8 Reasons Why Mass Effect’s Story Isn’t As Great As You Think
4. That Ending
Had to be here, didn’t it? After years of ME’s creative director Casey Hudson promising us that the end of the trilogy wouldn’t just be some cop-out three-way choice, Mass Effect 3 gave us a cop-out three-way choice. Which was weird, considering plenty of other decisions in the game were fairly nuanced.
It was always going to be tricky to draw the adventure to a close. The narrative had been building up to this incredible, jaw-dropping moment, and after spending years in this world, moulding the characters and deciding the fate of others, we all had our preconceived notions of how the galactic finale should play out. BioWare didn’t drop the ball here, they just kinda let it roll out of their hand because they couldn’t be bothered holding it any more. Probably.
Even the updated ending didn’t change the fundamentals of the narrative – all it did was throw a few cameos at us. The best we can do is repress those brutal memories, and celebrate the hundreds of hours that preceded it.