God, so much dumb in the comments. Patrick is not saying fans want a happy ending or that fans should not be entitled. Read it.

This is what happens when game journalists read each others articles instead of what the fan reaction actually is. It ISNT about a fairly tale ending, and saving everyone. It's about the fact that a game so focused on choice, gives you almost the entirely same result, regardless of 'choice'. That, accompanied by a mess of an ending that is riddled with plot holes and nonsense, is why people hate the ending. That's why. Please, for once, fucking understand that.

A fun read but I was reallying hoping Giantbomb would at least be a little more attentive to the gaming community. The community wasn't looking for a happy ending, at least, not the majority of it. The charity drive made the whole movement look terrible by asking for a happier ending. Spending time around reddit as well as the bioware forums and our own it's readily apparent that we just wanted an ending that fit the lore and made any kind of sense. It wasn't really about a happy ending from the start, and the media warping every conversation into this discussion about happy endings is making the community look far more closed minded and terrible than the diverse spectrum of opinions that are out actually out there.

@purplethoughnotquite said:

This is article is disappointing; I like Klepek and this article would be fine if the criticisms weren't warranted. I thought the ending was awful and here I am being told I'm self entitled because ??? Yeah, this is great. Thanks, games journalism.

Read the damn article, that is not the purpose that Patrick makes.

@mutha3: Read the article, Patrick goes back to that point.

You eventually adress the lack of catharsis/closure, but I'm not seeing you acknowledging that a lot of people just think  the ending is stupid and poorly written.

I'd like to make myself very clear here it's not about not having a happy ening.  
 
Fuck the ending I was expecting and hoping for was to fight to the last man against unbeatable odds and lose. 

@Dany said:

God, so much dumb in the comments. Patrick is not saying fans want a happy ending or that fans should not be entitled. Read it.

As mentioned a lot earier in the thread, the tone of the article still makes that "happy ending" point seem like the main reason for a lot of people. Simply mentioning some people want more closure isn't really enough to change that feeling given how the article presents its points.

@Dany said:

God, so much dumb in the comments. Patrick is not saying fans want a happy ending or that fans should not be entitled. Read it.

GB :Not really. I was disappointed. They were going for something a little more audacious and bittersweet, and I do think a lot of the reaction has stemmed from that.

Sure he also does say that fans aren't entitled, he also kind of says that Bioware mishandled the ending by not having more choice.

He does heavily imply that the unhappy ending is a key factor though.

I had no problem with the ME3 ending. I felt that it was in line with the whole game series that your always in a bad situation. Than only by some miracle or cleverness will you get out of a situation intact. The forces you face through out the game just keep ramping up until your at a point were you can't see any way of coming out if alive.

The Reapers have been written up as such a huge force that for hundreds of thousends of years not a single being has ever defeated them. Their force is so overpowering that you soon realize that you have to make a huge sacrifice to beat them. If it were any easier then the Reapers would have died a long time ago.

If you could have just pushed a Reaper self-destruct button at the end and everyone comes out alive and well would belittle a lot of the games story.

I don't feel like them sacrificing the story they've been telling for player satisfaction is a better option.

I've been really frustrated over this ME3 ending stuff and especially how GB has covered it, because my complaint about the ending basically gets entirely glossed over.

I don't really care that the ending is bleak.

I don't really care that Shepard dies in most of the endings.

What I care about is the fact that everything after Shepard climbing on the elevator doesn't fit with the games that preceded it. What I care about is that the ending takes one of the key themes of the entire Mass Effect series and subverts it without any real reason for subverting it. What I care about is a Shepard who spent the entirety of 3 games acknowledging that having a diversity of life is important and who tried to bring together all the major species in the galaxy by cooperation and not subjugation who somehow flips a switch in the final moments of the game and is willing to go along with the whole "there can be only one" spiel of Space Kid.

What I care most about, though, is that ME3's ending basically forces you to submit to the Reapers. The final choice isn't about how to rid the galaxy of the Reapers, but about how to force the Reapers' solution upon the entire rest of the galaxy, to force some method by which there will be no diversity of life, with the end of the Reaper invasion being essentially incidental to that solution. Either you destroy the sentience of synthetic life, thereby rendering it as something less than what can be properly called "life", or you just flat destroy all synthetic life outright, or you blend all synthetic and organic life together (and don't think about the implications of that for more than 2 minutes or you'll realize how dumb this option really is).

I don't need a happy ending, or an ending where Shepard lives. I need an ending that meshes narratively and thematically with the story that came before, and on that level, the ending of Mass Effect 3 is a complete and utter failure. If Bioware was insistent on this specific ending being the end of the Mass Effect trilogy, then they needed to produce wildly different versions of Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 in order to seed the themes and plots that they would need to execute this ending instead of spending those games seeding a bunch of themes and plots that explicitly counteract their intended ending.

@PJ said:

If you could have just pushed a Reaper self-destruct button at the end and everyone comes out alive and well would belittle a lot of the games story.

This isn't the sort of ending a lot of people are clamoring for at all. Again, its not about people surviving or getting a happier ending. Most of the comments in the thread are aligned with that.

@Lautaro said:

@Dany said:

God, so much dumb in the comments. Patrick is not saying fans want a happy ending or that fans should not be entitled. Read it.

GB :Not really. I was disappointed. They were going for something a little more audacious and bittersweet, and I do think a lot of the reaction has stemmed from that.

Sure he also does say that fans aren't entitled, he also kind of says that Bioware mishandled the ending by not having more choice.

He does heavily imply that the unhappy ending is a key factor though.

Most of Patricks complaint is the lack of choice, the lack agency the player has and how the closure provided was inadequate. I believe that specific comment is more related to the audaciousness of the ending.

Not everything is about Lost, Patrick. It wasn't even that great of a show.

Best part of these comments so far? The percentage that stopped reading because they apparently thought the entire article was about the "we want a happy ending" portion of the disappointed players. I don't understand the rage when discussion turns to examination of the players - if you're looking for more "the ending was stupid and bad and also dumb" pile-on, there's plenty out there.

This article doesn't simply say "gamers are self-entitled," it tries to explore *why*, in this medium as well as others, we feel invested in long-form stories, and have such high hopes for their endings.

I think this discussion gives the ending too much credit as an artistic endeavor.

Artistry doesn't require a visionary, or an auteur. It's way too intangible to pin to any person, and all the art theory in the world can still lead you astray.

At this point, two things are clear: There never was a continuous story thread planned for Shepard's trilogy, and Casey Hudson took crafting the ending entirely upon himself. The point I want to make with these 2 things is that Mass Effect was never about some singular vision, and for BioWare and Hudson to hang their hats on that for the last 15 minutes of a 3 game trilogy is silly.

Developers like Valve and Irrational continually display that iteration, collaboration and play testing are infinitely more important than any one man's "vision," or any limp claims of "artistic integrity."

Portal 2's ending was astounding. It plucked every string in my heart. It surprised me. It delighted me, and it didn't require an expository Epilogue DLC to do it. It wasn't the brainchild of one person. It wasn't even the original plan for the game's ending; the basic idea was just a joke among the devs that actually resulted in Chel's death.

Collaboration, iteration, and play testing gave us that ending to Portal 2.

It's that much more egregious that a game sold entirely on "player choice" would have one ending decided by one man.

PS: A Mass Relay exploding would be comparable to a supernova. Good luck surviving that, Earth.

It's like Jensen said about Schrodinger's cat, if they gave us all those epilogues, they would be painting themselves into a corner. With the ending a vague as it was, they're free to come up with things for the next Mass Effect game. If they came up with epilogues, they'd have to retcon half of them to begin anew.

And to those that thought those choices in the end didn't mean anything. The couple of minutes I paused and reflected on all the choiced I made. Losing EDI and the newly reformed Geth to destroy the reapers, my goal over an ENTIRE 3 games, controlling the reapers for who knows how long, maybe until I come to realize that the starchild was correct and resume the pattern in a few thousand years... or synthesize everyone, a choice that no one else knew about or could express their opinion about.

I had to seriously reflect on this, and in the end I set out to accomplish my main goal. I didn't completely trust the control option, it would probably be fine for the lifespans of my friends and crew, but I could degrade and resume the cycle, probably end up being the new starchild or something. I felt bad considering the synthesize option. How could I change everybody without hearing out how they feel about the whole thing, that was too god-like for my tastes. Though it pained me to do so, I destroyed the synthetics. I'll miss EDI and it's a bummer about the geth, but to me it was the lesser of all 3 "evils" if you would.

So yeah, at least for me all of the decisions I made throughout the series as a whole affected my choices at the end.

Outside of that, they had a few disjointed scenes, but nothing that really bothered me. I'm kind hoping that all Bioware adds to the scene is Joker noticing something off about the Citadel, flying down and grabbing your guys and saying "Shit, we gotta book it out of here, this ain't right!" Then as he's flying off you see your non-squad friends fighting on the ground looking up at the Normandy as it flies off into space before turning back to the husks and tearing into them some more. That way, the only hole I had an issue with would be filled and the ending can play out the same way it currently has.

To throw just about everything (my) Shepard works for out the window in the final 1% of the story is lame.

I worked hard to unite every damn race in the game possible, hell even the Rachni were with me at the end. I felt that it was important. Throughout my play through the game repeatedly reminded me it was important. Shepard's death I am totally fine with, if all the means provided towards the end felt sufficiently worth it.

But the payoff at the end of the day is that all that effort and searching didn't really mean shit.

Probably that bugs me the most about it all. Sure there are other reasons, but that is the worst offender to me.

To sum up this post I will simplify it to... "Hey Bioware DM, I roll to disbelieve."

Another well-written Mass Effect 3 article and more people who barely read it here to complain about it. Yay!

I have nothing against the article, but man the industry really needs a moritorium on this topic as a whole. This topic has been discussed to death and then discussed some more.

@WorldDude said:

Another well-written Mass Effect 3 article and more people who barely read it here to complain about it. Yay!

Fucking A, this shit is annoying.

@PJ said:

The Reapers have been written up as such a huge force that for hundreds of thousends of years not a single being has ever defeated them. Their force is so overpowering that you soon realize that you have to make a huge sacrifice to beat them. If it were any easier then the Reapers would have died a long time ago.

The Reapers have only ever achieved anything during the Reaper cycle because they surprised every species till Shepard's cycle. The Keepers signal the Reapers and then the Reapers wipe everyone out in the citadel. They now have control of every mass relay in the galaxy and can turn them off and on at any time. They now have population and census data on the entire galaxy. They can now systematically wipe out organic races system by system without them having to face any kind of real counter attack.

Shepard's cycle is different. The Reapers could not immediately control the citadel and thus gave the races a chance to prepare. We are shown that they are quite fallible, not indestructible or unbeatable, with Sovereign being destroyed by only a portion of the alliance fleet, a destroyer being defeated by a thresher maw and an orbital strike. Uniting the races would have been a clear possibility for victory as this has never happened and it should have been option to tackle the reaper threat. Of course instead we have space magic.

Another well-written Mass Effect 3 article and more people who barely read it here to complain about it. Yay!

@Dany said:

@Lautaro said:

@Dany said:

God, so much dumb in the comments. Patrick is not saying fans want a happy ending or that fans should not be entitled. Read it.

GB :Not really. I was disappointed. They were going for something a little more audacious and bittersweet, and I do think a lot of the reaction has stemmed from that.

Sure he also does say that fans aren't entitled, he also kind of says that Bioware mishandled the ending by not having more choice.

He does heavily imply that the unhappy ending is a key factor though.

Most of Patricks complaint is the lack of choice, the lack agency the player has and how the closure provided was inadequate.

I am not trying to be contrarian or anything, I see that Patrick also does acknowledge your points. The complaints about lack of player agency and closure are closer to the problems people actually had. I don't know where this unhappy ending stuff comes from though.

Saying things like "People have some real trouble processing that. Some wanted this “you saved the princess” ending that games have always have." helps nothing. I don't see people making that argument.

To each their own though.

@Dany said:

@Lautaro said:

@Dany said:

God, so much dumb in the comments. Patrick is not saying fans want a happy ending or that fans should not be entitled. Read it.

GB :Not really. I was disappointed. They were going for something a little more audacious and bittersweet, and I do think a lot of the reaction has stemmed from that.

Sure he also does say that fans aren't entitled, he also kind of says that Bioware mishandled the ending by not having more choice.

He does heavily imply that the unhappy ending is a key factor though.

Most of Patricks complaint is the lack of choice, the lack agency the player has and how the closure provided was inadequate. I believe that specific comment is more related to the audaciousness of the ending.

So are we ignoring the "bittersweet" qualifier of the statement just because it better matches your interpretation of the article? It's not hard to see why people are coming to the conclusions they are.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/15/upset-mass-effect-fans-entitled-gamers-or-responsible-consumers/

"If you ran a restaurant and the food you served wasn’t any good, would you prefer to have your customers leave and never come back or would you prefer to hear their complaints and give you a second chance? Would you mockingly refer to them as “entitled” restaurant-goers? For that matter, are people who eat at your restaurant entitled to a good meal?"

I'm so sick of linking to Forbes articles but they are genuinely the only site that "gets" what people are upset about. Video games "journalist' won't understand because their relationship with developers causes a conflict of interest.

@Duecenage: Dude, get out of my mind! That is exactly how I felt about the ending, right down to the deliberations and the final choice I made. To me, rather than having all of my choices suddenly come and impact the game right at the end, it felt like my decisions were met and concluded over the whole game. The journey was for all those decisions to come to fruition along the way. That's why I hope this new DLC stuff is more clarification rather than any significant change - I just want the Normandy stuff explained more than anything, everything else I was personally fine with.

I find funny (sad) how Bioware specifically said they wouldn't pull a Lost for the end of ME3 ( i think it was the lead writer or Casey). And now that's the first thing people compare it to when they try to defend it.

@Lautaro: He says some, and some probably do but through the rest of the article, I don't see where he picks up on that point because that 'save the princess' ending is what a few fans wanted. But yes, I agree that 'portion of the fanbase' is really small.

@XNaphryz: I thought the ending was bittersweet when I played it, I think the issues people have with the endings are the childchild, RBG cut scenes and the epilogue.

@mutha3 said:

@Dany said:

@mutha3: Read the article, Patrick goes back to that point.

I have read the article. Have you read my second post? I'll reiterate:

You eventually adress the lack of catharsis/closure, but I'm not seeing you acknowledging that a lot of people just think the ending is stupid and poorly written.

He points out the reasons, why he at least, thinks the ending is bad.

How am I entitled for wanting an ending that makes some sense? I like the concept behind the ending but the execution felt lazy, rushed and stupid. You "professional" game critics really think that people will look back in ten years and somehow not care about the inconsistancies and plot holes in that huge all encompessing mess that is ME3's ending? Get real. If anything gamers should be more entitled and people should have returned the game if they were dissapointed enough.

When a major band releases a major album that sucks people are not entitled if they shit all over it and tell people to stay away. They are only responsible consumers.

This is not even touching on the lying advertising that bioware shat out promising things that were not there. How is it defensible that things would be the exact opposite of what they said in press releases before launch. Patrick I feel like you've competely missed the point here.

I don't dislike sad endings. MGS4's ending was no where near happy, but it was complete, it had closure, it had emotion, it had a payoff. The MGS series had just as much crazy shit to tie up as ME (maybe more), and it did it in a near perfect way. So don't tell me there's no precedent for a series with rabid fans and lots of crazy shit going on having a good ending.

I'm disappointed. Not in the article, but in a lot of these comments.

I was on your side when it came to a lot of the dismissive elitism coming from a shocking amount of gaming journalists over this ending discussion, but the staff at GB are not part of that. Patrick even waited to play the game through and assess the situation before making this article, and users STILL flamed him despite having a quite reasonable take. He even SAYS outright near the start that he AGREES about the specific narrative missteps that went on, but that this article was about the bigger picture (done with much less condescending arguments than other sites).

I swear, this is why the level-headed users don't bother to lump themselves in with the mules and prefer to stay silent.

An interesting read even if I don't agree with everything said. A couple thoughts: I don't think people are really upset that the endings are color coded as much as they're upset at how similar all the endings are. Aside from whether the reapers blow up and leave and whether Joker has crazy cyber veins all 3 endings are shot-for-shot the same. I think that really amps up the idea that in the end none of your choices really matter. Even the final choice barely affects the games finale. The ideas that in five years or so people will look back and respect what they tried to do with the ending is, at least for me personally, just false. I guess I really can't know that but I strongly suspect it. The ending of The Sopranos (which I never followed, I might feel differently if I had) did something interesting and maybe in a way daring so I think people can at least appreciate it for that. The end of Mass Effect 3 is simply poorly done in my opinion. I could go on and on about things I didn't like, but I think everything not to like about the ending is already out there so I'll just leave it at that. And everyone in the comments has already gone on about the notion that people are mad because they didn't get to "save the princess." There was more to this article than that and Patrick seems to understand that that's not really the problem most people have. Heck, I'm sure that to some people or to some extent for others that is part of the problem. More than anything I think people are just tired of hearing that, especially when it's made out to be the big reason why those "entitled" gamers don't like the ending. *EDIT* I guess my formatting doesn't stick when posting from an iPad. Giant wall of text looks like shit.

and the epilogue.

Great article Patrick. Very thoughtful and full of wonderful insight.

I appreciate this kind of coverage on Giant Bomb.

Cheers.

it's not just entertainment that is a service industry it's most commercial art. To create for some one is a service.

Something else has been bothering me about the ending, and I haven't noticed it in any of the other discussions.

Let's presume that the ending is taken at face value. No Indoctrination Theory at the moment. Why does the Catalyst give Shepard the 3 choices to rid the universe of the Reapers?

The Reapers are winning by leaps and bounds. All the races of the galaxy have pinned their hopes on a long shot (The Crucible.) Commander Shepard makes it to the beacon and is transported to the Citadel, and eventually makes it to The Catalyst. The Catalyst believes in a very specific dogma (Organics will always create synthetics, Synthetics will always destroy their creators,) and he repeats this dogma to Shepard. Shepard poses no physical threat to the Reapers nor to the Catalyst in his/her condition at that moment. So, why does the Catalyst decide to interrupt the cycle, decide to let Shepard end the Reapers once and for all, and let Shepard decide how to do so?

The Catalyst did not change its mind about its beliefs, it did not express any desire to quit the cycles with the Reapers, and it was not under threat from Shepard nor from anyone else. The only change that happened was that a human made it to the platform with the Catalyst for the very first time, which doesn't change any of what I previously stated.

So, I must ask once again: why does the Catalyst give Shepard the 3 choices to rid the universe of the Reapers?

If I worked at a company where my managers sent me out on a 4.5 year journey to ensure maximum cooperation between mine and other firms in order to displace another larger one, I would be incredibly displeased when in the end my managers basically told me to fuck off and most of all of my work didn't reflect what actually happened.

@patrickklepek My real problem wasn't a sense of entitlement - I mean, there is some since the makers of the game do hand the reigns over to you and say there's no canonical story. My real problem was that the ending was nonsensical, lacked common sense, and flew in the face of the tone and build up of the story to that point. For that ending to be one potential ending would be okay...maybe. It felt like the game makers, whether they meant it or not, were basically saying "screw you" to their entire audience. The ending feels like one big deus ex machina or something, some lame excuse to force an ending that doesn't resonate with the idea of player agency and the impact of personal choice. The trouble is there shouldn't be an ending. There should be your ending. Whether that's happy or not is not the point. Whether it feels earned and jives with the whole narrative arc is more important.

Have you seen this video? I don't agree with everything he says, especially the part about there being a "bad" ending (again, I should be the one to decide if my ending is good or bad). But he makes salient points about why the ending just made no sense for the character of Shepard and the world he was a part of.

@RedRavN said:

How am I entitled for wanting an ending that makes some sense? I like the concept behind the ending but the execution felt lazy, rushed and stupid. You "professional" game critics really think that people will look back in ten years and somehow not care about the inconsistancies and plot holes in that huge all encompessing mess that is ME3's ending?

I dunno. 10 years later, we all realize just how awesome The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions were, right?

I thought that was the point BioWare and Mr. Jensen were trying to make: in 10 years, we'll all see The Architect explaining to Ne... er... Shepard how human existence is all part of some cycle of machine-driven genocide and we'll think, "Genius!"

Jensen: You felt burned? Were you burned, personally? 

GB: Not really. I was disappointed. They were going for something a little more audacious and bittersweet, and I do think a lot of the reaction has stemmed from that. A lot of people play these games to be the good guy that accomplishes everything, and video game endings, as a whole, the trope is that you’re the hero that’s unbeatable and everything turns out alright in the end. They went for something a little more mixed: things are out of your control. Bad things are going to happen no matter what you do, what choice you make. People have some real trouble processing that. Some wanted this “you saved the princess” ending that games have always have.

So, the long and the short of it is;

The gaming public are too stupid to understand the 'artistic vision' of egotistical writers who are trying to make a movie and not a video game.

So, it's good to know that you guys hold the same amount of contempt for the players of the game just like the rest of the gaming media, tossing the word 'entitled' as though that's the only word they know.

I was wondering if I should actually read this article because I know I'd probably just get pissed off at Patrick's lunacy and so I went ahead and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Sure enough, I was irritated by the first 3 paragraphs of the conversation. Seriously, people need to read this article if they seriously think the Mass Effect 3 ENDING(because there is ultimately one ending) is anything more than a failure.

I find it somewhat ironic that Patrick praised the ending to Lost because of its focus on the characters, when the ending of Mass Effect 3 eschews basically all of the character development you had done over the past five years in favor of a wedged in artistic statement. ME2 got it right-- while the ending was the culmination of that game's story, the device used to conclude that story was firmly centered on your crew. It balanced plot with character in a way that resonated with most of their fanbase. And by its very nature it could be either triumphant or tragic. You can clear the mission with your entire team intact, returning to the Normandy like McArthur to the Philipines, or you can suffer losses, and finish your mission at the expense of the characters you've grown close to for the preceeding 40 hours. And all of that is based on your choices. It works.

There's nothing like that in ME3. All of the character development, all of your emotional attachment to the cast is suddenly superceded by this whole new conflict that you have to make a snap judgment on. It betrays not only a lack of concern for player agency, but a failure on the part of the writer to understand what his game is even about.

When the foundation of the article is a misunderstanding of, or a sweeping generalization of the user-base you're going to get a negative reaction. The ideas about player investment and handing the keys over and then snatching them back to form a coherent narrative are all totally worth discussing, we just need to be a little more careful about how we launch into such a discussion, that's all. People on the boards here love Patrick, and that isn't going to change over a single article, but it's sort of like getting into a discussion about spirituality in video games by opening it up with "We all know the vast majority of gamers are heavily religious" and then spinning the rest of the article out of this premise. There's not much foundation there in reality and it's going to warp my perception of the article in knowing that the author is looking at the industry through a fish-eyed lens and isn't seeing things for what they are.

I think everyone's missing the point of why they're not happy with the games conclusion. It's not just the ending that's amiss, it's the whole second half of the game! Once you leave the Citadel for the second time, the story just starts to wrap itself up regardless at what pace you want to take it. There's no Illium, no Omega or Noveria to explore and chit-chat with NPC's... it's an action game with RPG elements. The fact that Mass Effect 2 was such an unprecedented leap from the first in only two short years gave everyone (developer and fans) the unrealistic expectation that they could pull off another masterpiece in such a short time. I remember the collective sign of relief when BioWare announced they were delaying the release till March as I think we all just knew, they weren't going to be able to wrap up such a huge story in just 18 months. Had they not wasted valuable time an resources in the online component maybe they would have had a shot, but this story is just too huge for a two year development cycle. Makes me hope Rock Star or Blizzard pick up the IP as BioWare are just at the mercy of EA and their desperate attempts to catch up to Activation.

You know why the discussion on ME3's ending hasn't died yet?

Not because it isn't an happy ending. Not because none of our previous choices matered at the end.

The only reason we're still talking about this is: the ending IS NOT GOOD.

I'm tired of explaining why and this guy does a better job than me anyway

People who try to defend the ending or discusse the fan outrage just don't get it after weeks of debat.

I'll just speek louder so some of them will hopefully hear it this time:

IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT JUST A LITTLE BIT, THE ENDING OF ME3 FEELS LIKE IT WAS WRITTEN BY A 5 YEAR OLD WHO NEVER PLAYED A MASS EFFECT GAME BEFORE.

In the same goddamn game that brought us some of the most impactful story moments of the video game medium.

@WiqidBritt said:

@Aegeri said:

@mutha3 Not to mention, that ME3 and ME2 actually spend a good chunk of their story SUBVERTING the concept that AI will always destroy their creators - especially for a Paragon Shepard. This makes the final part of the game even more pants on head stupid.

Except for the part where Shepard is asserting that it doesn't have to be that way... why do you assume it's true just because the Reapers believe it's true? You spend the whole game trying to prove the Reapers aren't all knowing unbeatable mechanical gods, so why do you take what the catalyst says as absolute fact? Control the Reapers, make them go away and let the peace you established between the Geth and Quarrians exist (and the romance between Joker and EDI) if that's what you believe will happen.

The ending is based on a snap decision. The Catalyst gives you no other choice. Earth will fall and there is absolutely no way that even with the combined forces your Shepard has assembled, you cannot win. You have no choice, but to take a blind leap that whatever choice you take, this will be the solution for organics to survive; that the Catalyst is telling the truth.

Also, the Catalyst shouldn't have been confined to being represented by that child, but all the other important crew members that died along the way. And about what is happening to the Mass Relays and the Normandy, I don't believe the Mass Relays exploded in gigantic explosions, but self-destructed in ways that they were rendered unsalvageable and useless. The Catalyst when used, dispersed all the fleets around Earth (but that doesn't explain why certain crew members somehow got onto the Normandy).

Anyways, I don't think it's that journalists have not read fans' reaction, but that the reaction has been this jumbled reaction that only in the last week and a half did it start to become clearer. There are things that some fans are saying that are contradicting their own statements such as not wanting a "happier" ending, but at the same time are asking for elements of an ending that asks for it be "happier." It's kind of been a confusing mess, these last few weeks concerning ME3. Developer, press, and fans not really understanding each other as well as they could.

@Lautaro said:

@Dany said:

@Lautaro said:

@Dany said:

God, so much dumb in the comments. Patrick is not saying fans want a happy ending or that fans should not be entitled. Read it.

GB :Not really. I was disappointed. They were going for something a little more audacious and bittersweet, and I do think a lot of the reaction has stemmed from that.

Sure he also does say that fans aren't entitled, he also kind of says that Bioware mishandled the ending by not having more choice.

He does heavily imply that the unhappy ending is a key factor though.

Most of Patricks complaint is the lack of choice, the lack agency the player has and how the closure provided was inadequate.

I am not trying to be contrarian or anything, I see that Patrick also does acknowledge your points. The complaints about lack of player agency and closure are closer to the problems people actually had. I don't know where this unhappy ending stuff comes from though.

Saying things like "People have some real trouble processing that. Some wanted this “you saved the princess” ending that games have always have." helps nothing. I don't see people making that argument.

To each their own though.

I'll make that argument, then! Or, at least something close.

There should've been an ending that resulted in Shepard preventing the entire galaxy from being stranded in the Dark Ages.

Tangentially, it is just our galaxy. What about the rest of the universe? There aren't any synthetics or organics to worry about in the rest of the fucking universe? We just lucked out in inhabiting the only galaxy with myriad intelligent life forms and a race of robots built to kill them?