http://www.joystiq.com/2012/04/05/mass-effect-3-extended-cut-dlc-free-this-summer-offers-furth/

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bioware-announces-mass-effect-3-130000574.html

So to clarify earlier reporting, this is clarifying the ending, not changing it. Extending it, yes, but not changing the content.

This is probably the best move they could have made. It still won't please everyone, but whatever.

huh, wierd.

Through additional cinematic sequences and epilogue scenes, the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut will give fans seeking further clarity to the ending of Mass Effect 3 deeper insights into how their personal journey concludes. Coming this summer, the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut will be available for download on the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and PC for no extra charge*.

Curious to see what they do actually.

Those who didn't freak out at the ending might not admit it, but it was those wacked out fans who bitched about the ending that made it a big deal and caused Bioware to make this kind of move.

Wow, free? That's probably the best PR move at this point, charging for this would only add tons of fuel to the fire.

grrrrr 'insert generic EA hate for some reason'

Wow I did not think they'd have gone through with it.

I'm glad it's free, but I'm not sure how much they can do with that ending. They really backed themselves into a corner with what they can do/explain.

Okay, this was pretty much what we've all been waiting for. An official announcement. Alright, so summer, then? Great! Still interested to see what other downloadable content they are working on. No doubt they have some big things in store for the game, if Mass Effect 2 is any hint.

Good for them, if they were going to do anything, then this is the right move. Releasing something that extends the ending and clarifies, but also keeping it free.

I kinda hope that there will be multiple explanations depending on your choices and that one of them is indoctrination - seeing how there are quite a few things that hint at it through the game - including the entire ending sequence.

While I think this isn't a terrible move, I think the best way for Bioware to regain trust would be to pull an entire 'Enhanced Edition,' Witcher 1-style...

They made the right move making it free, and I appreciate the effort they are putting into this.

I guess the only thing I am really interested to know at this point is, if they are not adopting the indoctrination theory and are indeed just clarifying the events that took place during the ending, then why do we see Shepard take that breath at the end of the "good" Destroy ending? Where is he and how is he still alive after blowing up the Citadel?

By summer I don't think I'll care anymore. I barely do already. Probably the best move they could've made though.

At least they were smart enough to make it free. I don't really see how clarity is going to fix the reapers oddly obtuse cycle and their messed up logic but what ever. It was most definitely going to be too expensive to write a new ending in the first place and give it away for free. They probably just added in some deleted scenes and clarified how the Normandy was fleeing with your squad mates.

I bet this is what they planned all along anyway, it just has a different context now. Also, they never sad they were changing it. At all.

@brojuice said:

While I think this isn't a terrible move, I think the best way for Bioware to regain trust would be to pull an entire 'Enhanced Edition,' Witcher 1-style...

You mean like somewhere down the line, release all the downloadable content and such in one big re-packaging?

I just can't see this ending well, but maybe all of the rampant hate Bioware have gotten since Mass Effect 2 won a bunch of GOTY awards is colouring my expectations.

@Napalm said:

Okay, this was pretty much what we've all been waiting for. An official announcement. Alright, so summer, then? Great! Still interested to see what other downloadable content they are working on. No doubt they have some big things in store for the game, if Mass Effect 2 is any hint.

Actually the announcement blatantly says that due to this stupidity the other DLC/content is being put on hold (possibly cancelled) so we can have a longer cut scene that goes into more detail about how your crew is still stranded on the same planet. That is what "reprioritized" means, we put our old plans on hold and or canned them to do something else instead. So if we get crappy, rushed, or minimal additional content for the game... you know who to thank. The "fans".

FREE? WHAT A BUNCH OF DICKS.

I'm curious to see how they handle the different endings. My Shepard lives so...

I also hope they are able to fill all the plotholes well or the outcry might be even bigger if that's even possible. Not saying that adding an extended ending is good or bad, we'll have to wait and see.

As grimy as this whole situation is, I can't help but want to hug whomever it was that came up with the idea of calling this the "extended cut." I can't wait to get my hands on some more ME3.

Also fuck you BioWare for capitulating.

Wow so either way Bioware and EA are fucked.  If they intended for this to be DLC from the start and left the ending vague and contradictory to the entire series so they could sell you the true ending and they only made it free after the fans got pissed,  then that is pretty shitty.  If they caved in to the pressure of the audience and created the DLC when they had no real intention to, then they look like pussies for not sticking to their vision.
 
 Why is everybody thinking EA is going to release a GOTY version of Mass Effect 3 with all the DLC?  I don't remember a GOTY edition for the first game. Also the GOTY version of Mass Effect 2 was simply just the PS3 port.  

@Napalm: That'd be cool, if the package were big enough to warrant it. CD-Projekt's EE was fantastic; it fixed everything wrong with the Witcher, surprisingly, and best of all, it was free. It's too bad, because I feel as if the team(s) didn't have enough time to finish this time.

Yo dawg. I heard you like free DLC. If you don't you are not HUMAN. This is the way to go. I am excited as all hell and will do a full play-thru when this schmaltzy piece of content releases. Thanks to the freaks for making this free. Fight the power. Shepard lives. Hackett out.

Just looks like they are trying to cover that bowl of shit with whipped cream. It's still shit underneath.

Seeing how summer is when I have zero time for gaming then by the time I come back I really won't give two shits about ME3. At least they made the right choice by making it free.

@bartok: It would appear that the DLC content for Mass Effect 1 was included in the Classics edition of the game, based on listings from Amazon.

@Karkarov said:

@Napalm said:

Okay, this was pretty much what we've all been waiting for. An official announcement. Alright, so summer, then? Great! Still interested to see what other downloadable content they are working on. No doubt they have some big things in store for the game, if Mass Effect 2 is any hint.

Actually the announcement blatantly says that due to this stupidity the other DLC/content is being put on hold (possibly cancelled) so we can have a longer cut scene that goes into more detail about how your crew is still stranded on the same planet. That is what "reprioritized" means, we put our old plans on hold and or canned them to do something else instead. So if we get crappy, rushed, or minimal additional content for the game... you know who to thank. The "fans".

None of this would of happened if they didn't develop such a terrible and nonsensical ending to begin with. And not to mention that the ending soured a lot of people on the idea of ever playing a Mass Effect game again, let alone additional ME3 content. It's in their interest to try and patch things up with the fans and this is good way to do it.

What a debacle. Maybe EA will be forced to look at their publication scheduling and demands on devs, and realize that pushing out huge titles that are not really ready is not profitable in the long run.

Can't complain about free but people will still have questions and complaints anyway, and be unsatisfied.

Personally, I just hope this won't delay or interrupt the mp DLC. Damn them!!! ;)

@StarvingGamer: Yeah fuck you bioware for reassessing your work and acting like a business. Art is totally immutable and will not change for anything ever because yeah.

no

You can't separate the art from the business when the art is the business. I'm sorry people that's just the way it is and the way it's always been.

@Abyssfull said:

@Karkarov said:

@Napalm said:

Okay, this was pretty much what we've all been waiting for. An official announcement. Alright, so summer, then? Great! Still interested to see what other downloadable content they are working on. No doubt they have some big things in store for the game, if Mass Effect 2 is any hint.

Actually the announcement blatantly says that due to this stupidity the other DLC/content is being put on hold (possibly cancelled) so we can have a longer cut scene that goes into more detail about how your crew is still stranded on the same planet. That is what "reprioritized" means, we put our old plans on hold and or canned them to do something else instead. So if we get crappy, rushed, or minimal additional content for the game... you know who to thank. The "fans".

None of this would of happened if they didn't develop such a terrible and nonsensical ending to begin with. And not to mention that the ending soured a lot of people on the idea of ever playing a Mass Effect game again, let alone additional ME3 content. It's in their interest to try and patch things up with the fans and this is good way to do it.

Exactly. Not that it's like they're suddenly going to make crappier DLC because they're focusing on this, but even if they DID, I'd much rather have another "The Arrival" or "Pinnacle Station" and closure for 100+ hours in a game universe, than amazing DLC that lets us increase our Estimated Military Strength for no good reason, because it doesn't matter at all in the endgame. Without a proper ending, the entire series itself has been soured, so they really have no choice but to put at least as much care as went into the Tuchanka or Rannoch mission into this new extended ending.

And actually, bonus points if they can design the ending to incorporate changes made by the DLC that comes out after it, so it's worth beating the game again.

And honestly, I don't mean to beat a dead horse here, but the people who were satisfied with the existing ending are crazy bastards. That ending didn't take into account 3 save files full of unique choices, it didn't even take into account decisions you made in that same game. No matter what you do or how little you try, in the end you're going to defeat the reapers. That's insane, and trivializes everything in the entire series. They don't even give you an option to agree with the Catalyst and let him kill you so the cycle can be restarted. Giving up and agreeing to let the antagonist kill you and continue what they were doing for the greater good was something they did with Jade Empire, so they could at least given us the option to do something, anything.

Glad they came to their senses and didn't irrevocably end the series by letting the branching plots get hit by an unstoppable narrative truck.

By the time it comes out my second Shepard will probably just be finishing up ME2 so I'm good with this.

And the servers will be taken down a year from now

I made this comment before, but I personally don't understand how wha BIoware was attempting to do with Mass Effect is any different than what they did with Dragon Age.

Spoiler:

In Dragon Age, one of the first characters you get in your party is a witch named Morrigan. At the end of the game, you find out that the witch has been scamming you the entire time in an attempt to sleep with you so she could create a demon baby who might destroy the world. Essentially, the entire game has been abotu her, when you thought it was about you. Then, right before the final battle, she runs off never to be seen again.

To find out what happens to her and to larger extent THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE... you have to buy hte Witch Hunt DLC that came out like a year after the game did. I fully believe they had intended all the Morrigan content to be the focus of the sequel but hten at the last second, they decided to do the crap decision that was Dragon Age 2 and so had to shuffle out a lame conclusion to Dragon Age 1 in DLC to wrap it up.

Would have loved for them to change the ending. It would have been a great opportunity for Bioware to regain any respect that they still have left by their fanbase. The current ending is dog shit for several reasons. I'll post a video here that explains why the endings should have been changed. I'm okay with this news, I just hope they give us enough details about this ending that doesn't simply equate to space magic. At least it's free.

@JazGalaxy: she wasn't scamming you the entire time. The idea only came to her after reading Flemeth's Grimoire. Also it determines whether you sacrifice yourself in the end when you kill the arch demon and left the door open for a continuation of the plot which their doing now. Same with helping Flemeth in DA2 to ensure she survives whether you choose to kill her or not in DAO. It's basically a set up for DA3. The witch hunter dlc is the equivalent to the arrival dlc. We don't really know whether that baby is going to destroy the world or not. One theory is that you might even play as the baby in the third game. Dragon Age 2 was still crappy. Never even finished that game because of the glitch where Merrill was stuck in my party so I stopped and waited for the patch and then I just forgot about it. I don't really have much of a need to go back to that game anyway.

@pweidman said:

What a debacle. Maybe EA will be forced to look at their publication scheduling and demands on devs, and realize that pushing out huge titles that are not really ready is not profitable in the long run.

Can't complain about free but people will still have questions and complaints anyway, and be unsatisfied.

This.

At the end of the day, ME3 is still pretty much certain to have a shit ending that the fans hate. A few cut scenes and epilogue text boxes are not going to fix the Red Green Blue disaster. Whenever this "Extended Cut" comes out, people are probably going to hate it just as bad as before (myself included). But if EA takes this as a lesson to let developers have more control over their development cycles than it might be worth all the rage.

@Phatmac said:

Would have loved for them to change the ending. It would have been a great opportunity for Bioware to regain any respect that they still have left by their fanbase. The current ending is dog shit for several reasons. I'll post a video here that explains why the endings should have been changed. I'm okay with this news, I just hope they give us enough details about this ending that doesn't simply equate to space magic. At least it's free.

A lot of it is about presentation. They could have had the exact same outcome but with a few more lines, a few more choices, some reference at all to who you were and the universe you shaped, and it would have been fine.

Also, cut all of the dream sequences, and make the Catalyst be Avina. And don't say she's the creator of the godddamn Reapers, that's ridiculous, and contradicts Sovereign saying the Reapers built the Citadel. MYSTERY IS FINE, but it's probably too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

awesome more content for an awesome game n its free nice one bioware

Why would you lovingly craft a universe and keep building the lore and excellence over 2.9999 games, just to kill it dead at the very last moment? 2 in the stomach and 1 in the head? That's what looks like happend, though I'll believe it when I see it. Still hoping for the indoctrination ending we all deserve.

I'm very glad this is free. It may be at the expense of putting those dumb microtransactions in the multi-player side of the game, but whatever.

Now let's just hope that whatever this ends up being (cough, Indoctrination Theory, cough) actually makes sense.

@C_Cage said:

@JazGalaxy: she wasn't scamming you the entire time. The idea only came to her after reading Flemeth's Grimoire. Also it determines whether you sacrifice yourself in the end when you kill the arch demon and left the door open for a continuation of the plot which their doing now. Same with helping Flemeth in DA2 to ensure she survives whether you choose to kill her or not in DAO. It's basically a set up for DA3. The witch hunter dlc is the equivalent to the arrival dlc. We don't really know whether that baby is going to destroy the world or not. One theory is that you might even play as the baby in the third game. Dragon Age 2 was still crappy. Never even finished that game because of the glitch where Merrill was stuck in my party so I stopped and waited for the patch and then I just forgot about it. I don't really have much of a need to go back to that game anyway.

I disagree with you. Her trying to conceive a child with you is why she's so easy to sleep with but so difficult to start a relationship with. Her plan is fundamentally why she was with you the entire time, regardless of whether you retrieve hte Grimoire or not. It's also why she sticks around even when she doesn't like you, if you don't make a concerted effor to win her over.

Polishing a turd. Sadly.