't need to make a deal with the devil to survive...but instead requires basically the sacrifice of the majority of the Universe's forces. SOMETHING which pays off for those who spent countless hours and days trying to do everything perfectly. Heck after all the times you convinced the baddie to off themselves; maybe the Catalyst sees all races in the galaxy both biological and synthetic...including their own creators (Leviathan) united against it, and reaches a conclusion...that for the first time in untold millions of years; there is a new way forward. The Catalyst decides that its mission is done, and leaves the galaxy in order to seek out its place in the universe. It was a series of missed opportunities, and I don't blame the people working on the game as much as the publisher who just wanted it out the door. ME3 could have been an all-time great game with an extra year added to its development cycle. As it was it was a stunted game that was made somewhat better over time with DLC...but still not up to its potential.

@@manwiththemachinegun ME absolutely is art, games in general are art, but they are a type of art that is hugely reliant on audience participation and protagonist identification. (where there is a protagonist) The problem in storytelling terms is that both the gameplay mechanisms, the press statements, and the story up to that point had been leading us to expect our choices would add up to affect the ending and the game wouldn't be on rails but baloon outwards towards the end encompassing many of our important choices and maybe even some unimportant ones in aspects of the ending, and that the ending as delivered is NOT a decision that demonstrates "artistic integrity," no matter whether you are proud of what you made or not. What you say to the audience explicitly and implicitly matters, (regardless of whether games are art or not) and they have a right to think the product you made is inconsistent with what you were telling them in its beginning, especially in an episodic medium like a three-part game series. Whether you like the actual endings (I don't mind them, in fact I think the earlier versions described would've been pretty great if expanded upon the way the extended cut ended up doing) or not that's still undeniably true. And I say this as someone who's absolutely on team "the workers at bioware were probably treated horrendously, deserve better, and should never have been harassed or made to feel harassed."

That is actually what the Extended Cut is really about.

I'd have been happier with a text-only ending that actually took everything into account, rather than 3 endings based on a simple score rating. I know it's kind of pathetic, but back then I actually went through all 7 stages of grief. "This can't possibly be the real ending, I probably fucked something up", etc. Like at that point I probably had close to 800 hours combined through the three games, and the ending was just ... "comes in, paints everything blue, doesn't elaborate further, leaves..." imo the "extended cut" even made things worse. I used to replay the series once a year but I only tried to once after 3, and I just dropped it upon getting to the beam. "Shepard died to the beam, this is my canon, no more".

@@redmagebr I was in AIT on Fort Lee Virginia while all the BS was going on and after doing CQ duties (mopping and things like that) as well in the afternoon after training I saw RU-vid videos of the game and while I avoided the majority of the game I couldn't wait to get home and experience it for myself. I got home, saluted my family in my ASU at 0200 ish and went to play the game on the 360 until I got tired, I managed to beat the game and my brother was watching attentively so I replayed the last section and he just stood there when I asked him to spot the difference, and while I chose Control and Synt and then Destroy) he told me that they were the same piss poor endings.

I would have expected something more similar to FNV where you get snippets about how each of your major choices affected the world after the end of the story.

Lol 100 endings. It would literally double the amount of time to produce the game just to generate that many endings

The original ending was 2 choices. All AIs die or Shepard dies and takes control of the reapers I think. Red or Blue. Then you got a matte painting of your crew crash landed somewhere else. With a short message. That was it, after 120-200 hours of gameplay and story, choices and hard decisions. This was before the "middle" option was even added in the first few weeks. Don't make a choice or attack the dude? Game over, Reapers win. Its one of the greatest betrayals in all of storytelling and I've never been able to bring myself to return to the series to even see the "fixed" ending. And I loved those games, played the first one so many times.

@@josephtanner750 I personally really like the failure ending. Probably in part cause i stuck with Liara the whole series, and the scene near the end where she helps you make a message to the next cycle with even more warnings than the Protheans gave you becomes the key element in contextualizing the end horizon storytelling bit. Humanity and the rest failed, but they succeeded in letting the next cycle win.

@@josephtanner750 *"The original ending was 2 choices. All AIs die or Shepard dies and takes control of the reapers I think. Red or Blue."* No, 'Green' Synthesis Ending was achievable on release. Because I managed it before the extended cuts happened or any DLC (besides the day one dlc Javik, which I refused to buy and ultimately ended any further purchases of EA games or DLC.) To get the Green ending you either needed to have imported through all three games, weaving a pretty particular path to get enough warscore (which I did by accident) or farm the co-op mode. Before the extended cuts the end was just EDI and Joker crawling out of the Normandy with their synth eyes. Guess Joker's bone-itis got cured.

Yeah, whatever choice we made in the game did not matter, and it sucked.

Yea that guy, I don’t quite think he understood where a lot of people where coming from. Sure some people wanted an ending that suited them and only them, and for sure those people were dumb. But when it came down to it, there was an overwhelmingly large amount of people that thought the ending didn’t make sense. It wasn’t just “people were mean to artists!” No, people were disappointed in the artists for not giving arguable the most pivotal moment in the trilogy an ending that was so random, so unexplained, so empty. It wasn’t just some dumb people demanding this or that. It was a HUGE amount of people who thought the ending just wasn’t up to par with the rest of the trilogy.

@@sodadrinker89 BUt thats life though. None of the choice matter at the END. They only matters during the journey!

@@kudosbudo So life is a BioWare game ? :p

Yes but... after knowing that they were on crunch on the whole dev time... I appreciate it more. I mean, with more time and EA don't being a coorporate ass company, we might get something different. Hpe with ME4 they change that.

Yeah, making the entire focus organics vs synthetics felt very out of the blue.

Nail on the head.

That’s my big issue with the ending, well one of many issues. The whole organic vs synthetic is out of no where, also how can the star child make that argument when it’s very possible to get the quairans and geth to make peace in that game. If they wanted to make it this overarching plot of organic vs synthetic then the entire trilogy should of been about that. But that’s what happens when you rush a game to meet a deadline, you release an underwhelming mess and ruin the trust the fans had in you

@thoth81 Drew? He turned Revan into a dipshit. He is capable of good work, but don't make more of him than he is - Holden Caulfield would call him a prostitute.

@@RStarbuck13 True but it was one of the topics of the first game aswell. AI vs organics was a theme that pulsed trough the other games aswell. When you look at how Saren tried to find a compromise between AI and organics without realising he was a tool to end the very universe he sought to protect (despite being very ruthless). And then you see the threads about Geth (some of them) seeing the Reaper as the pinnacle to there own evolution almost like gods helping the reapers to start the harvest of the galaxy. Mass Effect drew some of these plot points already in its first game. But I do agree that the endings ended on a sour note due to not being more different and taking account of many of the choiches we made. :)

I think they're both right. It would have been better than what we got...but it's still not great storytelling. It just emphasizes how bad the ending really is, that indoctrination theory sounds okay.

@@aaronchapin9331 I personally like the indoctrination theory but if it was told lightly, it could sound like “the hero was just dreaming these adventures all along” kind of scenario, which is terrible. But if they decided to explain how Shepard’s indoctrination is verrryyy slow and has multiple faces, that could make sense. They could explain that they indoctrinated certain figures in the universe to interract with Shepard and alter his choices ever so slowly towards a massive standoff in front of the Citadel. They could have indoctrinated the reporters to somehow ‘pressure’ Shepard into taking massive actions against the reapers. They could have instructed Saren to somehow discreetly sabotage Sovereign to make the galaxy believe the reapers could be destroyed. The collectors basically aggravated settlements across the galaxy to further stir them into a massive action; again ending with them getting destroyed to make the galaxy believe they could be defeated. And come the actual standoff, depending on how prepared we are, we could either actually kill them (pyrrhic victory - meager ending), or we could get decimated easily (bad ending), or maybe we could get the crucible to work and turn this indoctrination ‘signal’ to work against the reapers and make them kill each other (victory).

I feel the first guy there meant that the whole indoctrination concept was terrible writing in the first place, more than the theory. But that's just my read, I may be wrong. But I do agree with that read - mind control is a pretty trite storytelling device. Seems more a tool of convenience rather than actual compelling storytelling in most cases I've seen it.

@@aaronchapin9331 As is, the indoctrination theory is bad storytelling. However as an idea to Tee off of, it's an excellent starting point. From ME 1 and 2 we were basically proving humanity to the galaxy. All the while a subplot would be Shephard's grapple with the indoctrination that could have started in 1, and is now starting to get to him. It invites some interesting ending points too. Renegade could be just completely falling for the reapers like the elusive man, and paragon could be what we were doing already in the game with uniting the known galaxy. But I'm just a half drunk failed writer lol

Thank god it wasn't anything of the sort. Indoctrination theory is a horrible coping mechanism by fans who could not cope with how bad the original ending was so they imagined an even worse one. ME3 original ending is effin Dostoevsky in comparison to the indoctrination theory.

You perfectly summed up why - regardless of BioWare's denial - I still take Indoctrination Theory as the canon ending. The extended cut being the DMT dream of Shepherd before they died.

Hilarious summary and so true.

That's my biggest problem with Synthesis. It's touted as the toughest ending to get (you only achieve it if you have high EMS, with the explanation that it's only possible because you brought enough resources to the battle that the Crucible wasn't damaged as much, and could therefore calculate "new possibilities") -- nevermind how the pitch as described in this video claims it was supposed to be the _easiest_ ending to get -- but it's basically Saren's goal writ large. You unintentionally help the nemesis you spent the entirety of the first game pursuing and stopping with his goals, and this is somehow presented as a euphoric, positive ending, with Joker and EDI looking out adoringly at the sunrise. Nevermind the obvious logistical and practical challenges this causes to the galaxy: 1) Husks have been somehow turned into semi-intelligent hybrid beings; 2) There's the Mack-truck sized problem of forcibly converting every individual in the galaxy into a synthetic being, and apparently having everyone just be fine with it, nevermind how similar works that attempted this kind of idea (i.e. Deus Ex: Invisible War) only excusing it by claiming that everyone was interlinked by a hivemind and needed to have clear consensus); 3) The "hybridization" amounts to people getting glowing green veins on their skin; 4) It doesn't explain how synthetic beings (like EDI) have become organic (have they been given organic components?): 5) It answers nothing of the Catalyst's main problem -- that synthetic life will be developed that wipes out its creators, which necessitated the need for the Reapers in the first place 6) How is society supposed to procreate? In the pitch, the designer describes an Asari child with circuitry on her -- is that implying babies will be born with this stuff on them already? Are all these "upgraded" people in the galaxy just functionally immortal? In recognition of all that, it's not surprising at all to me that there are players that would rather treat the entirety of the ending as a fever dream, because it causes so many problems and discrepancies with the world the creators built up over three games that treating it as legitimate is patently absurd.

I know I’m over a year late, but I just finished the legendary edition and want to add my two cents here. I personally felt that, meeting the catalyst, you as the player were supposed to realize that this AI is twisted and unreliable as a source of information. Especially if you talked with Leviathan first. It’s directive was to preserve life, but the solution it came to was wrong in the way an AI can’t see. In my mind, it tries to manipulate you into furthering it’s twisted logic, which is why it doesn’t make sense. The Geth and EDI showed that synthetics and organics can coexist and I came to the conclusion that the catalyst is the root cause of the problem, just as the leviathans said. Anyway, I‘m happy with the destroy ending I got with Shepard still breathing at the end. Have a good day!

The major thing that disappointed me was that in ME1 it was being implied that the reapers mainly existed to slow down the spread of entropy but then that sorta just got dropped.

​@@thunderr0736this is why people believe in indoctrination theory. It makes more sense to believe the child is actually trying to finish the process of indoctrination.

The idea that people who want their awesome space badass who retook the Citadel from the Geth to allow Sovereign to be defeated, waged a one ship war against the Collectors, ended the Genophage (the Shep shoots Mordin timeline doesn’t exist to me), reunited the Quarians and the Geth to have a happy ending or just possible happy ending are somehow silly babies is just poisoned fucking thinking. Fuck that garbage broken ending. My Shep is chilling on a beach with her mates and her girl having some drinks with a couple of dead Reapers on the horizon. Cheers

@@snakesnoteyes that's the biggest issue imo: the games had advertised themselves for YEARS that their story was all about player choice and agency, and people spent 3 full games getting to know their Sheperd and fleshing them out as a protagonist they like/have a personal stake in. why, then, is it such an outrageous idea that people would want a happy ending for that character, should they choose to pursue it? obviously no one should be harassed or sent death threats over something like this, but people are also 100% allowed to be disappointed for not having the happy ending they worked for years to achieve. like, if I wanted to have the experience of putting time and effort into something only to get an unhappy/unsatisfactory result out of it, I wouldn't be engaging in escapism by playing video games - I'd just go back to real life lol

Thanks for watching! And I really appreciate the feedback. We did ask Casey if he'd like to be involved, but he couldn't find the time unfortunately. There's also people like Mac Walters, who I'm told co-wrote much of the ending with Casey, but unfortunately he's still working at Bioware and that was a no-go for us too in the end. As for Drew's original Dark Matter ending concept, there's already been quite a bit said about that, but as far as I've heard, it was never more than a rough idea. By the time he'd left Bioware, things had started to go in a different direction. We decided to keep the video focused on people who worked on ME3 directly, as to be honest, I was mostly interested in the human side of the story. Like, how it felt to be on the receiving end of the backlash and what it meant for the studio going forwards.

@@PeopleMakeGames An entirely fair decision, what could have been and what was presented have been thoroughly explored already, I'd never considered the crunch cost of all the whining before. The backlash was not cool.

Drew was off Mass Effect and on The Old Republic prior to leaving BioWare. Him leaving the company wasn't related to Mass Effect.

I was super excited about Legendary Edition being announced and wanting to get my hands on it. Then after all the excitement I paused ans thought "fuck I'am about to pay to get fucked by that ending.. Fuck!" Reaper Queen endings sound amazing to what we got. If they would have included that in the LE package I wouldn't have been mad.

@@cainekass I haven't managed to convince myself to play it yet either. It's hard when you realize all your effort will come down to a button push again. Maybe it will be easier to swallow after we see what they do with 4.

@@Zynnix I'm a sucker. I got it. I've played 1 and 2. But haven't been able to get finished with 3. I restarted 2 again instead lok

I had a blast with LE. Reminded me why I fell in love with the series in the first place. Of course when I got to the end , I muted the sound, stared at my phone only glancing up to make the occasional dialogue choice, ignoring everything until the credits rolled.

Honestly the reaper Queen storyline is atrocious. An AI being stored on the citadel ( Which for still reasons unknown is believed to be a ghost kid by fans despite the fact that it's mentioned as an AI) Is a lot more feasible than an entire reaper being stored on the citadel.

Okay now I for sure need to play Nier, I own it but just haven't played. Also, what VNs are you talking about? Sounds like they'd be very interesting if you'd like to share!

My previous experiences with BioWare titles made me go "ok that's it all hope is lost on them" after ME2. They always present the same ambitions with the same flaws in execution. They do cinematic storytelling with strong characters and some great character arcs but fail to make an actual role-playing game every damn time. Their games are not bad or made without effort, but they should stop pretending making RPGs with meaningful choices, they always oversell this point.

@@Ninjastahr Sorry for late reply! As for VNs I like 07th Expansion's Higurashi and Umineko series very much. Those are masterpieces of litteratur IMO. Can't say I've read a lot of VNs though. In the future I plan to read Doki Doki Literature club, VA-11 and Steins;Gate. I've heard Great things about those.

Exactly OP. The ending as delivered amounted to "Nothing your Shepard did mattered in the end, you could never have won and saved anything you cared about. Your Shepard (and every other) 'defeated' the Reapers and died achieving only a near omnicide of galactic civilization. All your war assets were expended for essentially nothing." Sure, some life picks up the pieces millennia later, but so what? Even if we granted the massive ask of ignoring what happens when a relay is destroyed, every alien war asset in the Sol system is dead. The Catalyst isn't even an AI, it's a glorified phone directory, as revealed by the extended cut result of refusing the 'answers' it gives. Even if we accept the idiotic stated reasons for the Reapers, if you saved the Quarians and Geth then the evidence is right there the Catalyst's analysis is wrong and it refuses to listen. End of the day, the rushing cost literally everyone far more than taking the extra time and money do nail the bloody ending would have. EA included.

You wrote this all because you know you're not the only one who finds this theory to be only explanation that makes sense and you don't believe in the astronomically low chance that tons of details and all the attention on showing players how reaper technology affects minds was all just something put in the game by accident. For me, this trilogy is a masterpiece that accomplished unimaginable - it indoctrinated vast majority of its own player base. I made 4 complete trilogy playthroughs and spent over 400 hours with it. And all the details I've seen just all fit together. ME for me is a story of Shepard that united the universe, didn't lose a single teammate during suicide mission and who despite the attempt to be brainwashed by reapers didn't fall into the trap and released himself from the mind control and can continue fighting. Short version for others - you think the ending doesn't make sense? You're right because it doesn't. Shepard gets hit on the Earth during the final run and the rest happens just in hi/her (played both) head. Based on the result, it is game over for Shepard or not. Synthesis = Shepard gives up and disintegrates in the cutscene, Control = Shepard completely gives up and also disintegrates in the cutscene, Destroy = Shepard doesn't give up but is not strong enough to wake up from it and dies. Destroy (with high enough score) = Shepard doesn't give up and has strong enough will to wake up from it in the extra breath scene. Only in this scenario he wakes up and this is where ME I played ends... or better said, where it continues. Ending where war is still on, where for the first time ever, entire galaxy stands united against Reapers. Ending where no synths died from magic rainbow effect. Ending that makes sense and sets ground for a sequel with characters we love. It is a masterpiece that makes perfect sense and I admire few of the devs who over the years said that IT is valid explanation of endings or that they actually love it and wish that was the ending. From my point of view, Indoctrination Theory is one of five endings and it is the one that is most difficult to get. Because in order to get it, you must not consume content at the face value:)

@@DangerCZ precisely that! To me the indoctrination theory is so good because it is almost as if they were slowly indoctrinating the player throughout all of ME 3, that being with the very subtle attempts ate saying that maybe the reapers could be controlled, maybe there is that chance. Also that damn kid that becomes the star child at the start of the game, conveniently whittling down Shepard's will with guilt for not being able to save him, being haunted by that thought throuout the game, and then at the end the SAME CHILD shows up to say "hey, I know how you can fix things, do exactly the opposite of what you know should be done!" It's too perfect to not be right. I don't know if it is denial, but I still can't not have it as the actual ending of the game. The damn breath scene just means that the fight isn't over.

100%!

The amount of depth and detail of analysis the fans gave was astounding. We had literature phd writing essays of thousands of words on just how badly the ending fit with the rest of the story. And somehow, Bioware managed to receive the message that we needed "clarity", that we just didn't "get it".

Preach!!!

It's not only that choice. Every single choice is incredibly f*cked. Either it's catastrophic as you describe, or genocidal on a galactic scale (especially ridiculous if you went to great lengths to make peace between/save the Geth and Quarians), or incredibly immoral as you violate the bodily autonomy of literal billions of people who never asked to become a hybrid organic/synthetic. Then all of that is presented by a deus ex machina star-child, and results in the exact same cutscene in an option of three colours. After which the character you invested likely hundreds of hours in is _dead._

@@TheMrVengeance I just wanted to go home to Tali on Rannoch man - honestly even if they just played up the self-sacrifice bit (my best example being the end of Halo 3) then it'd have at least been slightly palatable to me; Shep was a war hero. None of the endings even needed to be a thing, Shep could have died, the allied forces could have pushed the reapers back, then fade to black - this was before after-credits stuff was so popular, but imagine credit roll then after it it opens to a series of war memorials on each planet, brightly lit with thriving people. It stops on one, someone (in my head a kid) asks "who was that?" - pointing to some mural or something of Shep, and a sideshow of your decisions, maybe clips of big moments of previous games plays - and Joker or one of your other squad mates (clearly very old now) looks down, smiles, and says "A hero" or "a friend" or whatever depending on different choices made. Boom, big ME3 logo at the end as music swells, end of game. Obviously that's just my interpretation or whatever but there really *didn't need to be a major choice* - we'd already *made* the choices, we'd set things up as best we could, Shep is just one soldier at that point it would have been better to just let it play out.

Also handy for people who may have some sort of hearing difficulty

We'll have these up by tomorrow! I'm really sorry for the delay on that, it's something we're keen to improve on going forwards. As it stands, we were in a bit of a mad rush to get this video up today and haven't had the time to write the captions. Thanks for asking :) -Chris Edit: They're now live!

Guess the description of "we want to avoid it, but we just can't seem to" applies not just to Bioware. :D Loved the video, stay well and take a well deserved rest once captions are up and stuff addressed ;)

@@PeopleMakeGames Thank you for the reply, I'll be back tomorrow to watch the rest :)

@@broshmosh They're ready to go! Thanks for asking for them :)

That bit about caring about Earth was a big one for me. I had a Spacer Shepard and while I played her as mostly Paragon, her dialogue definitely implied some deeper connection to the planet than just simply humanity which didn’t read right.

I know this is old but... It really bothered me that here we had Humanity at a stage where bio-electrical devices could be implanted and used for everything from combat to Construction and for some reason we couldn't figure out how to create a exo-suit that provided serious advantages in combat. Their is a reason the Military has a hard on for exo-suits or some type of equivalent. Having increased strength, stamina, quickness and the ability to survey the battlefield electronically with near total awareness is an advantage in war that the military will pay out the nose for. Considering the technological levels in Mass Effect (no matter which game) that should have been one of the things that Humanity had already been traveling down. (with the end goal of replacing or enhancing body parts with machine to increase combat effectiveness. If you want to get a clear picture of what I'm talking about go read timothy Zahn's cobra strike series for a good example, including the problems of post war issues with the hardware in the soldiers.)

@@davidmiller9485 So, the biotic abilities in mass effect do present an alternate pathway to technology in the setting. Because you can have someone who can lift tons of equipment with their mind, which eliminates the needs for specilized machinery to do the same work.

I agree with you on every point. And I'll add, not only did our Shepard's die a meaningless death for a robot's ego, but that also, they turned her into a war criminal just before - Shepard making the choice to change all genetic life without input? My Shepard isn't a megalomaniac and simply would not have made that choice on behalf of everyone else. I wish I hadn't have played Deus Ex games RIGHT BEFORE finishing Mass Effect, because it was so stark and striking, my stomach sunk, when I started walking down the path to see the SAME 3 ENDINGS - and not explained half as well as in Deus Ex, where a chunk of the game is spend showing you the universe in each choice... My perfect ending would have been close to Dragon Age ORIGINS, with some text written out about each choice made, and a few splashes of cutseens for the crew and my Shepard and Liara hearing the pitter patter of little blue feet!!

The number of better, more detailed, and more rewarding endings written by the fans shows how hard the ball was dropped. It wouldn't have been such an outrage if everything up to that point hadn't been so good and gotten people so involved.

The "they" is EA though, not Bioware, just be clear. Bioware is not without fault, but the crunch they were under to produce the final game greatly exasperated things

I agree, it should have been possible to defeat the Reapers without the stupid catalyst and star child choice at all.

@@luckywallace As a newcomer to the franchise who played these games, back-to-back, that whole ending had me saying "what the fuck?" And Star child? Why tf was he even included? I get it's to show Shepard's PTSD but it just felt so inorganic and contrived I couldn't take it seriously.

Stop being salty just remember when playing through all 3 games the journey is more memorable then mass effect 3 ending.

"The journey is more memorable than the ending" That... Is some fairly damning praise.

Have you watched Shut up and sit down? It is similar but is focused on board game reviews! (It has Quinns as well so that is a plus!)

@@brogdafrog5856 While there is Quinns in common, I think the feel of the two channels is very different. Even beyond the topics being very different, I wouldn't expect Chris or Quinns to be nearly as comedic here as SUSD is.

@@OriginalPiMan yes I agree, but they do sometimes talk with the developers. That may not be the same because they usually are playing the game that the developer made and it is normally longer but it is still enjoyable. Also, if you are interested in games you might be interested in their board game counterparts

Yeah in hindsight the BioWare forums were a cesspit by that point. I remember some little prick camping in the DA forum dropping spoiler after spoiler for Dragon Age 2, things went down hill after that for me. When it kicked off after ME3 I left. I mean, ok, the ending is a bit shit and abrupt and I was fairly disappointed (though unsurprised after the changes ME2 brought to the RPG elements) but I didn’t exactly expect riding off into the sunset or happy families post game… I left the forums when people started having meltdowns, it was a great trilogy but it was also just a bunch of games, no matter how great, they were games, gutted and all but come on, death threats? Over a game? PS I loved Andromeda, if only because combat actually matched mobility and improved substantially and exploration came back, good to see the pivot back towards ME1 :)

I remember joking about who was the better final boss... Reaper Baby or Marauder Shields..

Never forget.

Explain

@@RConn55 Marauder Shields is the greatest video game boss of all time. He will never be forgotten.

@@RConn55 I had to google "Marauder Shields Meme" because people think the most hilarious way to answer an honest question is to remain in character and give a nonsensical response to those who don't already know. The final enemy in ME3 before the half hour of cutscenes is a nameless character labeled in-game only as "Marauder" with shield icons over his health bar. The joke is that this guy, named "Marauder Shields" by the community, is in fact a hero by being the last line of defense between the player and the disappointing ending. His "sacrifice" to stop Shepard became a big meme in between release of ME3 and the new endings.

Yeh, I think I'm going to remember Elon Husk and use it...incredible is right!

Honestly I think I would have preferred the Reaper Queen. The Reapers as the Catalyst's "solution" to the problem of synthetic vs organic life is, frankly, dumb as hell. "I'm going to save organic life by utterly exterminating every species except the one talented one in every 50,000 year cycle, and the one I don't exterminate completely I'll just turn into a giant cuttlefish robot coursing with the juices of round-up members of that species." Like...what??? The Catalyst had literally *become* the very thing it was created to oppose, a synthetic life form repeatedly exterminating organic life. The Reapers had been presented as unknowable, almost Lovecraftian. Reducing them to puppets of an unseen and self-contradictory puppetmaster really devalued their place and merit, taking them from mysterious to basically mindless in one fell swoop. I wish they'd done more with the abandoned "this star has aged WAY too fast" plotline, so we could've gotten a much more serious reason for the Reapers doing what they do (e.g., "interstellar travel harms the universe, but we can find a way to fix that" kind of thing), but alas, such will never be.

@@ZekeRaiden the dark energy/dark matter storyline had too many plot holes on its own and there's a reason it was dropped entirely.

Anecdotally, I'd say it was a very mixed bag. It was almost universally seen as an improvement (in that it was, at least, three endings rather than a palate swapped cinematic), but a good part of the fanbase had some deeper issues with it in practice. It fixed some of the problems in concept, but it didn't solve the issue of having a deus pop up literally ex machina to give awkward exposition and try to redefine the central conflict of ~90 hours of playtime in the last five minutes.

A) It was received... grudgingly. By that point in time, most Gamers realized how much the Developers (NOT the Executives) were being pushed, and most Gamers grudgingly accepted that this was the best we were going to get. Very few were happy or satisfied, but most of us essentially let the matter drop. B) At the time, I think many of us would have been happy if Bioware had crumbled under the cost of fixing this mistake. We might have felt bad for the "Names on the Credit Screen" who had no say in how things were written or marketed, but at the time the only face we had for Bioware was Casey Hudson and wanted him to suffer for this mistake. (and I'm honestly not sure if he has or not.)

The Indoctrination Theory: I love this theory because given what we knew at the time it links a series of events that goes back throughout the series and adds in quite a cool turning of events. Because of all the characters that should be at least partially Indoctrinated at the point of the end of the third game then it should be Shepard since from the very first mission on Eden Prime Shepard has been exposed to Reaper Tech over and over again and much more than anyone else. It's clearly now in retrospect not what they intended, but having played through the series recently I did find myself asking questions like "Why does the Star Child look and sound like the kid that died on Earth? They have no connection whatsoever so unless the Calayst has access to Shepard's mind there's no way he's know to present hiself like that." "Why is the Child who (inexplicably ends up at the end of the game) in Shepard's dreams? Why are there "Oily Shadows" in Shepard's dreams?" Why does he wake up with a headache which is a prime symptom of Indoctrination? Why does Shepard see a vision of himself hugging the Child and then burning which mirrors their encounter at the end of them game?" "Why, how and when did both Anderson and TIM get on the Citadel? Why does Shepard clutch his bleeding abdomen after he himself shoots Anderson in the Abdomen?" "Why are there dreamlike whispers (Alien Voices in the Mind) while I'm having this conversation with TIM and Anderson?" I could go on, but there are numerous documentaries covering it far better than I can. When people shoot down the theory one really wonders if they're looked into it and actually seen all the evidence because again in retrospect it's clearly not what Bioware intended, but it is a well made theory and one in which could have been an interesting direction to go in. I mean even now it doesn't really violate what's in the game especially if you swing more towards the Hallucination version of the Theory. Anyway none of this really matters now, but I love the fact that ME3's ending kind of brought together a wide range of people to discuss, create and share their love for this series regardless of the things we didn't like about it. If Bioware only saw that side of it all then maybe it could have balanced out some of the horrible backlash they received because they didn't deserve that at all. Leviathan DLC: I feel like it was a pretty good DLC. Maybe if it was in the original game the backlash wouldn't have been so strong, who knows? Problem is very much like the Extended Cut it retroactively tries to explain stuff about an ending I would think most people who played this would have already experienced. It's reverse storytelling essentially telling you about something before you chronologically experience in the game, but honestly most would have experienced beforehand anyway. The Leviathan's own narrative doesn't make a whole lot of sense either because it simultaneously says that the Harvest isn't a mistake, but also wants to stop it and helps you. Also just as a side note if the Leviathans said "We damaged the A.I in our rebellion" then for me that would have been enough to explain everything that comes out of the Star Child's mouth. It's damaged and stuck in a cycle repeating itself and coming up with nonsense to rationalise it to itself and anyone who finds it. Citadel DLC: LOVE IT! Bioware and the Fans: All I'll say is that Bioware didn't deserve the massive vitriol they got from some of the fans. On the one hand it does show that they care enough to feel so strongly, but adding fuel to the fire will burn everyone. There was a lot of love that came with the backlash. Fan art, theories and I'm sure people even raised money for charity at one point. Bioware did do the extended cut after all and while I think it shouldn't have been made I can at the very least respect them for doing it. How many companies do you know in current times that would do that? The video game, movie and media industry has never been so anti-consumer and it wouldn't surprise me that it's because of the vitriolic fringe elements of these kinds of backlashes that has led to it. I mean I really didn't like Last of Us 2, but if I ever saw Neil Druckman in person I'd most likely buy him a coffee and have a conversation about video games in general. We can all disagree without it leading screaming through the keyboard and I think the internet enables that from both sides. I mean even when I was still salty about the Ending I would have spent most of the conversation talking about the positives of the series if I had a sit down chat with Casey Hudson. On the other hand I do think Bioware did ignore genuine criticism and focused way too much on the loudest, but dumbest objections like "there's no happy ending." That has never been an issue for me personally. I think Bioware focused more on the trolls because it was easier frankly and while I think that was wrong I can at least understand why. Even in this video (4:18 for example) you can still see glimpses of this sentiment in that it was just the colour of the cutscenes that people had an issue with and such. I kinda rolled my eyes at that, but I think I know why those kind of things are still being grasped onto to this day. Mass Effect 4: I'm curious. I mean where on Earth do they go from here without choosing a canon ending? This Video: Couple of things. 7:20 I disagree and I can prove it. There was a backlash to the Ending of ME3. If what he said was the case then people wouldn't feel the need to go back and see if the other endings played out better or made more sense in the first place. 7:58 My question upon seeing that was if the bean was destroying the Normandy then what the hell is it doing to the rest of the galaxy? This happens with all the endings as far as I remember. 13:46 Incorrect mostly. Actually the Theory evolved into different versions. The Dream Theory was the first and least accepted. The Hallucination Theory where Shepard did get up and go upto the Citadel was the latter and more accepted Theory from what I remember. TIM and Anderson were said to be the Paragon and Renegade elements of Shepard's psyche manifesting in a Hallucination which informs the decision to come with the Star Child. It's interesting that they added in cutscenes of them both Controlling or Destroying the Reapers in the Extended Cut. It was that confrontation that was the Indoctrination attempt. I'm not saying this is true, but I do want to inform that there is a lot more to the theory than the typical surface level understanding. 22:11 I agree with that for the most part. The thing I would just say though is that people invest a lot of time, energy and indeed money into buying these games and while I agree that people demanding that you SHOULD change your story is ridiculous I don't see a problem in consumers taking an active role in voicing their views on the media that they pay for and consume. It's that way for any other form of commerce and video games and art in general shouldn't be excluded in my opinion. Look at the Citadel DLC. It's absolutely packed with meme material most of which I would suggest came from elements of the story the fans attached themselves to and gave life beyond the artist's intent. That's a positive example of fan/artist interaction, but you can't have one without the other because the other is uncomfortable. I think especially in today's world of vast and easy communication fan involvement is going to become more and more of a reality whether artists like it or not. I don't know personally if that's going to be a good or bad thing, but an inevitability. Death Threats and Harassment are never acceptable especially in this case. This team clearly went through hell to get the game on the shelves and giving them more hell from the peope they made the game for just isn't right at all. I just want to reaffirm that. We can talk all day about the rights and wrongs, artistic integrity validity etc, but when it gets ugly that's when I and I hope many reasonable people switch off. Thank You: Regardless of everything these devs created a game series I and many people still love. Many brilliant memories both within the game and outside of it discussing it with friends etc. So thank you all. I should go

It's ironic (and telling) that the "Reaper Queen" pitch laid out in this video makes more sense from an in-game standpoint than the final product, and lays clear the problems the original ending set out. Destroy, in this pitch, is described as the Renegade ending - literally taking "ends justify the means" to its most logical conclusion, via destroying Earth and its surrounding area with the endstate being that the Reapers have been destroyed, and what's left of humanity will know enough to break the cycle for any threat the next time. The final product, due to how muddled its message is, gets played up as the "good/Paragon" ending -- it's associated with Anderson, linking it with both their quests to stop the Reapers throughout the series, and Shepard maybe, sort-of sacrifices themself (even if it doesn't make sense, via shooting the control box) to stop the Reapers, but it creates new problems by randomly killing off all synthetic life in the universe. Control makes little sense in both versions. I can't see Shepard voluntarily agreeing with anyone, whether it be the Catalyst or the Reaper Queen, to take their suggestion of randomly uploading their consciousness into their "hivemind" when the Catalyst should theoretically have been able to do the exact same thing just by Shepard telling them to. In the final product, Control is linked with the Illusive Man's ideology, even when the Catalyst admits TIM wouldn't have been strong enough to control the Reapers, and it doesn't really answer how/why Shepard is strong enough to control them, or if s/he will be corrupted by their influence, by game's end. Synthesis makes more sense in the pitch. It's a last-ditch effort, borne out of confusion and desperation, to essentially "interlink" everyone because one side is going to be taken out regardless and the Reaper Queen admits it doesn't have any other answers. In the original game/EC, it's presented as the "best" ending, even though it creates a mountain of plotholes that aren't addressed by the ending slideshow, and makes no sense according to the rules set out by the universe.

@@crazyrabbits And despite the change, they just left destroy as the red "renegade" option even though it is what all the good guys wanted and was the, IMO, most moral of all the bad options. Not to mention, let's say that we didn't have meta-gaming. Let's say that someone faced this choice in real life with no knowledge of what would really happen. The fate of every advanced sentient life in the galaxy depends on your dedcision. There are no do-overs. You cannot just do it again from an earlier save. The psychopath that has directed the death of trillions and has already killed many people you know and at least a few that you love, now tells you that sure, you could destroy them and their monster friends OR you can combine all life, without their consent, with the monsters because ...you just need to trust them that it is the best solution! Would anyone make that decision? They don't provide many details exactly how it would work or what the exact results would be or even why/how it is the best way to go, you just have to trust them, the psychopath who has killed trillions, that it is the best solution in the long run. Who would say yes to that?! I guess the same people who trust the people who call wanting to extend their car's warranty? :o

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Counter argument. You dont' get to be so angry over a GAME that you threaten the developers. Sometime sits ok for a game to just have ashit ending. Not everything has to be perfect or get it right or win the internet. Sometimes its ok to be comfortable in crappy endings that don't make sense cos its just a game and not somethign to lose shit over.

@@kudosbudo That's changing the topic, Jesse didn't say it's okay to toxic to that extent, only that anger and frustration was justified given what had been previously stated and promised by the developers.

@@CreeperOnYourHouse Not to mention how much this is used to divert from the company not being able to address its own systemic issues. If the majority of their customers are displeased with the final product and a subset of these are actually abusive, you don't get to ignore the almost universal backlash because of the handful of crazies lighting poop backs on your doorstep. Doing so would imply a blind spot so large it's not surprising the last 2 large productions of the company were catastrophic flops.

I’m on a second play through of Andromeda, sure the story ain’t all that but it’s a LOT better than some people make it out to be. Biggest difference is the tone

Exactly. It was promised to be an user choice based video game. What kind of 'multiple ending' did they think that fans wanted? We wanted a ending with developer's artistic vision but also the endings that fans can satisfy. Like, that was literally the easist thing they could do with multi-ending rpg video game.

@@DMTHOTH A chef can't tell you that you're acting entitled when you order chicken and they serve a steak. Bioware plainly promised the opposite of what they served the community, people were right to be upset.

Also considering that they're charging $60 for their art. (But then again, almost none of that $60 went to anyone who actually WORKED on the game, most of it went straight into the pockets of the corporate parasites responsible for the horrific crunch conditions in the first place)

The ME2 ending didn't reward anything beyond crew mate survival.

as both a semi failed musician, and a failed writer I've got this to say on that. I HATE with every fiber of my being the "don't tell an artist how to art" people. You stopped influencing your art the moment it was released to purchase. It's out of your hands, almost completely. Sure you can release patches and corrections to the narrative after the fact, but the fact of the matter is. You let it go, it's out there now, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Game of thrones ended exactly the way it should have. Any other ending would have been bizzare. Only beef is thet crammed 3 seasons of content into 3 episodes.