Mass Effect 3 is a game that will be forever remembered by its ending. Thankfully not only because of that, but it will always be impossible to discuss it (and the trilogy as a whole) without talking about how it all ended.
EA is not the only one to blame here, Mac Walters and Casey Hudson are often seen as the biggest villains in this story, and they definitely deserve some of the flak, but I would argue that Eletronic Arts is the worst offender here. Why? Because of the criminal amount of time they gave Bioware to finish Mass Effect 3. ME2 was released on January 2010, Lair of the Shadow Broker, its last main DLC, on early september (Arrival was developed by a different team). ME3 was originally meant to release in late 2011, and then moved to March 2012. So Bioware had between 2 and 1.5 half years to developed the last entry in the trilogy.
It wasn't enough time, it wasn't nearly enough time. And you can see it everywhere you look. Mass Effect 3 is full of short comings and rough edges that can explained by how rushed it was. Take the 360 version, for example. You had to swap the disks in the most bizarre of fashions. While in ME2 you had to swap them once (as it should be), in ME3 you had to do that several times. Indeed, that was one early mission that you had to put disk 2 only to play it, then but disk 1 back to play the rest of the chapter. That rushed production is also seen in the writing that is full of weird lines and weirdly structures dialogues, in the quest journal, in the use of ME2's squadmates that got sidelined to unacceptable levels. In some weird technical problems... in short. Everywhere.
And even, I believe, in the endings. The fact that Priority: Earth got negatively streamlined because there was simply no time to work on it can be seen from assets that were never used. My guess, and it's only that, is that BIoware envisioned it as a Suicide Mission 2.0, with Shepard using resources just like they used squadmates in the final misison of ME2. What we got however was just a simple linear mission with a horde mode approach. But I also mean the endings themselves. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think they chose the endings as they are (or were before the EC) simply because they were easy and fast. Any resemblence of good ideas they might have had were flooded by the need to get it done as fast as possible.
It wouldn't be a perfect game of course. It would still have its diana allers, like a worse dialogue system and a more automatic Shepard, but it could have been much better. I believe that.
And the biggest and utterly cruel irony in this is that Andromeda had exactly that. It had the time ME3 lacked. But it lacked the Bioware talent that was still there for ME3, even if some of it had already left.
Anyway, I just also wanted to say I really like Mass Effect.
It's always a good ride.
EA is not the only one to blame here, Mac Walters and Casey Hudson are often seen as the biggest villains in this story, and they definitely deserve some of the flak, but I would argue that Eletronic Arts is the worst offender here. Why? Because of the criminal amount of time they gave Bioware to finish Mass Effect 3. ME2 was released on January 2010, Lair of the Shadow Broker, its last main DLC, on early september (Arrival was developed by a different team). ME3 was originally meant to release in late 2011, and then moved to March 2012. So Bioware had between 2 and 1.5 half years to developed the last entry in the trilogy.
It wasn't enough time, it wasn't nearly enough time. And you can see it everywhere you look. Mass Effect 3 is full of short comings and rough edges that can explained by how rushed it was. Take the 360 version, for example. You had to swap the disks in the most bizarre of fashions. While in ME2 you had to swap them once (as it should be), in ME3 you had to do that several times. Indeed, that was one early mission that you had to put disk 2 only to play it, then but disk 1 back to play the rest of the chapter. That rushed production is also seen in the writing that is full of weird lines and weirdly structures dialogues, in the quest journal, in the use of ME2's squadmates that got sidelined to unacceptable levels. In some weird technical problems... in short. Everywhere.
And even, I believe, in the endings. The fact that Priority: Earth got negatively streamlined because there was simply no time to work on it can be seen from assets that were never used. My guess, and it's only that, is that BIoware envisioned it as a Suicide Mission 2.0, with Shepard using resources just like they used squadmates in the final misison of ME2. What we got however was just a simple linear mission with a horde mode approach. But I also mean the endings themselves. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think they chose the endings as they are (or were before the EC) simply because they were easy and fast. Any resemblence of good ideas they might have had were flooded by the need to get it done as fast as possible.
It wouldn't be a perfect game of course. It would still have its diana allers, like a worse dialogue system and a more automatic Shepard, but it could have been much better. I believe that.
And the biggest and utterly cruel irony in this is that Andromeda had exactly that. It had the time ME3 lacked. But it lacked the Bioware talent that was still there for ME3, even if some of it had already left.
Anyway, I just also wanted to say I really like Mass Effect.
It's always a good ride.
