Some are saying that the majority of players aren't happy with the ending, and others are saying that it's only another vocal minority complaining on the internet.  I thought this poll might be a fun way to see what Giant Bomb really thinks of the ending. 
 
Criticism mostly comes in the form of complaints with the matter of closure, mood, choice, or writing, so that's how I constructed the poll.  For anyone who feels differently, I've also included open ended like and dislike options.
 
After you have voted, if you want to get a good idea of why so many people dislike the ending, try this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M0Cf864P7E 
 
More importantly, try this section, which does a fantastic job of explaining why even the "Green" ending--which is the hardest to get, and is considered by many to be the "good" ending--goes against pretty much every single thing that you've been working for throughout the entire series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M0Cf864P7E&t=16m24s 
 
If someone cares to defend the "Green" ending after watching that, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. 
 
Oh, and if you're not happy with the ending, you might also find this interesting:  http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10056886/1

do we need MORE topics about the ME3 ending?

@adoggz said:

do we need MORE topics about the ME3 ending?

Of course. The whole front page must be topics about the ME3 ending and the Giant Bomb merge.

@adoggz said:

do we need MORE topics about the ME3 ending?

No we don't

@adoggz said:

do we need MORE topics about the ME3 ending?

No we don't

Awful lot of options on this poll :O I like it! The poll, not the ending.

I think the whole cliche thing could go either way. If it was happy, it would have been cliche, if it was depressing, it would have been cliche.

I liked it because it was what I felt was a fitting culmination for my Shepard's story across the three games. Appropriately sad, and it leaves the galaxy in a state of dramatic disrepair that is appropriate to the scale of the enemy that was being faced. In my mind, while the tool for the Reaper's destruction was essentially an unsatisfying deus ex machina, the level of change that had to happen to the galaxy because such an incredible force had been destroyed felt fitting in a way. The ending was rushed, yes, and all of the star child nonsense was just that, but the crucial events that played out and ended with the Reaper's destruction felt good enough.

Of course good enough isn't great, still, but it's better than the horrible travesty so many feel they had occur in their game. I can of course see the game's myriad endings seeming very out of place depending on the type of Shepard that was being played by other people, though. I just so happened to play a Shepard who fit nicely into the end sequence enough to make it feel natural, kind of.

I will say that if BioWare's goal with the ending was to evoke an emotional response from players, they succeeded with me. While I am easily susceptible to emotional and irrational bonds to characters and worlds that I have spent dozens, if not hundreds, of hours into, it still doesn't diminish the impact the end of that game had on me as a fan of that world and its amazing host of characters.

@SpaceInsomniac said:

@SmasheControllers said:

@adoggz said:

do we need MORE topics about the ME3 ending?

No we don't

You know, it would be a nice feature to hide forums that you're not interested in from the front page. Too bad that's not an option. And there's pretty much no way of inserting a poll into an existing ending thread, so sorry about that. I realize that there are quite a few threads on the subject already.

It's cool, these threads don't bother me, it's the crazy people inside them.

I would have liked a poll just to see the general opinion, but this amount of options is ridiculous.

I am quite convinced that Bioware isn't done with Mass Effect 3 and they will continue with Dlc that picks up right after the "ending".

Why would you feel it is necessary to make another 'ME 3 ending' thread when there are so many of these that you could add to? 

I would have liked a poll just to see the general opinion, but this amount of options is ridiculous.

Awful lot of options on this poll :O I like it! The poll, not the ending.

I disliked it for several of the reasons stated. 
It didn't really take into account your actions and choices across the games, not even just ME3, but rather gave you 3 choices which all did the same thing no matter what you had done before. If you had gathered all possible forces (and united the whole galaxy!), it really wasn't any different than someone who had been an asshole to everyone. Sure, some of the choices in the end weren't available if your EMS was too low, but that makes no sense. Why would I not be able to choose one of the options that are still there, just not given to you,  just because I didn't have enough forces? 
If they would have done it like the ME2 suicide mission where much of what happened on Earth was dependent on how many and what forces you had gathered, then it would have been taking into account your previous choices in a much better way. 
 
A lesser issue with the ending, I feel, is that you didn't feel like you had saved the galaxy. It felt like you had lost, even though the Reapers disappeared, since the relays were destroyed, leaving the survivors in a really bad position.  
I have no problem with Shepard dying, but I feel like it should at least be a worthy sacrifice, not a sacrifice that makes things worse. The ending was sad enough already considering everyone who had died along the way, all the friends you had lost.  
Shouldn't it feel like in the end, you sacrificed everything to save what you had been fighting for throughout the whole trilogy? Instead of you sacrificing everything including what you had been fighting for?
 
The worst part of the ending, to me, is the fact that big parts of it made no sense. The whole Normandy scene was nonsensical, and there is no explanation for why anything about it happened the way it did. It felt like a last ditch attempt to make the ending bittersweet instead of just bitter, even if that meant teleporting dead people and then magically healing them...  
These parts are what is keeping me from accepting the ending as it is. 
 
Even though I think it could have been better, I can accept them wanting the series to end the way it did, but that still doesn't change the fact that the way they accomplished that was really bad...

I disliked it for every reason listed (in the dislike section)

@SpaceInsomniac:

Like I said, it was an agreement.

It's mainly the tonal shift. You spend the entire game creating peace between the Geth and the Quarians, and starting up a romance between EDI and Joker. And then the game says; "Sorry, organics and synthetics will never, ever get along", when you clearly just disproved that in some pretty significant ways. It backs you into a corner and forces you to forget everything you know about the ME universe, and choose between 3 shitty options.

Fuck that ending. Instead of neatly wrapping up the story they took a deep dive into high-concept sci-fi. Something the series has never been about.

I like it.

It's pissed off a lot of people, because it's so open to interpretation. Nothing is clear cut. And while I'd love to believe the indoctrination theory, I'm not convinced it's right, but it's cool that an ending has sparked such an incredibly in depth analysis from a wide range of folks out there.

It's very high concept, and in some ways it works... other ways it doesn't. But they tried, and for me, that's what counts. Rather than going for the typical "OH YAY WE WON" ending, they went for something far more crazy.

Like people have already said, it's pretty clear that Bioware will put out some post ending DLC. I just hope they don't wrap it up too neatly, or change anything that is currently in the game due to fan demand. Changing/expanding on plot points for future content is fine, but don't cave in Bioware and change the existing ending just because a group of people "demand it".

Although, my Shepard disintegrated... so how am I gonna be able to use him post ending?

I disliked it for ALL of the reasons stated

@SpaceInsomniac said:

Some are saying that the majority of players aren't happy with the ending, and others are saying that it's only another vocal minority complaining on the internet. I thought this poll might be a fun way to see what Giant Bomb really thinks of the ending.

Criticism mostly comes in the form of complaints with the matter of closure, mood, choice, or writing, so that's how I constructed the poll. For anyone who feels differently, I've also included open ended like and dislike options.

Oh, and if you're not happy with the ending, you might find this interesting:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10056886/1

OMG That link just pisses me off.....Seriously??? Wow that is F'd up. A,B,C endings..... Good thing they promised us we wouldn't get those types of endings.

@SpaceInsomniac said:

Some are saying that the majority of players aren't happy with the ending, and others are saying that it's only another vocal minority complaining on the internet. I thought this poll might be a fun way to see what Giant Bomb really thinks of the ending.

Criticism mostly comes in the form of complaints with the matter of closure, mood, choice, or writing, so that's how I constructed the poll. For anyone who feels differently, I've also included open ended like and dislike options.

Oh, and if you're not happy with the ending, you might find this interesting:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10056886/1

OMG That link just pisses me off.....Seriously??? Wow that is F'd up. A,B,C endings..... Good thing they promised us we wouldn't get those types of endings.

After you have voted, if you want to get a good idea of why so many people dislike the ending, try this video:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M0Cf864P7E  
 
More importantly, try this section, which does a fantastic job of explaining why even the "Green" ending--which is the hardest to get, and is considered by many to be the "good" ending--goes against pretty much every single thing that you've been working for throughout the entire series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M0Cf864P7E&t=16m24s  
 
If someone cares to defend the "Green" ending after watching that, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.   

I thought the ending was decent, I didn't really like the twist with the "God" at the end (the spirit-child-thingy) but other than that it was fine and made good sense.

Disliked it most because it felt like everything else I had done in the series meant nothing at all...and that EVERY end is the same, just a teeny different.

Also dumb that Shepard is alive, only if you play the multiplayer enough to get the 100% readieness. How the fuck does he/she survive the crashing of the Citadel AND falling through space again?

B.

I cannot understand why people bitch about "Oh, my decisions don't matter". You know what? Shut up. I loved that even though Shepard saved everybody in the end they are all fucked because they won't be able to travel to distant planets and systems. GG!

Also why people call the child a "god child"? What? It just took that the form of that kid because that was one the thing on the mind of Shepard. Haven't you fuckers(in a good way) seen Beast Wars?

Edit:

@FoxMulder said:

Disliked it most because it felt like everything else I had done in the series meant nothing at all...and that EVERY end is the same, just a teeny different.

Also dumb that Shepard is alive, only if you play the multiplayer enough to get the 100% readieness. How the fuck does he/she survive the crashing of the Citadel AND falling through space again?

The Destroy endings are bullshit anyway no matter whether shepard lives or dies. Destroy Control and Synthesis make more sense.

To the people saying that the ending getting so much analysis means it is good: People aren't analyzing it because the ending is so good, it's because the story in general was very compelling, and it takes a lot of mental twisting to shape the ending into something that was actually in line with the story of the game.

The Destroy endings are bullshit anyway no matter whether shepard lives or dies. Destroy Control and Synthesis make more sense.

@SpaceInsomniac: You are crazy! With Destroy you are destroying ALL synthetic life in the galaxy - reapers, geth, EDI, etc. As I said... Crazy! By doing so you are rendering all Shepard has worked for meaningless- [Edit:] the cycle will repeat. Now... FUCK THAT!

Over 70% of users didn't like the endings. Massive fail on Bioware's part.

@Harkat: I just meant how it could be cliche. I could have expected the ending to go either way. I didn't mean that you can look at the ending at both sides.

I thought it was okay, i guess.

A bit dumb but whatever.

Like many others, i hated it for all the given reasons, but mainly for the tonal shift.

The ending just doesn't feel like it belongs to the Mass effect universe.

Mass Effect 2 ending was garbage, we should have expected this, a lot of things doesn't make sense, why the collectors began building the proto reaper in the first place, what happened to all the dark energy stuff that was teased in ME2 and even during ME3 at some parts. The endings are indeed pretty stupid and if you think about it, the canonical ending will end up being the destroy - good ending, the one where Shepard lives, how can the other two be the perfect ending. The thing is, now that the whole galaxy knows that developing AIs is really bad (a thing that everybody already knew after the Geth draw the Quarians out of Rannoch), the pattern that the Catalyst claims to be the inevitable end of all organics can't be applied. To sum up, I didn't like it, I was expecting the whole dark energy stuff

Though I disliked the ending, my main gripe with the game is the manner in which Bioware treated main characters from ME2 (I.E. Miranda), I don't give a shit about Ashley!

No matter what the results of the poll are... it is two small of a sample size to make any claims of majority or minority. This is stats 101.

Same reason you cannot take a guy who hits .310 for a week and then project he will continue to do so for the rest of the year. That same guy could hit .220 the next week because he was facing less favorable matchups or plays in a bandbox of a stadium.

I greatly enjoyed the game, just as I expected to - based on my experiences with the first two. How it ended isn't important to me - the fact that it had to end is the downer.

Combo of F and I.  No surprise that those are the two highest results.

A. For sure. I do not get the outrage at all even though I was expecting to. It was thought provoking, epic and beautiful.

FHI

@S0ndor: by that logic, which I agree with, then the destroy ending should be the best ending. prove the god child wrong by destroying the reapers and letting the species of the universe prove him wrong. to me, when you use that kind of thinking, the ending becomes a lot better.

I thought it was good enough.

It's not that bad, people sure are whiny.

@Creamypies said:

It's very high concept, and in some ways it works... other ways it doesn't. But they tried, and for me, that's what counts. Rather than going for the typical "OH YAY WE WON" ending, they went for something far more crazy.

Quoted for fucking truth.

The uproar over this beyond stupid. Do people really need everything spelled out for them these days? I don't want to make a connection to LOST but I will anyway. When that ended it was a similar deal, people were pissed they didn't get straight answers, and sure there was the whole other thing with that ending, which I liked but that's neither here nor there.

The point it is that you don't need things to wrap up ever so neatly for you to enjoy an ending, for once just take things for what they are worth. Now you may argue that the ending is poorly written and contradicts itself and well fair enough, that's your opinion, and even I acknowledge, that yeah, it's got problems, but I am glad the ending I got left me thinking for days about the ME universe and how much I cared and still do care about those 3 games, I honestly don't think I would have been satisfied with a cookie cutter ending.

Mass Effect from the get go has been a dire, dire series, I knew going into this game that things were not going to end well for my Shepard and low and behold, they didn't. Also, the whole buildup to the ending is great I think, it has such an eerie atmosphere, making all the indoctrination theories kinda ring true in a way that leaves me thinking about the ending even more, and that's a really good thing.

If there is one thing that really bums me out over the ending is the cop out at the end, but at the very least that scene is really beautiful. If they changed a couple of lines of dialogue in that scene to not go "one more story" the ending would be damn near perfect to me.

I purposely avoided all spoilers until I actually beat the game, but I did hear that a lot of people didn't like the ending so I was bracing myself before-hand.

Now, I'm a very "storybook ending" kinda guy. If someone says that the ending to something is "too happy" or "wraps up too neatly" it usually means I'll enjoy it. Melancholy and/or ambiguous endings have to be done in a very specific way for me to enjoy them (i.e. Max Payne games).

That being said, I was really touched by my ending in ME3. And I surprised myself by not picking the "best" ending. I had 100% Galactic Readiness and over 7,000 war asset points; but when the choices were laid out to me, I just couldn't accept the consequences that the "best" ending would produce. So I took another option. And unless Bioware releases post-ending DLC that drastically changes the consequences of the endings, I'll probably stick with that ending for every subsequent playthrough.

It wasn't the ending I would have written, but it was touching and satisfying for me anyway. Here's to you, Bioware. Don't let the haters get ya down. :)

What do YOU think about incontinence?
 

• I Like It.  Nappy Man.
• Ewww.  What's wrong with you?
• Depends.

i liked it for all the reasons stated

however thats not to say mass effect 3 was a perfect game, the 2nd one is much better. but it was still a great game, and i loved the conclusions to all the stories and how it was handled. if they didnt spend time on the multiplayer they could have made the game better, but i thought the ending was radical and if that time was spent on the campaign id prefer it to be else where than the ending

do you get what im saying dude?

I thought it was fine. I didn't really like or dislike it, it was just kind of there.

@Death_Burnout said:

If there is one thing that really bums me out over the ending is the cop out at the end, but at the very least that scene is really beautiful. If they changed a couple of lines of dialogue in that scene to not go "one more story" the ending would be damn near perfect to me.

"My sweet." Ugh.

Why isn't there a neutral option?

@Enigma777 said:

Why isn't there a neutral option?

I thought about including the option, but then I realized that I didn't really care to hear from anyone who couldn't decide one way or another.

@TheCowman said:

I purposely avoided all spoilers until I actually beat the game, but I did hear that a lot of people didn't like the ending so I was bracing myself before-hand.

Now, I'm a very "storybook ending" kinda guy. If someone says that the ending to something is "too happy" or "wraps up too neatly" it usually means I'll enjoy it. Melancholy and/or ambiguous endings have to be done in a very specific way for me to enjoy them (i.e. Max Payne games).

That being said, I was really touched by my ending in ME3. And I surprised myself by not picking the "best" ending. I had 100% Galactic Readiness and over 7,000 war asset points; but when the choices were laid out to me, I just couldn't accept the consequences that the "best" ending would produce. So I took another option. And unless Bioware releases post-ending DLC that drastically changes the consequences of the endings, I'll probably stick with that ending for every subsequent playthrough.

It wasn't the ending I would have written, but it was touching and satisfying for me anyway. Here's to you, Bioware. Don't let the haters get ya down. :)

I don't think there is a best ending. Just like there's no right or wrong choice with dealing with the genophage, or the geth, or almost anything else in the Mass Effect games.

If the endings had played out like that fake BioWare post on the penny-arcade forums said they would (galatic readiness results in more/less damage to Earth) then I suppose there would be a best ending.

As it is now though, there's just three choices with, to varying degrees, some big implications for the galaxy, and they're all appropriate for a Mass Effect game.