When Mass Effect 3 was originally released a lot of the fans were very disappointed by the game’s ending. And I was one of them. Due to the massive public complaints BioWare announced that they would release an extended cut free of charge that should improve the ending. When the extended cut was finally released a few weeks ago I decided against immediately playing it and started my single player Insanity run instead. It turned out to be a lot easier than defeating Mass Effect 2 on Insanity. But maybe it just felt that way due to all the training provided by multiplayer Silver and Gold matches.
When I finished my Insanity run through yesterday I finally watched the new ending. I was very pleased to see that it is indeed much better. As expected I still didn’t get Marriage, old age and a lot of little blue children, but I finally got closure and a sense of accomplishment . BioWare added a lot of background information, closed plot holes, fixed glitches and most importantly showed the events after the Reaper war. On top of that the player can now choose a fourth radically different outcome of the story.
The Extended Cut is the epic finale that the Mass Effect trilogy needed, that it deserved. The game play of the final mission is still disappointing but at least the story is alright now. There are still a lot of fans that are unhappy with the plot. But I guess that is to be expected if you don’t deliver a Hollywood style happy end. To be honest I find the ending quite depressing as well. I wonder though why the game didn’t come with the proper end in the first place. I can only guess that BioWare struggled to keep the release schedule and had to cut some corners. Mass Effect 3 wouldn’t be the first game that suffered from this problem.