Mass Effect 3's controversial ending outrages gamers

"I didn't want the game to be forgettable,” Casey Hudson, director of Mass Effect 3 (ME3), had told Digital Trends. 

 

Well, it looks like Hudson and the BioWare crew really got the publicity buzz they wanted, though probably not quite in the way they expected.  Barely a week after ME3's release, the game's ending is still the talk of videogame-town and has sparked an explosion of negative reactions in forum posts, social media, and even mainstream gaming news sites.  

 

‘Thrown out the window’

 

According to Luke Plunkett's column on Kotaku, the disappointment came when the game's ending completely disregarded more than a hundred hours of playing through the ME series. “Mass Effect 3 again let you alter the course of the game's story by selecting dialogue options that correspond to a desired moral compass,” Plunkett said. “And then, at the very end of the trilogy, at the moment your decisions matter most, the system gets thrown out the window,” he concluded.

 

Many gamers shared the same sentiments, expressing their sheer disgust over how the conclusion remained the same despite their characters' different choices, which should have altered the course of game's events and endings.

 

Retaking ME3

 

The mass effect (Haha. Get it?) of the gamer backlash was so garguantuan that disappointed fans reportedly initiated a movement called Take Back Mass Effect 3, petitioning BioWare to change the game's ending.

 

According to reports, the initiative has garnered the support of around 30,000 fans on Facebook, over 3,000 followers on Twitter, and around 40,000 in the BioWare forum poll.

 

In an attempt to “bring positive attention to [their] petition for an alternate ending to the fantastic Mass Effect series,” the Take Back Mass Effect 3 campaign started a charity drive for the benefit of the Child's Play Charity (www.childsplaycharity.org) – a group aiming to improve the lives of children in hospitals through the power of play. As of this writing, Retake Mass Effect - Child's Play has raised over $45,000 for the charity.

Not angry, just hopeful

 

“We would like to dispel the perception that we are angry or entitled. We simply wish to express our hope that there could be a different direction for a series we have all grown to love,” the group said in a statement.

 

A movement this big has not escaped the attention of BioWare. In the same interview with Digital Trends, Hudson acknowledged the feedback from the fans and commented, “We have some really great multiplayer content and some really great single-player content coming over the air, and their feedback will become part of how we design that.” — TJD, GMA News