Mass Effect 3, the canceled ending changed the story of the series

Mass Effect 3, the canceled ending changed the story of the series

Mass Effect 3

In the gaming industry, few franchises have made such an impact as Mass Effect. The series celebrates its birthday on a special day and the anticipation of news about a new chapter continues to be very high. The whole story of the famous IP could, however, be slightly different, as explained by a former BioWare screenwriter in an AMA (Ask me Anything) held on Reddit.



According to what was reported by the developer, BioWare had planned an ending for Mass Effect 3 that would open the doors to the fourth chapter. We use the conditional because those original plans were canceled, in favor of the ending we all know and which led to the genesis of Andromeda, marking a new beginning for the entire series.


The future of Mass Effect, however, is still in doubt. BioWare has been working on the next chapter for several years now, but we're unlikely to see anything over the next few months. The development team is indeed busy creating the next Dragon Age, but we are sure that the space-themed franchise will finally receive a new chapter. On the other hand, that's what everyone wants: from the software house to the fans. Hoping that this time is really a new beginning, without further missteps.






Mass Effect 3 Orignal Ending Revealed And It's Very Different

When Mass Effect 3 was released, its underwhelming ending was the controversy of the year. The blowback was of course over the top, however, it was enough to get BioWare to release a post-launch update tweaking it, though not substantially. And it's a shame, because Mass Effect 3 is as good as Mass Effect 2, but it's not remembered as fondly because of the ending debacle. That said, it sounds like it almost avoided this fate as its ending was not how it was originally going to end.


Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer of the first two Mass Effect games, but did not reprise the role for the third game. That said, when he was at BioWare, the ending for the third game, or at least the plan for it, was different. According to the writer, the game was going to directly lead to Mass Effect 4.


'As for Mass Effect, we had some very rough ideas planned out,' said Karpyshyn over on Reddit. 'Basically, it involved luring the Reapers through the Mass Relays then detonating the entire network to wipe them out... but also destroying/damaging the relays and isolating every galactic community from the others. But we still had to figure out a lot of the details, and there were some issues with that option... like what we would do in the next series of games.


As you can see, this is pretty different from the original ending. It's unclear how we got from Karpyshyn's ending to the ending we actually got in the third game. As one Redditor points out, the original ending actually sounds quite a bit like the Arrival DLC, which connects Mass Effect 2 to Mass Effect 3. It's possible bits of the original ending made it into this content, but this is just speculation.


As always, feel free to leave a comment or two or 77 letting us know what you think or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there. What do you think of the trilogy's original ending? Is it better than what fans ended up ultimately getting in Mass Effect 3?