Feature: Why Mass Effect 3's Ending Didn't Suck

Like any gamer on the Internet, I've stumbled across countless articles, forum posts, and videos that have ruthlessly bashed the ending of Mass Effect 3.  Fans claimed that Bioware was heartless, cruel, and just plain lazy with their lackluster conclusion. 

As a person who hadn't finished the game during the time that these uproars were starting, I was absolutely terrified by this sudden rush of negativity.  Naturally, I isolated myself from all things gaming related on the Internet for quite some time, as to avoid spoilers and such.

Well, now that I've gotten my ending, and the story of Commander Shepard has been wrapped up, I have to say that I feel pretty damn satisfied.  And here's why...

"Put up the flame shields, I'm going in!"

#1: It's Good That It Was Vague
One of the biggest complaints that I've been seeing a lot centers on the fact that Mass Effect 3's ending seems way too brief to be able to conclude an entire saga.  The entire ending, after the last decision is made, lasts about 10 minutes or so.  During that time, we see the fate of the Reapers, as well as what becomes of Earth.  We see what happens to the Mass Relays, and we witness what happens to Joker and the rest of the crew on the Normandy. 

However, after that we see nothing about what happened to the rest of the fleets on Earth.  We're never enlightened about what became of Shepard's squad that joined him in the fight.  Heck, we don't even see what Joker plans to do now that he's permanently grounded on some unfamiliar planet.

Unless his new hobby has something to do with sitting down,
he might just be screwed.

In short, there are only two things we know:
1.  The Reapers are gone
2.  Nobody's going to be traveling around the galaxy any time soon.

Everything else is left up to the interpretation of the player.  Why is this a good thing?  Because, as you watch the cutscene, and even after you sit through the credits, you have absolutely no idea if you made the right choice. 

You were given 3 different options to rid the galaxy of Reapers, each with its own set of consequences.  When you made your decision, you were left to wonder if the sacrifice was worth it in the end.  But you never truly find out.  Why?

Because you're dead.

Although he's a galactic war hero, inspirational peace keeper, and a symbol of an unstoppable force of justice, Commander Shepard, at heart, is still just a soldier.  He or she (aka: the player) is put into some tough situations that need to be dealt with.  Decisions have to be made, and Shepard only has a vague set of morals and a gut instinct to use as a guide. 

Sure, some of the choices come to bite him/her in the butt in later installments, but the final decision in the ending never offers such closure.  Commander Shepard dies doing what he/she (the player) thought was best for the galaxy.  As a result, Shepard is gone before he/she can confirm if the right choice was made.  As the scene plays out, Shepard witnesses flashbacks of some of his crewmates, which acts as a final goodbye to those he will never see again.

What?  There's nothing in my eye, I swear!

These moments are filled with emotion and struggle, and they really work hard to leave an impact on the player.  Not knowing the final result of the Shepard's decision is supposed to leave things open for speculation, and the simple lack of complete closure is what helps to drive the point home about decision making.

Say what you want about the polarity of some of the choices in the Mass Effect series, at least Bioware never had the balls to flat-out tell you that you were right or wrong.  All of Shepard's choices worked toward accomplishing the same common goal; it's just his methods that varied.  The player's choices were met with consequences, and whether they were good or bad was up for the player to decide. 

Was saving the Queen Rachni worth it, if her species was later overrun by the Reapers and they were forced to endure an eternity in an altered, mechanical state?  Was it worth saving her a second time at the cost of Grunt's entire crew?  The answers to these questions are up for the player to decide.

This way of thinking is no different for the choice you make in Mass Effect 3's ending.  You pick an option, and you live with the results.  But, you don't get to see how everything pans out in the end.  The player is forced to interpret if what happened was good or bad, and that has been the point of everything since Mass Effect 1.



 #2: Bittersweet Was the Point
So, the galaxy is pretty much screwed on all fronts during the final moments of Mass Effect 3.  Reapers are tearing apart everything, killing humans and aliens by the millions.  But!  You alone have the power to stop this!  You have 3 different options for ending this madness.  Take your pick:

A.  Destroy everything synthetic that has ever been created, ever.  This includes advances in technology, the Mass Relays, and the newly sentient Geth armada.  The Reapers will be gone at least, and everything can start anew in the galaxy.

B.  Sacrifice yourself to fuse together synthetic and organic life across the galaxy.  Some people may not want that, but they'd have no choice.  The Reapers would no longer pose a threat, and the Mass Relays would be destroyed, thereby isolating all systems from each other and preventing any future space travel.

C.  Obtain the ability to control the Reapers, at the cost of your life.  The Reapers will leave, and your final actions will directly mirror the aspirations of the Illusive Man, who has been despised by people across the galaxy.  Choosing this option practically confirms that you support the experiments that were conducted on Horizon, and believe that they were carried out for the greater good.

Choose wisely...

Well, damn.  None of those options sound very inviting...

What confuses me is that fans wanted a different option.  They wanted a "good" choice, where Shepard finds a way to destroy the Reapers while preserving the rest of the galaxy.  They wanted to see the Commander kicking it with his crewmates on an empty battlefield littered with Reaper corpses, silently nodding to each other and smiling for a job well done.

If I had unknowingly chosen an option like that, I would undoubtedly be incredibly pissed.  In an ending where everyone lives, and everything is returned to order in the galaxy, the player is basically told, "Good job!  Thank goodness you were able to make such a deep, high-risk, all or nothing decision, and got through it without having any sort of consequences or repercussions whatsoever!  Now everyone can live happily ever after!"

That would be BS.  Mass Effect has always been about consequences for your actions.  If the storyline suddenly threw out this core idea during its final moments, it would cease to be the emotional roller coaster that it has always been.

"Well, alright then," I've seen some fans say, "Then at least have a legitimate 'bad' ending for a choice you make.  There's consequence in that, right?"

Well, yeah, but it's the nature of the consequences that would still be unrealistic.

Imagine an ending where Commander Shepard picks an option to destroy the reapers, and instead it wipes out the entire galaxy along with it.  Mission accomplished, but now everything's dead.  Too bad, you got a "bad ending!"

Or, imagine that Shepard chose to do something, and it ended up failing to destroy the Reapers.  Whoops!  You made the wrong choice!  Bad end!

This would probably be even worse than a "good" ending.  It would be like the game just took the story away from the player and said, "Sorry, that's the wrong choice."  Just simply implying something like "you're wrong" would break all of the immersion in the game.  Mass Effect has never been about judging a player's actions.  It's been about conveying the consequences of a bunch of "what would you do?" scenarios that have no right or wrong answer.  If there was one "bad" choice that decided the ending to the game, it would feel like an enormous slap in the face.

Also, another thing that is worth noting during this final decision is the fact that nothing is labeled "Paragon" or "Renegade" as the player makes his or her choice. This further drives home the fact that nothing is inherently "good" or "bad" in this situation. All the player has to worry about is consequence.

Was it worth it?

So, without the presence of an obvious "good" or "bad" option, Mass Effect 3's ending is able to drive home its point about decision making.  Sometimes, a person is forced to make a decision where none of the options feel like the best thing to do.  Everything has a consequence, and sometimes a person just has to pick the choice that doesn't seem to have the worst outcome.  That aspect is what forces the player to think about his or her actions during the ending.  That is what makes for good storytelling.

Throughout the entire course of the game, as the player witnesses Reapers tearing apart worlds and executing entire populations in an instant, it becomes blatantly obvious that the galaxy will have a hard time going back to status quo after everything is over, no matter what the outcome is.  An invasion of this magnitude is a big deal, and there's no way that civilization is going to get out of it unscathed.  The galaxy's only hope is to use a weapon that it doesn't even know how to work.  If one little thing goes wrong, everything is lost.

There's absolutely no way a person can realistically craft a happy ending out of that situation without having some sort of loss come out of it.  Doing so would seem incredibly contrived, and almost childish.  The sacrifice of Commander Shepard and the fate of the Mass Relays (along with the rest of the galaxy) are necessary to keep the story grounded and believable.  Not to mention, this feeling of loss and sacrifice help to bring even more emotion out of an already emotionally-charged game.  In my opinion, having a bittersweet ending was probably the best option for the story as a whole.


Crafting a conclusion to one of the most beloved and innovative sci-fi dramas in the past decade is a tricky operation.  However, I applaud the folks at Bioware for their efforts, and wholeheartedly approve of what they came up with.  Sure, the final moments are vague, and the player never gets a satisfactory "happily ever after" ending, but things were never supposed to be clear and direct in the first place.  I can't think of a more plausible or efficient way to put the finishing cap on this entire series.  So, despite what many gamers are saying around the web, Mass Effect 3's ending doesn't suck.  It was emotional, impacting, and met all of my expectations for a conclusion to one of my most favorite series of all time.