9 Video Games You Didn't Realise Stupidly Broke Their Own Rules

5. The Reapers Are Both "Infinite" AND Created - Mass Effect 1 & 3

The Rule:

First mentioned in the original Mass Effect when you come face-to-hologram with Sovereign, he states - after Shepard enquires as to who built him - that the Reapers "have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite."

So far, so believable.

Some cosmic force that wields chronology itself is certainly outside our own perception of time, so have at it. I'm sure we'll find out all about why this interstellar Lovecraftian horror is bearing down on lil' old humanity and the neighbouring galaxy's races in time...

But Wait...

As revealed in the Leviathan DLC, it turns out the Reapers aren't immortal after all. They're created... by an illusive race known as the Leviathans, first mentioned in the original game as part of the planet Jartar's biography.

See, Bioware's original ending for Mass Effect 3 involved the Reapers trying to stop a universe-wide collapse involving dark matter (thereby keeping their described immortality intact), but it was scrapped when after a sizeable leak, EA made them write a new one.

The result is one game saying one thing and another contradicting it. Bioware pulled from a small passage of text in the first game as a way to make it feel more canon, but this is a sad state of affairs for what should've been remembered as gaming's finest sci-fi franchise.