10 Reasons You're Wrong About Mass Effect 3's Ending

9. Unrealistic (Impossible?) Expectations For An Open-Ended Conclusion

Bioware
Bioware

Of all the reasons people found to hate the ending(s) of ME3 (especially before the fix,) the loudest outcry had to be severe disillusionment over BioWare leaving behind the decision/consequence system that had become the franchise's calling card.

After all the touting and trumpeting of the far-reaching impact of countless decisions you made for Shepard, how could it all boil down to threecanned options unrelated to the path you chose?

While it was perfectly normal to dream of a finale tailored to your character's past choices, it would have been an unrealistic task for BioWare to try and program all the story permutations into a decent close. They'd previously done such a nice job of carrying forward player decisions, that hopes ended up dashed when they didn't find a way to integrate it all into one last master stroke.

Imagine you just spent years painstakingly writing one of the greatest stories ever told, but your editor wouldn't release it until you wrote 20 different endings, each of them neatly and satisfyingly wrapping up the preceding magnum opus. Would you, a) squeeze their neck until their eyes bulged, or b) oh wait, this isn't multiple choice.

Which leads us to the next point

Contributor
Contributor

CKUT radio host, underground lyricist, Michael Myers scholar and all-around world-class opiner. Signature move: Irony Bomb. Blood type: chai. Never seen in the same place and time as Logic Johnson, former featured columnist for Bleacher Report. Hopelessly unfamiliar with Yellow Submarine.