Mass Effect 3 Endings, Now With New HAT!

I tried to play through the DLC and see the endings for myself, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Posted this earlier on Facebook:

I really have almost no desire to finish ME3 with the new DLC. I do want to at some point, but i'm just not really itching to do so. Back when I played through the game the first time, I played the shit out of it, doing everything I could, doing my best to power through difficult sections in order to see how the awesome trilogy (using my knowledge of the games at that time) would come to a conclusion.


I guess that just goes to show how much I loathed the original ending. It sapped most of my desire to want to play the game ever again. I went into the DLC not expecting something revolutionary or amazing, but with an open mind. Ever since it's release, i've heard nothing but bad things about it, and that pretty much killed my desire. What's the point if i'm just going to get disappointed again?


Ever since then i've been thinking about whether or not I would actually play through it all again, or bite the bullet and just watch the endings online. A friend of mine posted a link to a lengthy documentary talking about the Indoctrination Theory, which basically served as a refresher for me. Back after beating the game, I read a bunch of stuff online, and when the IT began to form, it made a lot of sense when I went back and thought about it. After reading up on it, I pretty much made it the theory I went with, as it gave me a relatively satisfying ending, although it did leave a lot of unanswered questions. What happens now that the Mass Effect relays are destroyed? Will there still be travel between planets? Why did Joker fly the Normandy away from Earth after he pretty much swore he'd never leave? That's just a few of the questions that never really got an answer.

After watching the IT documentary (the one I posted above), I decided to just go for it and watch the ending. It had been so long since I beat the game and stopped thinking about it, I wasn't exactly sure which one I watched in my original playthrough. Luckily the documentary reminded me about what I was most likely thinking during that time (before I knew about the IT itself), about how the whole point of that final mission was to go up to the Citadel and destroy the Reapers. That's what I came to do, so that's what I was going to do, no matter what that starkid fucker had to say. So, with that knowledge in mind, I watched that ending once again.

As I was watching it, I could pick out the scenes I hadn't seen before, so it wasn't a total "was that what happened?" moment. I noticed that they added a scene on the Normandy, with Hackett talking about (I forget the exact quote) how everyone should evacuate the area and whatnot. The other crew in the cockpit convinced Joker to fly away, so that they wouldn't be destroyed in the explosion (which at least answered one of my above questions). There were also scenes that may have been in the original ending (that I may have forgotten, but I have no idea), where the Asari and Krogan troops celebrated the destruction of the Reapers. There are a few other scenes that were added, but I don't really have to recall each one, since the videos are readily available on Youtube.

Basically, after watching watching the same ending I watched before with the new "extended scenes," I felt slightly more comfortable with the ending, but it still didn't answer all my questions. I know since this DLC has been released, there was talk about future DLC being released, but it's still not known if that will be post-ending or not. All in all, the ending is slightly better, but I still don't think it's what the end of a major trilogy like this one needed. It also didn't really disprove or approve the Indoctrination Theory either, which would have been nice. Maybe it was Bioware's intention all along to leave the ending open to interpretation, I dunno. But I was thinking that this DLC would be a bit more final, so in that way it's a disappointment. There's still a lot of stuff unanswered, which i'm sure will remain that way until more (most likely paid) DLC is released, or if a new game in the series is released. I'm still disappointed overall, but I feel like it's a minor step in the right direction, as the same person that made the above documentary put it in a video he released a day or so ago regarding the actual DLC itself put it: "it's still shit, but it's shit with sprinkles now!

I'll probablty watch the other endings tomorrow, maybe that'll change things once again, but I highly doubt it.