Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut: A Happy Ending?

Eurogamer has chimed in to give us their opinion of the endings-expanding Extended Cut DLC for Mass Effect 3, which attempted to satisfy at least in the part those fans that were left disappointed by the trilogy’s original conclusion. Judging by this snippet, they didn’t particularly enjoy the additional epilogue slides:

Unfortunately, there’s more – a set of brand new codas that follow the endings and tell us specifically what happens as a result of that final choice. This sounds like a good idea, and all of them add a few things worth seeing. In practice though, these are what we were afraid was going to happen – BioWare making a misguided effort at appeasing fans who didn’t like their epic RPG ending on something of an intergalactic low.

That specifically wasn’t a major issue for most, though of course there were some fans who wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything short of Shepard rising like a phoenix to the sound of vengeful thrash metal and personally punching Harbinger in the cock.

Mostly though, it came from the misconception that BioWare had blown up the entire universe instead of simply destroying its public transport system, along with focusing on things we probably weren’t meant to think about too much, like what the turians were going to eat. It was an obvious universal rule-change for future Mass Effect games, as well as the galaxy’s ultimate declaration of independence. It wasn’t the apocalypse.

In these codas though, BioWare chickens out. Destroy mentions the ‘damaged’ relays in passing, but quickly adds that everything can be rebuilt and hand-waves the more immediate problems. Control outright hands the Reapers a broom and tells them to go tidy up their damn mess. In neither case is there the same deep sorrow that the universe has paid a huge price for this victory – though they do at least take time to remember fallen crew, and officially give Shepard a place on the Normandy’s memorial.

To be rather honest, I take a bit of an issue on the “misconception” fans had about the ending, because it almost seems to imply that it’s the fans’ fault to notice some rather amateurish mistakes in handling the lore during the climax of the series.