When Mass Effect 3 finally landed in our collective hands in March of this year, we were all overjoyed, and then many of us were quickly disappointed when, after playing through the riveting campaign, we were handed an ending that many deemed “cheap” and “lazy”. After promising that the huge save files people had invested so much time and effort in would have a biblical impact upon on the events of the third game, gamers everywhere were let down when, in actual fact, it all came down to one single choice in the final room of the game, where you essentially pick a colour, and sit back to watch the result of that choice.
The fan backlash was huge, with many quite incredulously asking BioWare to change the ending. The negative publicity was such that they eventually released a DLC to “clarify” the events of its climax, though fans still have a bad taste in their mouth over what happened. The announcement yesterday that Mass Effect 4 is going into production has sparked the debate once again, with many wondering whether a fourth game could rectify those problems and make us like BioWare again.
Here are 10 ways they can fix the damage they caused with the last 10 minutes of their previous game; by revitalising the series and breathing new life into it, they can make us forget about all the issues with ME3.
1. A New Protagonist
Though Commander Shepard is the much-loved protagonist of the Mass Effect series, one can’t help but feel that, whatever ending you received, his story is near-enough finished, and it’s probably time to hand the reins to someone else. Though Mike Gamble stated a few months ago rather cryptically that we’d best all hang onto our ME3 saves, this doesn’t implicitly state that the same characters are going to show up in a fourth game, and this could have been a coy reference to DLC above all else. Of course, we’ve all been poring over and speculating about the star-gazer cut-scene at the climax of the third game, but there’s enough ambiguity that in the fourth game, Shepard could either be dead, old, or indeed, very much alive and still kicking ass elsewhere in the galaxy.
A new protagonist far away from Shepard would be a key way to revitalise things; perhaps a lowly officer who, throughout what is sure to be a new trilogy, would rise up to become a Captain in the middle of intergalactic war. Of course, we wouldn’t mind a Shepard cameo in that event, but best to keep it low-key.
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27 Comments
Shaun, you write these things too damn fast. Can’t keep up with you mate.
I hardly think Mass Effect as a franchise is “broken” though. It astonishes me that people loved 97% of the game, but seem incapable of getting over the last 3%. BioWare undoubtedly screwed up when it comes to the ending, but I was quite content once they’d given us the extended cut DLC. Anyone still griping at this point just needs to get over it a little bit, and I say this as a hardcore ME fanboy.
There is always going to be critics, both good and bad. The fact is, there is no other game that remotely compares to the Mass Effects. Every time I play one of the games I can’t help but appreciate how much work goes into these games. Obviously the fans that are more critical about the series, the ending specifically, hold Bioware to such a high standard and that is understandable. I just personally think it is a shame when some of the fans overshadow the greatness of these series because the ending wasn’t up to their standards. I was one of those who was in no way disappointed with how it ended. Perhaps because I was so satisfied with the action, the characters, the universe, etc. that I was blinded to what some refer to as a sub-par ending. Regardless, I got everything i ever wanted out of a game in the Mass Effect series and i eagerly await the next adventure.
side note – As far as having a coop feature in the newest ME, I am confused as to how they would make it work. While I am I huge supporter of this idea, the possible issue that would need to be faced is how each player will be able to use their power/weapon wheel. In the campaigns when you pull up these wheels time is stopped. This is perfectly fine with one player but does that mean in coop every time a partner wishes to use a power does your game pause?
yeah, stopped reading after make it an MMORPG….
I dont think there was anything wrong with the Mass Effect 3 ending, just because it was different from the typical ending everyone expects, it was suddenly broken. Bioware should not have changed it and stuck to their guns, instead they gave into pressure which was annoying.
The series is nowhere near broken and i look forward to Mass Effect 4.
Same retort from everyone with bad taste. If you can’t see why it was broken then god help you.
Sounds like the usual reply from someone who is utterly convinced it was broken. Insults and the like, just because they liked something that you don’t!
I agree with Amarpal. I played though the series slowly, and based on all the evidence that I found, the ending makes perfect sense. Although I would say they didn’t change the ending per say, but add to what’s already there. Not like Star Wars where they altered a scene or changed the effects completely. It’s more like LOTR which adds extra scenes within the original movie, but doesn’t remove or alter it in any way.
At any rate, those who didn’t like Mass Effect 3 as a whole, or are hateful against Bioware about the ending even after the Extended Cut, probably won’t be buying Mass Effect 4 anyways. Those fans were only a small vocal minority anyways.
I seriously think, that it’s a majority (not minority) of people disliking the end, me amongst them. Mac Walters should not be in the lead.
Also how logical is this?: “I created machines that will kill you, so machines created by you won’t kill you.”
I am sorry, but even after the EC I can’t get it.
Anyway, it’s not only the ending, but also EA’s policy and dealing with things (had Collector’s Edition, so I have been spared of buying extra DLC of Javik). And my library being splitted on steam and origin.
All in all, I would buy another game, but of pure fanboyism and loving the ME space, but that’s just it.
I’ll let you in on a secret. The ending that was supposed to be in the game (dark energy), but was scrapped at somepoint during Mass Effect 2 essentially had the entire galaxy destroyed, everyone dead, and no closure. Aside from the ending not making any sense (one complaint), there was no closure for any of the characters that you came to know and love.
So if the dark energy ending panned out, you still wouldn’t get any closure for the characters you liked during the series, and that the reaction probably would have been similar.
The Reapers aren’t “killing” synthetics, they’re harvesting them. Go replay Mass Effect 1 during the Sovereign conversation on Virmire. Or hell, go replay the first 10 minutes of the game. Anderson specifically states “you’ve seen how they harvest us. What they plan to do to us”. So you need to wake up and pay attention to what’s being said.
PS, that kid is not who you think it is. It’s a ghostly child who died on Earth. The Reapers use this kid to manipulate you. Read the codex before you actually play the ending and start spreading misinformation or nonsense.
Or, you don’t have to agree with him. If you don’t agree with him, then don’t do what he says. Choose the destroy option and Shepard sticks to his ideals. Otherwise, go with the kid, and pick control/synthesis. If you don’t accept his logic, then Shepard doesn’t accept it. YOU are Shepard. You control Shepard. Step away from your keyboard, and Shepard stays idle. Go back to the keyboard and Shepard starts moving again.
As for DLC, 51% of the people who bought this game didn’t have an issue paying for extra DLC. Maybe you want everything for free or to be included with the game, even though it wasn’t advertised to you. It’s like wanting all the stuff in the Extended Edition of Lord of the Rings, in the Standard Version, because much like this DLC, it adds to the lore as well as provides closure (well, maybe not closure with Javik, but it adds to the lore).
If you don’t like the idea of Day 1 DLC, don’t buy it. You can finish the game without it perfectly fine. If you want the extra DLC, pay for it. That’s how capitalism works. DLC is considered a type of good. It’s all about exchanging money for goods and services. Not getting goods and services for free with no money exchanged.
If Javik wasn’t advertised to be in the standard edition of the game, Bioware doesn’t owe you this character. Call it false advertising all you want, but perhaps the only people complaining about having to pay an extra $10 are adults without jobs or little kids who still live at home and mooch off their parents. Games are getting more expensive to make, so instead of charging you $120 (with inflation) for a game up front, they chop it up and sell it to you over the course of a year.
If you don’t like DLC period, stop buying from companies that do this.
As for the minority thing, this game sold 4.5 million copies to date. If people were really upset over the game and it’s ending, they wouldn’t have bought Omega, Leviathan, or Citadel DLC. If they were smart, they wouldn’t have. Sadly, it seems people didn’t mind paying for these DLCs and they sold quite well.
As for Mac Walters, they wouldn’t have promoted him to lead writer if he couldn’t do the job. It’s like applying for a job interview. If you can’t do the job, they find someone else.
I mean, Mac created that kid at the ending and basically tricked people into believing what the kid said and they were swayed from choosing the destroy option to picking the other ones. That’s psychological manipulation right there.
Bioware has indoctrinated you, and no amount of convincing you will have you believe this. They knew people would be upset over the ending before the game launched. Not only did they indoctrinate Shepard, but they indoctrinated the playerbase as well! Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Give Mac Walters another promotion.
When asked about that indoctrination theory they said “we want the content to speak for itself”. When something speaks for itself, it doesn’t need to explained as it was meant to be obvious. If you don’t get the ending, then you weren’t paying attention during the entire course of the game. The issues with the ending are not a software problem, it’s a user problem.
They said that you were going to be gathering clues in order to solve a puzzle before the game was launched. The ending is that puzzle. If you don’t get the ending, then you didn’t find all the pieces to figurre it out.
So that’s your problem. Not Bioware’s. Gotta take responsibility like a a man and stop resorting to bad writing or Mac Walters screwed up or stuff like that.
Make it an MMORPG? Yeah, because Bioware’s latest one worked so damn well. MMORPGs are dead really, keeping it as a single player RPG and sticking to the style would be a much better decision.
More people play MMORPGs now than ever before. Everyone acts as if an MMO is a failure just because it can’t make 9 million subscribers. It’s an unfair standard to apply the most successful game ever as a indicator of whether or not an MMO did well. Did it get the reaction they wanted? No, but it does still have 1 million people subscribed. That is far from dead.
I agree with the comments.
Making it a MMORPG is a bizarre concept, where did it come from? Was it just grabbed from the air? I think a change like that would be a massive mistake and would alienate a large number of the playing community. Mass Effect is my favorite game series ever – but I wouldn’t play a MMORPG version of it.
Yep – Keep it single player.
The writers are very smart and very good, whether they messed up or not. I think no matter what they did with the new game, they wouldn’t ret-con anything. They’ve built a complex world full of interesting politics, societies and histories. Even if the new game was set in another part of the galaxy in another time, I think we can be sure they’ll not only build on the ME universe, but also build on the previous games, albeit from an abstracted point of view.
A change of characters and setting would be very interesting. I’d like to see more of the everyday joe who lives in the ME universe. Shep was a legend, but was always a military hero type. I’d like to play as a simple pilot who has to step up, or a farm boy who just inherited his fathers light sab…no, wait… Well you get the idea. With a change in setting/context we’d also inevitably get a change in style. None of these changes have to be forced. ME is far from a broken series.
Make it a MMORPG…..Are you Crazy! That there would kill the mass effect series just like Swtor has killed the KOTOR series.
Three things i do not agree on
1) Make it a MMORPG Like i said before that is crazy and would never work!
2) No lure in romance i actually thought there was and cared about all my squad mates maybe just personal preference but that’ me.
3) The mass effect series is NOT a broken one How can people love 97% of a Game and then not be able to get over the last 3%.
Im sorry but i was angry because it did not make sense and was upset but Bioware apologised and gave us DLC FREE! which not only made the endings make sense it made them better and got emotion.
Mass Effect is far from a broken series.
How to kill a series more like, why have a new protagonist when A. the majority of fans want shep back, B. they have left it on a cliff hanger with one more story about shep(stargazer before and after extended ending).
Dragon age 2 sucked because they left the first character on a unfinished cliff hanger and then started a new one. whereas Mass effect brilliant from 1-3 except the very end of 3 and they kept shep throughout.
Make it a mmorpg and you have killed it, Ea games are the most expensive online subscriptions. plus mmorpg are a very slow pace compared to mass effect. not to mention ps3 players and xbox players will be excluded from any mmorpg titles.
co-op wouldnt work because everyone wants to make their own decsions thoughout the game. I cant see people just standing around while you read a codex, talk, shop, major boring. And since co-op comes under multiplayer that will mean you will need a code to play otherwise you have to pay, so that means 2nd hand sales will be down.
ME without Shep is like INXS without Michael Hutchence. Making it a MMORPG is like a reality tv contest to find Hutchence’s replacement.
ME3 had a few things worng and i would agree on most points. The Ending, after buying all 3 games was not worth the total amount of money or time i spent. But would i play it again. Yup just fix the ending to make more sence or make a new game to explain y u fubar a game loved by millions.
Dude to you got nice ideas but as much as I love hitman and splinter mass effect just don’t seem like the stealth kinda game and shepard has Benn the hero for a long time the cant just replace him like that
I think having Shepard as the main character will be a great thing. Have it where if you survived the ME3 ending then ME4 can start out with someone like Vega hunting down shepard to get him/her back from retirement( maybe he is teaching in the N7 program) Re-enlist his help to help fight back the krogan population or some other galactic issues that are to no end. If there will be an ME4 Shepard has to be in it or it will never be the same.
Screw ME4. They are not getting one more cent from me.
This was pretty terrible. Most of the ideas were stupid and would make the game worse.
I don’t agree with making Mass Effect an MMORPG, but Co-op would be really fun! Also perhaps we could make our own protagonist, and he/she doesn’t have to be Human.
I also believe they could do better with the romance, it should have an affect when you take them on mission’s with you, the way they react to your decisions should be stronger than your other squadmates, whether they agree or disagree and dialogue should be different with them.
I don’t know if anyone would agree with this, but I liked the way in Dragon Age: Origins you could switch between the characters you have taken with you, that way you can mix up your gameplay and not get bored playing with just one character.
This was a good read, even if I don’t agree with some of your idea’s, thanks!
i think your analysis is seriously flawed by your own personal views on what the game should be. Bear in mind that mass effect 3 ending couldn’t possibly have used every variable of the past games as it would have needed thousands of variations and dialogue sequences to cope with that many variables. I think the worst thing about the ending is that it was displayed so simply without even trying to cover it up which felt like a betrayal but it was by no means the worst ending i have ever seen. As for your ideas, no an MMORPG would not be suitable for either the fans or the company on the basis that even though there are RPG elements it is a third person shooter, and it should remain so. Turning it into a turn based system would remove any sense of skill or urgency required from the player. Not to mention that bioware has its hands full with SWTOR which will keep it busy for the next couple of years. I do believe that some of your earlier points are indeed constructive, a change of protaginist would be refreshing, epecially when compared to the legendary commander shepard. Some stealth elements implemented for stealth users would be nice, in an age where you could complete games now with zero casualties i do feel sometimes a bit out of place as an infiltrator shepard in the middle of an inevitable firefight.
all i ask of the team at bioware is that they dont punish players of mass effect for not playing online like the factor of war assets on me3 to get the best possible ending.the fact that sheperd died or possibly died drows you closer to the the triolgy love thier prosses of thinking outside the box and i do not think they should be targted for doing that. personly i cant wait tell mass efeect 4 comes out just please dont make the same mistake twice.
ME3 had the worst ending I’ve ever experienced. It was worse than Lost. At least with Lost, it started falling apart in season 3, ME3 was brilliant from a plot standpoint, but was completely undermined by the most contrived, simplistic, asnine ending anyone has ever thought of. that’s what happens when the worst writer in a troupe makes it so an idea he thought up 1 week before production was due due is more important than the thousands of hours or writing before it.
Unfortunately, because it was the end, every playthrough is filtered through the thematic bastardization that would’ve been improved if a nine year old wrote the ending so you can’t just ignore it like anything else that you might not like. Every time I’m going into the game, you know it ends like some writer and an aneurism and everyone else said “let’s go with this nonsense, and embelish on it” so replay is ruined. That added to the fact the founders of Bioware retired recently meaning they’re not involved in production means the quality will never reach Jade Empire/KOTOR/Neverwinter Knights/ ME1 and 2 level production ever again and is replaced with the inferior talent of DA2 and ME3 loosing ale semblence of value or reputation.
In short, the glory days are far behind Bioware and the Cash claim for for ME4 will be more along the lines of Halo OST to the original Halo or RE 5 to the original RE.
I was fairly disappointed with the original ending to ME3 but I feel the extended cut did more than enough to create a true ending to the series. The idea of turning it into a MMORPG just sounds like the most disturbing thing that could ever happen with this series. A new protagonist in a new time yes, but the series has gotten better with each game and therefore in no way can be considered broken.
I wouldn’t neccarly call the mass effect series broken but if there any way for them to bring shepard back they would of thought of by now cause is so obivise just look at mass effect 2 when you whoke up krogan he was frozen crio sleep are they dense they could still bring shepard back & what they did with the protheun they could the same thing they did with him. shepard could still come back if they were able to do either of those its not that to figure out. they have say that shepard is killed in action have shepard wake up from frozon crio sleep when time is right just like the krogan in mass effect 2.