Mass Effect 3’s Ending Changed Fandom Forever
By Justin Carter
When BioWare’s Mass Effect franchise first released in 2007, it quickly gained momentum and a passionate fanbase that not many new IPs today have really managed to achieve. At the time, the sci-fi RPG’s claim to fame was giving players choices that would matter, either in the immediate moment as it related to their companions, or in the future as Commander Sheparddid their best to gain allies and prepare for the Reaper threat against organics in the Milky Way. When Mass Effect 2 ended with the sight of the Reapers leaving dark space, excitement for the final installment of the trilogy was high, and everyone had their own ideas on how the Commander’s story would come to a close.
In a different timeline, Mass Effect 3—which released 10 years ago this past weekend—may have been simply received as a satisfying, if bittersweet ending to a blockbuster space opera with pesky Marauder Shields and a hokey epilogue. But in reality, the reactions surrounding the conclusion were significantly harsher. While the game was regarded as pretty good overall, its three endings for Commander Shepard—a choice between destroying the Reapers and all synthetic life, controlling and converting them into a galactic peacekeeping force, or merging synthetic and organic beings together, each at the cost of Shepard’s life—were widely despised for weeks on end. But there’s no point in asking how the ending has aged a full decade later, nor is it worth wondering if it would’ve been better for BioWare to tell fans to simply accept the ending as it was. Either you still hate it now as you did back in 2012 or, upon returning to Shepard’s trilogy via last year’s Legendary Edition, at this point you’ve decided to swallow that bitter pill and accept it for what it is.
