It’s not to change the ending, you understand, merely to add to it. That’s what BioWare and EA are implying with their freshly announced free-to-download addition to the Mass Effect 3 saga. The DLC will be available in the summer and will add extra cinematic sequences and epilogue gameplay to the game’s controversial ending.
The best bit? They’ve called it Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut. Like it was a special edition!
Ray Muzyka, one of the BioWare bosses, has said that this is a reaction to the feedback the developers received after the game shipped.
Since launch, we have had time to listen to the feedback from our most passionate fans and we are responding. With the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut we think we have struck a good balance in delivering the answers players are looking for while maintaining the team’s artistic vision for the end of this story arc in the Mass Effect universe.
So it sounds like the disgruntled fans have shouted loudly enough to be heard and the original creative vision for the game is now being developed further to accomodate them. Hopefully, this means that we can just perpetually moan and BioWare will create new epilogue content for us indefinitely. I like the idea of tricking them into continuously supporting my favourite series of this generation forever.
bmg_123
Bought Mass Effect 2 on PS3 recently, and I was honestly disappointed by the overall experience. Most of what I’ve been playing is very slow cover-based shooting, whereas I was expecting more of a story focus, which Bioware as a company are endlessly hyped for.
Taylor Made
Mass effect is overrated to be honest it is a good game but there is far better games than it. But it is story driven though, it makes more sense if you played one, since you cant get that on ps3 and only get some comic book like dialogue that doesn’t help
bmg_123
Yeah the comic book was kind of useless. I started making random choices, simply because it didn’t explain why I was making them…
Forrest_01
“It’s not to change the ending, you understand, merely to add to it”
This simply cannot be true – If it was, they would be charging!
This is blatantly “i’m sorry you didn’t like our ending, here try this one instead.”
I haven’t played it so cannot comment on the ending, but i find it a little disheartening that they have rolled over rather than just being proud of what they had done.
Boomshanks
Thing is though that they had made numerous promises about what the endings for Mass Effect 3 would be like, saying multiple times that there would no just be three ending from which you could choose. But that’s exactly what it is.
What’s even worse is that the three major events that happen in the ending happen in all of them regardless of which one you pick. So much for the “you’re choices really matter” which was always important for the Mass Effect franchise. To put insult to injury every ending leaves even more question to begin with and none of them ca really be classified as good.
Forrest_01
Surely just a narrative for life no? No matter how hard you try, somethings just hapen regardless, so why bother?
Wait a minute, i think i may be getting a prophet-like statement mixed up with Homer Simpson. Easily done i suppose! XD
Although an ending adding or creating more questions isn’t really too good, i agree.
Boomshanks
That narration would have been ok if they hadn’t promised many different endings. Plus it would still feel cheap as everyone was led to believe that their choices from all three games would have any effect at all. Having an ending that’s the same for everyone negates the whole “your choices matter” part completely which is a terrible move to pull.
Scythegpd
Here’s the thing though. Once you’ve played the game and finished it, consider these promises made by Bioware througout the Mass Effect series:
-“In Mass Effect 3, you know you need to take back Earth, but the path to victory is less clear at the outset. You won’t just find some long-lost Reaper “off” button; says Hudson”
-“Don’t expect to win the loyalty of the galaxy by simply completing a series of fetch quests,”
-“I honestly think the player base is going to be really happy with the way we’ve done it. You had a part in it. Every decision you’ve made will impact how things go. The player’s also the architect of what happens.”
-“Whether you’re happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an ending. BioWare will not do a “Lost” and leave fans with more questions than answers after finishing the game”
-“You’ll get answers to everything. That was one of the key things. Regardless of how we did everything, we had to say, yes, we’re going to provide some answers to these people.”
Then consider people who have been playing this series since 2007. People who have invested well over 200 hours into these games (especially if you’ve got full gamerscore). People who carefully considered each decision on the prior games due to the potential impact, sometimes even having multiple saves with different decisions. These people who had a massive vested interest in Mass Effect and who were fed a stream of “Your decisions count” bs and quotes like the above and then got what Bioware gave them.
I don’t think it’s necessarily the ending that has pissed fans of the series off. If how Bioware fed a pack of lies like the ones I quoted above. If you built uyp expectations to monstrous levels and then basically throw a steaming shit in the faces of the people you’ve hyped up, effectively going back on everything you’ve claimed about the series since day one … well expect shit to get throw back at you.
Personally I’ve not played the game. After their prothean DLC trick I decided to wait until it’s a lot cheaper or (preferably) second hand before I get it. And even if the ending is rubbish I won’t work myself up into a rage like some people have. However at the same time I’m not going to dismiss those who are outraged.
Fact is this situation is proving what hypocrites a lot of gamers are. People complain about being nickel and dimed, complain about poor quality games, complain about how people do nothing when companies take the piss and how the consumers are sheep and if we banded together we could make a difference. Then when something does happen and a bunch of gamers band together to voice their unhappiness people complain that “it’s just an ending to a game, get over it.” So basically people should complain and band together and take a stand then they support your views (not you personally, you in the general “them” terminology), such as (from this site alone) day1 DLC and online passes, however when gamers take a stand against something you can’t be arsed with suddenly they’re losers who should get a life. Total hypocricy
Boomshanks
This ^
alonemusic
reading through those quotes, you could easily say Bioware did do many of those things.
The end is pretty damn conclusive if you ask me (without going into spoiler alert).
In fact I think with the whole 3 games in content it certainly felt that your decisions made many differences not just to the end sequence (not just the cut scene) but the third game.
What has really happened in my view is that the negative opinion spouted by many people on the forums before many more finished the game has completely clouded all other debate and judgement. You could say I’m just saying I like it to not be part of the slathering herd of nay-sayers.
The thing I find funny is most people don’t seem willing to discuss WHY its not a good ending to the story, just that it is or isn’t
BIGAL-1992
Judging by what I’ve read over the last few weeks and gauging people’s reaction to it, I reckon many people didn’t view it as a good ending because it gave no explaination as to what happened to your squad members and the fate of the galaxy’s races after the final battle, along with the fact that whatever choices you made throughout the series, if you did poorly yet had a high enough EMS rating, you could in theory get the same ending as someone who made the best possible choices in the series. More so than anything else, the ending never states what your decisions meant for the galaxy as a whole after everything was said and done, so it felt like to a lot of people that you made your final decision and then it cut straight to credits without any real indication or expolaination as to what just happened.
Jacko
I haven’t played Mass Effect 3, (only just started Mass Effect 2) but I think people have just gone way overboard with complaining about this. It’s just a ending to a game. I mean, get over it.
Taylor Made
well thats good if its free, I will play it on my second play through and see what it is they done to the “extended cut”
Jim Hargreaves
God knows what will happen if this new ending turns out to be poor.
bmg_123
Could just turn out to be a massive troll ending?
Scythegpd
I can imagine one of those game/movie scenes where the screen is hazy/blurry and keeps going dark, those “point of view” scenes looking through someones eyes as they wake up.
You hear a noises in the background. What is it? The camera pans around as the screen strts to clear … it’s a TV! Onn the TV is a game, a game on pause … as the screen clears it turns out the game is KOTOR. The camera pans around confusingly, then pans down … there’s a controller in your hand … your hand that’s resting on a well-fed belly.
Turns out the whole Mass Effect series was just a dream of a 12 year old over-weight kid who fell asleep whilst playing a sci-fi style game.
The end.
Massive troll ending towards everyone complaining :P
ProjectJAY
Fingers crossed for a musical number.
Forrest_01
I would actually laugh if they just added someone flipping the bird at the end!
Won’t appease anyone of course, but it would be pretty funny.
BIGAL-1992
I don’t think this was a case of fans complaining that the ending was complete rubbish. Alot of people on the offical bioware forums were never asking for the ending to be completely changed,they just wanted an explaination to what had happened and provide closure to the series based on their decisions.
BIGAL-1992
Actually peter, if I could just ask you a question about the game, have you finished the game, or know what the endings are?
colossalblue
nope, still haven’t finished it.
I get what you’re saying and I understand that perhaps BioWare didn’t handle things well with claims made before release but I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with audiences dictating creative decisions – and it was a creative decision to leave the ending(s) however they’re left.
I feel like this is similar to if fans had demanded an extra five seconds on the end of Inception to see if the spinning top falls over or not.
BIGAL-1992
Thanks for answering peter, and I do get what you’re saying that the audience should never really be given complete control of the creative decisions of a series, video game, film or otherwise. Having played the game and finishing it twice, though, I have to side with the fans on this case, as the endings weren’t good really.
Adiemus
Without spoilering and using ur inception analogy. Its more a case of people complaining theres 2 different endings where the spinning top goes clockwise but in the other its anti clockwise. And thats it, no other difference.
Scythegpd
Adiemus has it spot on
Imagine if Inception was an interactive movie. At specific moement you click a red or a blue button to guide Cobbs decision. This movie is part of a trilogy and it’s massively hyped that the cinema will “remember” your decisions and the ending will be massively impacted by the decisions you make (you’re given a personal clicker to keep that supposedly records the decision). This is a major selling point and ropes in masses of people to experience what they claim.
After 5 years and you finally get to the last film. This is it, the culimnation of all your decisions, everything you have done builds up to this one moment they’ve said will be impacted by everything you’ve done. You’ve spent over 10 hours (using the LoTR extended edition run-times for additional context) watching these films. And that’s just with these decisions, you’ve watched these films more than once to make different decisions because apparently they will have a massive impact on the endings. It’s almost there, this is it, the big finale … and you discover the only thing that changes is the top spins either left or right. Would you be happy with their “creative decision”?
Boomshanks
Same here. I can understand that it can be disheartening to see that a lot of moaning can force a company to change a product they own. However the promises that were made before the game was complete indicate that Bioware had different plans with the ending to begin with. I’m on the consumers’ side this time as I can clearly see where they are coming from.
An-dz
I dont think they can really salvage it, the entire ending mission was kind of a let down, i expected it to be a large war zone with lots of fighting and AI to help, instead its still just you and your squad mates Vs a very large number of enemies to slug it out. i would have made a nice change of pace and really brought it to a climactic final fight if they had made the scale larger.
Porcupine_I
and without any kind of information what it contains, i am sure ppl now getting ready to complain about what’s wrong with it.
Adiemus
The last part of what they say is what im focusing on and see of they live up to that. It also doesnt exlude the interesting theory about the ending.
maneorix
It just strengthens it really. I also don’t think this is a reaction, I’m pretty certain it’s pre-planned. Otherwise I can’t see why it would be free.
nofi
/self censored/