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

8. The Saga NeededA DefinedEnding

Bioware
Bioware

Let's imagine for a moment that some sort of fluid, personalized endings were possible. What are the odds that even half of them would have lived up to the whole thing from a storytelling perspective?

Either the differences between endings would have been superficial (i.e. a few added stills or cutscenes) to protect the cohesiveness of it all, or BioWare could have made patchwork endings stitching together major elements and prayed it all stuck together when viewed.

At some point, for the purposes of this whole epic reaching a cohesive and satisfying conclusion, the range of variables needed to taper off as the ending tookshape.

But, you ask, couldn't they have just worked harder to wring maximum impact out of every puzzle piece, every combined picture, every nuance? To answer a question with a question: could you have waited an additional six months before getting to play the darned thing?

And in any case, why would the fate of the galaxy hinge on the comparatively small choices you made two games earlier? How awful would it be to find out that you could have had a perfect ending somehow, if only you hadn't killed Wrex when you were still in college?

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.