Karpyshyn himself has said that there never really was an ending planned in stone. The dark energy ending, that you are referencing, was one idea they had, but he said it was never really fleshed out beyond a very basic idea.
From what I understand they changed it not because of a deadline, but for other reasons. An early script for ME3 leaked several months before release, and included the dark energy ending, so many think that they changed the ending to keep it a surprise, though it's possible the change happened prior to the leak, since the leaked script was an early draft. They also have said that some of the writers supported the idea of the ending having to do with the theme of synthetic vs organics, as that is a theme that was much more prevalent throughout the series, where the dark energy one is kind of out of left field and, besides relating to the Haestrom mission, isn't very relevant to any themes explored in the series.
There are arguments to be made for both. I kind of think the theme they went with was the better choice, as I agree with having an ending be relevant to a major theme throughout the entire series. However, I think if you just look at the choices involved and nothing more, I do think the dark energy choice would have offered a more interesting choice. I think it's a case of 'the grass is always greener'. The synthetic vs organic ending has its flaws, but the dark energy one would have had its own flaws as well. There probably would have been complaints towards it, too.
Personally, I think the best possible choice would have been to keep their motivations unknown and mysterious. Maybe offer some vague hints and little more. We never really needed to know their motivations to know we needed to stop them, and I think the Reapers were most interesting in ME 1 when they were portrayed as a totally mysterious entity telling us that we can't possibly comprehend their reasons for doing what they do. This ending probably would have also upset a lot of people who desire to know as much as possible and don't like having questions unanswered, but I would have liked it.
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Last edited by BackFire on Jul 21st, 2017 at 01:10 AM
That's so obviously not what happened though. The Reaper's motivations were obviously going to involve that Dark Matter shit Tali foreshadowed in ME2, a plot thread that was completely abandoned in 3.
Bullshit, lol. Creating plot threads meant to foreshadow future events and be explored and then concocting an ending to your game that ensures they never will be is bad writing.
Things like the dark matter (which is the king of dead plot threads, being that it was meant to have something to do with the reapers), the impending threat of the Yahg, and the far greater looming presence of the Leviathans, were set up as plot threads to be explored in the future, only to be completely thrown away for an ending that frankly did not have much in the way of foreshadowing. I actually don't mind the endings and the revelations of the Reapers in of themselves all that much, but given all this the endings are out of place, and are far too final for a series that obviously wasn't finished telling its story.
I've seen that leak, I don't put a lot of faith in it because as far as I know it was never confirmed to be real.
Thematically there was more building to the conclusion dealing with synthetics vs organics than the dark energy plotline that was being kicked around, which was mentioned very briefly during the Haelstrom mission, and never before, or after.
The mistake you are making is that you are assuming the only reason to bring those plots into the game was for foreshadowing purposes for future games. There are other potential reasons for bringing them into the story - the most obvious being to simply flesh out the universe. The only one that we have evidence to support being used in the future at the time of introduction was the dark energy one. The Yahg and Leviathans don't really have the same level of foreshadowing. The Leviathans in particular, as they were explicitly introduced with the clear purpose of exploring the Reaper's backstory, not necessarily for future games. And while you are right, all of these would definitely work as threads to explore in future games, the fact that they didn't immediately do that in their next game doesn't inherently mean that the endings are bad because of that, perhaps they just wanted to go in a different direction and thought taking it to Andromeda would offer more freedom and interesting possibilities.
Besides, I've long rejected the idea that the endings of ME3 make it impossible to do future games in the Milky Way. The variables can be worked around pretty easily if they really wanted to. I don't think the ending is as final as many people suggest.
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Last edited by BackFire on Jul 21st, 2017 at 05:36 AM
I'd actually agree, which is why the endings in of themselves don't particularly bother me and the Reaper's motivations only kind of bother me because it makes them mentally disabled, but you can't set up plot threads and throw them away without it being bad writing. Because that's what it is.
I remember when a 4th game was first announced I really wanted it to be about the Yahg and how the galaxy would deal with that threat, especially if it were to happen while they were still rebuilding from the Reaper invasion. I think that would be very cool and still hope they do that in a future game.
Which is something to remember, there will be future games in the series at some point, the franchise is in no way dead, even if it's on hiatus, they will probably make more at some point, and as I said, I think it's very possible, and at this point, after Andromeda's commercial and critical failure, probably likely that the next game takes place in the Milky Way after the events of the trilogy. You're damning the series for something that it still has plenty of time to do - explore these threads.
I haven't finished Andromeda yet but I seriously doubt ME is going back to the milky way, Mass Effect 3 made that impossible. The commercial failure of Andromeda only means we won't see a continuation of these particular characters and storylines.
In all likelihood it'll be thousands of years in the future of Andromeda, by which point humans, salarians, turians, krogan and whatnot have successfully established themselves in coexistence with the Angara. The Initiative and Pathfinder Ryder can be just a brief history lesson before venturing forth with new characters and a more linear story.
I don't think it's impossible at all. As I said I think there are pretty easy ways around most of the variables that they'd have to consider. The only one that would be troublesome is the reject ending, but they could just treat that as they treated Shephard dying during the suicide mission in ME2, if you let that happen - where that was the end of that character's story, you couldnt import it to ME3.
All the rest could be dealt with I think. Setting it several hundred years after the events of ME3 would help a lot. I don't think it's really feasible to have it start right when ME3 ended, but they could definitely go back to the Milky Way if they wanted.
The sheer variability in outcomes at the end of Mass Effect 3 is one thing, but then each outcome has drastic far-reaching implications. If you take Mass Effect back to the Milky Way you have to make one of the outcomes canon and dismiss the rest, because they can't coexist with each other.
Either the entire galaxy is populated by organic robot hybrids, everything is normal or everything is destroyed.
If you ignore Mass Effect 3 and just return to the Milky Way under normal conditions with no explanation, it essentially invalidates the mass Effect trilogy imo. And if you choose one of the outcomes and make it canon, then you disenfranchise the playing experience of 2/3 of your customers.
For those reasons if mass Effect continues I'd much rather it be in Andromeda from now on. You don't need to go too far to escape the commercial stink of this new one, just start an epic new story with fresh new characters that takes place 1000 years later.
I don't really have a problem with going with a "organic v synthetic" storyline instead of the dark energy one, but I think from the moment you step through the portal/lift thing, the execution level of the game story takes a massive dive off of a cliff.
The execution is awful, imo, and I have no idea what they're gonna do if they make a new game in the Milky Way.
In the Destroy Ending, all synthetic life in the setting is completely gone, so the game's core plot can't feature synthetics in any significant role, because they wouldn't exist.
In the Control Ending, the Reapers are still around and are controlled by God Shepard. They are a significant factor in the setting, and would completely kill any real potential for a conflict considering the Reapers being on the side of the Citadel would make any threat meaningless. Even the Leviathans don't have villain cred that big.
In the Synthesis ending, everyone would just be robutts, and the former problem would still exist, only Shepard wouldn't control them.
Some big plot conveniences would have to be written up to make a continuation work.
Oh yeah, there will absolutely need to be some very convenient explanations, and by no means would the explanations necessarily be all that great, but I think having some contrivances would be worth it if it meant being able to have more games in the Milky Way.
Setting the time period 500+ years in the future would help a lot, and allow them to get by the Destroy ending issue pretty easily. All synthetic life was destroyed, but the knowledge of how to build them wasn't, they could rebuild AI and synthetics within that time no problem. Especially with Reaper tech scattered around the galaxy.
The control ending they could say something like that despite the Reapers turning good, because of the horrors they inflicted on the galaxy, the inhabitants still didn't trust them, and maybe after several decades of trying and failing to earn their trust, god shep decides it's best to send the reapers back out into dark space and leave the inhabitants in the Milky Way alone.
The synthesis ending probably provides the most potential for a cool and interesting explanation - There's a lot of options here. They could say that everyone, while all being having merged, they retained their identity and that the weird shimmering skin and eyes was only a temporary symptom, and now everyone is back to looking normal. That's the laziest option.
The other option that I think is a bit more interesting is that maybe the merging didn't take for the organics. It was eventually rejected by the immune system of organic beings and caused a sickness that killed a some of them, the ones who survived went back to being normal organic beings. Upon seeing this the reapers are finally proven once and for all to be flawed, and they can no longer deny it, and so having acknowledged that this one calculation was incorrect, they begin to doubt all other calculations that they've had, to the point that they decide that self destruction is the only way to preserve peace. So they go off into dark space and turn themselves off for good. That would essentially revert the galaxy back to how it was before, leaving some potentially interesting explanations about synthetic life, as perhaps synthetics accepted the change. There is also a potentially good thread there about a new found individuality among synthetics. Maybe in the synthesis, some adopted the selfishness of organic beings, and so on.
As far as the other variables, those are pretty simple to wave away. Just create it so the geth and the quarians aren't in it very much, maybe have a few NPC's that are interchangeable - if the geth lived, then they're geths, if quarians lived, they're quarians.
The genophage thing, if you didn't cure the genophage they could just say that later on, after helping to rebuild the galaxy, the other races decided to help them cure the genophage regardless. Unless you chose the synthesis ending, then they could just say that cured the genophage.
But yeah, like you said, definitely some conveniences no matter what. I think it'd be worth it, though.
When Ryder finds out about the Reapers and the galaxy being destroyed, I thought that could open up an avenue for returning to the Milky Way.
Set 200 years later, a rogue group from Andromeda steals a ship capable of traveling vast distances to go back to the Milky Way. When they return, the universe would have changed.
This would allow Bioware to create a new story, new worlds, new characters, new technology and etc....and as well, hit a huge nostalgia trip because they can reference the entire old trilogy in a myth type of way.
Bioware Montreal officially merged with Motive studios. Essentially confirming that Kotaku article that Andromeda won't be seeing more content/sequels.
Gender: Male Location: In Luna's mane, chasing STAAARS!
So no DLC expansions. More ways of making me regret buying this. Wonderful.
There was never a Bioware game I ever disliked overall despite what others say about Dragon Age II or Inquisition. God sakes, even despite what I personally believe was a dumpster fire of an ending for Mass Effect 3, I still replayed it over and over like crazy. Ever since I played the first KOTOR on my Xbox and went on playing more Bioware titles, there was never an RPG from them I thought would ever be bad. Then Andromeda happened.
Andromeda is pretty much dead when it comes to single-player DLC or anything hefty multiplayer-wise (with the exception of a few characters and weapons here and there).
However, I'm not entirely sure if this rules out sequels.
They will make one more. I can't see them killing the series off after one mediocre game.
A lot of reasons why Andromeda did poorly was due to bad press prior to the game. If they make a new game, they will probably hit the nostalgia card that will at least get them in the door. If the game is good, it will do well.
As far as the game goes, I'm a fair bit in to it, and I have to say, it is REALLY disappointing in some aspects. Some parts are good, some parts are all right, but some things? Holy crap, did they just employ some monkeys in front of keyboards? You can really tell they didn't have the A-Team making this game.
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Jul 21st, 2017 12:55 AM
