To end a series beloved by millions is bound to upset a few, it’s bound to be talked about through the ages. Story telling is hard enough as it is, in this day and age we’ve heard it all. It’s hard to keep a anyone invested in a interesting story long enough for it to pay off. Mass Effect 3 ends a epic space journey and it’s found the hate bandwagon.

My personal take on Mass Effect 3’s ending without spoiling anything is, it’s an amazing way to end the series. Honestly it’s perfect from a story teller point of view, but that’s me, most will want something similar to an Uncharted ending where the everyone walks away as if nothing really happened. As if all has been set right in the universe. Mass Effect 3 is about fighting a war, its dirty, gritty and death is around every corner. It’s unavoidable, an unstoppable force is on your door step with no hope to defeat it. The reason for the way the ending went was a very smart way to sum up why the story of Mass Effect even happened. It’s a circle of life type of ending with all your questions answered well at the same time leaving enough open so the player can fill in all of what he loves.

I’ve heard people saying some nasty things, asking Bioware to change the ending is ludicrous. You have no right over the story, over what they do with it. A writer tells a story because it’s something he is interested in, it’s by him for him. You’re lucky to be enjoying someone’s fantasy. Having said that, Bioware gave players choice, they gave gamers the will to craft their very own story. Your choices have an impact on the ending of the game whether you know it or not, your universe will not be the same as others. EARLY ON SPOILERS- did you cure the genophage or did you let it continue. This will determine whether or not the Krogan will be a force in the universe again. Depending on who’s leading the Krogan will also depend on what their future is- SPOILERS END. Depending on your choices will determine how many war assets you gain over the course of the game, how many war assets you have will determine one of eight endings. There are sixteen endings in total, eight for saving the collector’s ship and eight for destroying the collector’s ship.

What strikes me about what people are saying is they seem to want a clean, neat ending wrapped in a bow. Consider Mass Effect was real and all of this really happened, would it have ended in a neat little bow? I don’t think so and I give Bioware much respect for doing that, bravo to Bioware for having the balls to end their epic space journey the proper way. Let’s compare to my favorite series of all time for a second.

Uncharted 3, for me is the best in the series and I loved the ending but even with the love I have for the series I’ve always felt each game has wrapped up all to neatly for what just transpired. Consider running around an island filled with pirate with only two friends with you, would you honestly think all three of you are going to walk away without so much as a scratch? Uncharted 2 was even worse, for the epic set pieces and solely the main villain. Zoran Lararevic is a military man, trained to fight wars just as the men he commands. Drake vs. Zoran, who would win? Zoran hands down and yet everyone on Drake’s side walk away unscathed… well all but two and honestly they were simply thrown in there just to die off. Consider getting shot in the side and surviving a train crash than dragging yourself three feet of snow in nothing but a shirt and pants only to fight off waves of military trains soldiers…. Think about that for a second and yet I’ve never heard one person complain about that…

SPOILERS: Mass Effect 3’s ending from my point of view. I knew going into this war with over six thousand in military force and 100% galactic readiness, which by the way the galactic readiness does not impact the ending, it impacts how well your military force fights the reapers. I knew I would lose people, I knew it was not going to be a perfect win with zero losses. One thing I hated from the very beginning of the game was the whole “hey, we just found this ultimate weapon that will kill all reapers in one hit.” In no war, story is that ever really good. Once on the citadel at the very end you discover the reapers are basically gods second son, organics are gods first son and represent chaos well the reapers are gods synthetic second son which represent order. It makes perfect sense, as its weaved through the story all synthetic life will oppose its creators. Geth and Quarian, EDI and Cerberus… etc. Javik even says at one point that “organics created synthetics to be perfect, they will always know organics are not perfect.”

The finale boils down to a choice, destroy all synthetics, unit both synthetics and organics or take control of the reapers. Either way you’re aware this is your end, Shepard is beaten, he is broken, he’s come to find out they’ve been wrong about the reapers the whole time. no matter your choice all mass relays are destroyed and Shepard is killed. The power of your choice flows through the mass relay destroying them to put an end to the reapers, I loved this because it sets the whole universe back a bit, no longer to that have that fast travel as it were. Everyone can still space travel, it’s just a lot harder, it’s a whole new start to the universe. Shepard’s death is perfect, there is no way to do what he did and live through it, the reapers are unstoppable and yet he brings four or five down throughout his journey. No your asking him to bring them all down in one hit, an unstoppable force in one hit. Anyone who crafts a story where someone does something like this and walks away is a fairy tale ending and not nearly as interesting or realistic.

The crew makes a narrow escape to crash land on some strange planet, watching joker and EDI step off the ship both highlighted in green (I choose the unit both synthetics and organics ending) is amazing. Here is the future, joker-a organic- and EDI-a synthetic- together in a universe which both synthetics and organics are one! The credits roll and all I could think was how my crew filled with the universes best are going to go about their as the next leaders of the universe. At this point anyone can think what they want for what happens to your crew but I like to think Garrus becomes a huge figure head for the Turians. Tali finally builds a home on Rannoch as she leads her people in peace living besides the Geth. Liara became a figure head for the Asari well honoring Shepard and never letting him out of her heart. Joker and EDI settle down for a nice quite life somewhere no one will bother them. Javik becomes a member of the citadel council and seeks to bring the Protheans back to the universe. James goes on to be a great N7 soldier well Ash continues her work as a Spectre. And slowly the universe rebuilds all that was lost in the war till finally you have that fairy tale ending.

Except the mass relays are gone, so Tali and the Quarians will never see their home again, and everyone on the LOST planet at the end will probably run out of resources and starve, or at least run out of medical supplies for Joker, or Either Garrus and Tali die because they cant eat the food (and vice versa) and everyone else manages to live a Robinson Crusoe life.

@Junkerman: mass relays doesn't mean "no space travel" its a fast travel between galaxies and not all galaxies have mass relays which you visit through out the games.... soooo yea their fine.

@Junkerman said:

Except the mass relays are gone, so Tali and the Quarians will never see their home again, and everyone on the LOST planet at the end will probably run out of resources and starve, or at least run out of medical supplies for Joker, or Either Garrus and Tali die because they cant eat the food (and vice versa) and everyone else manages to live a Robinson Crusoe life.

This, and so many other things that have been said over an over and over again in an endless loop of hate threads.

To the TC, Dardream.

There are many ways to offer powerful endings. I would recommend you read NOT WATCH, The Lord of the Rings trilogy. There you have a journey of a group of people, there is war, the whole Middle Earth is about to be wiped clean, races are being destroyed and yet the ending, though simple and "Happy" in a way, has so many philosophical interpretations that the book itself and the ending are above many others.

The problem here is not that there was first A, then came the ending and no more A means sadness. The problem is that what we were given is in no way an ending, not a happy one, neither a sad one. Its not even one of those PUM BLACK SCREEN endings. Things just end, but with no consideration to what you did. I can't believe that someone who invested most likely over 100 hours to complete the trilogy would say that this ending is satisfying. Not by a long shot.

PS: Shepard is alive if you have over 5k War Assets after the roundup with Galaxy at War. Just so you know ;)

@daydreamdrooler: I believe it would take centuries to get from one end of the Galaxy to the other at FTL speeds. Without the Relay Comm Bouy network too, this means that communication will be limited to FTL speeds if it is even still possible. So the galactic community as we know it will cease to exist. All of those planets and colonies on their own will likely ever know what happened, some may survive if they can sustain themselves, but most probably wont and will decay without leadership.

But this brings up an even greater problem, we shouldnt be able to argue this. We can argue this because there is no conclusion, no one really knows what the hell happened which is why there is such a huge backlash. All we are left with is to draw our own conclusion based on the facts we've been given for this universe. Thus what I've described above.

@DragoonKain1687: ummm, how does it not end??? reapers are gone which is the point of the whole series and as for LOTR, don't just assume everyone has watched the movies and not read the books. that trilogy is not the end of the series sooo, your wrong right there for one, two they each leave that war with tons of baggage and even at that, who says I was happy with that ending as well?

the ending of mass effect is satisfying, your choices shaped the universe you just saved. you ended the reapers which is the whole point of the series so yes that is an ending. it leaves the rest (what happens to your crew) up to you which is how it should be, its all about choice and here you get to choose what happens to your characters.

@DragoonKain1687: that's only for one ending and its confirmed he is alive, just so you know

I am fine with depressing endings, ambiguous endings, even endings that don't give closure in favour of stopping at the right emotional moment. The problem with the ending is not that it was sad, because Mass Effect 3 ending 100% happy would have been dumb as shit, too. The problem with the ending was that it made no sense, and was simply bad. The StarChild was dumb, and the fact that the choices all destroyed the mass relay for the drama was dumb too. The poignant sacrifice was not earned, the catalyst was a deus ex machina. He may have been set up from the start, but he turns up, doesn't explain anything, and says THESE ARE YOUR ONLY THREE CHOICES. He tells you the Mass Relays have to blow up, but never says why. There is no internal reason for this, it is simply 'because it adds drama.' That's lazy writing. The drama should come from the characters, not arbitrary coincidences.

And finally, everything with that planet was the literal worst. Why was Joker running? Where the hell did they land? If a series is going to end ambiguously, it shouldn't en with the question 'what the fuck was that?' The Thing has an ambiguous ending, which fits with the tone of the film perfectly, and it ends asking the same question as you do in the beginning: Can we trust what we see? Thematic consistency. Inception has another, is he dreaming? It's the same question we ask at the beginning (thematic consistency again) but it also doesn't matter, because it doesn't matter to the character anymore, and we have a story with an ending that is conclusive but not explaing everything. Mass Effect 3's ending attempts to hit every poignant ending idea in a way that is not natural, does not fit with the tone, and makes no sense. It feels like someone looked at other great endings, and put things in there willy nilly without relating it to the trilogy as a whole, tonally, thematically, or through characters established early on.

I'm just gonna direct you to this little article here because obviously you haven't actually listened to why people hate the ending.

@Tylea002: I disagree, the ending is about choice, the game lets you fill in the blanks which is what the series is all about. the story is the reapers and the story brings closure to it, the game is about choice which it doesn't let your choose what happens to your crew but that would be dumb, you simply get to make it up yourself, as you saw I made up my ending, what happens to my crew, yours may be different which is the point of the series. as for the relays, you can't send that destructive energy through the relays without destroying them, that's just common sense, your talking about sending energy that's going to destroy a race of unstoppable beings... how on earth are those relays gonna hold up against that?

this also didn't go through because giantbomb doesn't let me post more than 2 comments on my own blog in a row so here it is anyway...

@Junkerman: yes it would take decades for them to get back home but that's why they have supplies. not only that but they do in fact still have hope, the end of the mass relays doesn't mean the end of the universe, that's my point. not that it will be extremely hard which it will which is your point, we're both on the same page but at the end of the day its not the end and there is hope, right?

as for the backlash, I disagree because the game is all about choice and its your choice to image how things go afterward which is what I did here. so the ME series ends with closure on the reapers and again lets you choose what happens to everyone afterward. is that not a great ending to satisfy everyone? it is your version of the story, why can't it be your version of what happens to your friends?

Ending is terrible and series ruining at worst, mediocre at best.  If there wasn't any fervent backlash there wouldn't be any fervent support either.  Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

@Liquidus: I really shouldn't even both with this comment but whatever, clearly not everyone shares an opinion with some dude who is voice an opinion in fact form... yea that's just his opinion, as this is mine, I'm not arguing why people don't like the ending. I'm voicing my opinion on why I like the ending.... yea

@daydreamdrooler said:

@Liquidus: I really shouldn't even both with this comment but whatever, clearly not everyone shares an opinion with some dude who is voice an opinion in fact form... yea that's just his opinion, as this is mine, I'm not arguing why people don't like the ending. I'm voicing my opinion on why I like the ending.... yea

I'm sorry but your opening post just seem pretty ignorant. Especially the part about the created always rising up against its creators...yeah, the weird Space Child said that and it's total bullshit. What about the Geth? The Geth didn't rise up against the Quarians, they become more intelligent and began questioning their existence, they confronted the Quarians about this to which the Quarians responded back by trying to blow the shit out of them. The Geth fought back in self defense....so the creators will try destroy their creations? Riiiiiight. And EDI especially doesn't belong at all in this comparison at all. She become so much more human in this game(she's literally given a humanoid body), she even rewrites her code to allow self sacrfice. Yeah, she "rebelled" against Cerberus in a way but she didn't try to exterminate them the way that dumb Space Child would have you believe.

You like the ending, fantastic, welcome to the very small minority(of which I am not part of nor am I making fun of you, just keep that in mind). And I really do suggest reading that article if you want to understand where most people like me are coming from when we say "Mass Effect 3 had a terrible ending".

@daydreamdrooler said:

@Tylea002: I disagree, the ending is about choice, the game lets you fill in the blanks which is what the series is all about. the story is the reapers and the story brings closure to it, the game is about choice which it doesn't let your choose what happens to your crew but that would be dumb, you simply get to make it up yourself, as you saw I made up my ending, what happens to my crew, yours may be different which is the point of the series.

I like how you're trying to defend the ending but your answer is to "make it up for yourself".

You're right, I have to make it up for myself, because their ending was nonsensical, stupid, and goes against everything all of the characters stand for, and what the series has stood for. Also, despite my best efforts, I have failed to come up with a reason for joker fleeing in terror in the middle of the most important battle of the galaxy. I have completely and utterly failed.

As the guy above me said, Ambiguous endings can be fine, leaving unanswered questions can be fine, but having that question be "what the fuck?" is not fine.

@daydreamdrooler: Yes, all your points are correct, but that doesn't make the ending good. The ending had a choice, and the choice allowed you to infer a lot of consequences, something I expected anyway, I didn;t need to be shown exact epilogues of everything. Where it fell down was the fact that the logic used was a deus ex machina, and didn't fit tonally. Why was there no fourth choice? The fourth choice of 'Screw You, we fight until the last man.' That alone would have fixed a lot of my problems, as it is an obvious choice that makes sense and would have been easy to implement.

We also do not know how our crewmates got up and Joker was running. I'll agree that doesn't really matter, because what does matter is they did get out, and they're fucking crewmates, so they could easily evac. The question is: why? It does not mesh with Joker's personality one bit, he wanted to go down with the ship in the second game. That is not ambiguity, that is forcing a choice that does not mesh with a character's established personality - a plothole and an inconsistency that is not explained. As a final ending, that is simply bad writing. It'd be akin to ending the

And my point about the Mass Relays is that the introduction that they will be destroyed is a deus ex machina, in a negative sense. A character is introduced in the final scene, who has not been hinted at existing before, and explains that this is how it has to be, and this is exactly what will happen. Bringing in something like that with no forshadowing for a conclusion, is just that. Good stories end because of characters, and the drama and sacrifice comes from the conflicts between them. It would not take much to rectify this, if the person giving the speech was Harbinger, not the child, it would be improved. If there was a line about how Sovereign went for the citadel because it is a relay itself, and the hub of all reaper technology - explaining why the catalyst was there, and why blowing it up would blow up the other mass relays, this would not be a problem. But that is not stated, or even implied. It is an explanation I have gathered from other evidence, to attempt to best explain an ending that does not stand alone. The fact that a theory about hallucinations is a popular one, that has less plotholes than when taken at face value, states everything about opinion to the ending, because that theory explains everything. Why the crew was running to a haven (Shepard, and the player's last thoughts are of the crew, wanting them to be safe). Why the boy is the Catalyst (a figure seeded throughout those dumb ass dreams, thus explaining the point of their existence).

Not saying you're wrong, because all of my points are about plot devices, which are neither good or bad, and I (and a majority of others) percieve the use of them here to be bad. You win, because you enjoyed the ending, and I felt like a series that I had loved for so long got completely shat on in front of my eyes, so you definitely come out on top there. But still, I love a good debate, and in the end, it is subjective, but the debate itself is fun to engage in.

BioWare could have done whatever they have pleased with the ending. As long as they explained what happens in the universe and how my decisions have impacted said universe because, you know, that's what the game is about.

Instead they give me this 30 second cutscene which I don't even know how to interpret. They could have pulled off what they were going for, if they were more delicate about it.