Mass Effect 3’s Ending DLC Coming Tomorrow
I do not want to sound ungrateful or anything (at least until I see the expository scenes for myself), but… err, Bioware? Telling us on Friday that the ME3 Extended Cut DLC will be out on Tuesday comes across as somewhat guilty. You know, when you were a kid and tried to sneak in the one bad thing you just did into a stream of all the other random things in the hopes that Mom wouldn’t notice.
“AND THEN I PLAYED WITH BOBBY IN THE BACKYARD, AND THEN WE WENT TO THE CREEK, AND I CAUGHT A FROG BUT IT HOPPED AWAY, and I broke Mr. Wilson’s window, AND WE RODE BIKES TO THE PARK BUT IT WAS GETTING DARK SO WE CAME BACK, AND WE PLAYED POGS AND I TOTALLY WON THREE TIMES.”
I haven’t been giving the ending DLC much thought beyond casually musing how, at this point, Bioware could probably get away with not releasing anything¹. It has been more than three months, after all, which is the equivalent of 10 years in the modern news cycle. Mass Effect really isn’t A Thing to me anymore, especially after I sort of capped out of interest in the multiplayer.
Listening to this (low-budget) PR interview though…
Have you ever started dating an ex again? You remember how much fun you had together, how much everything just clicked. And then you also remember how (badly) things ended last time, getting a little steamed all over again with events long since past. The video basically evokes that, to me.
Anyway, the scab is coming off tomorrow, or whenever it is I am able to sit down and make out with ME3 again. Maybe never. Realistically, as soon as humanly possible.
¹ I don’t actually believe they could get away without addressing the ending. Not because fans “deserve” a better one, but rather because I have no doubt Bioware would like to sell some actual story DLC. I imagine that the market for story DLC to a 3+ month old RPG is likely limited to the very people most pissed off by the ending.
Posted on June 25, 2012, in Commentary and tagged Bioware, Dating an Ex, DLC, Ending, Extended Cut, Mass Effect 3, Scabs. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
In An Age 
Some thoughts, SPOILERS, of course:
It’s… not so great? I’m conflicted, as the proper post-choice bit is expanded enough to confirm what I’d already assumed (that I probably hadn’t killed most of the galaxy with my choice of explosion color, and that everyone was going to basically get on with their lives), but good GOD, the conversation with the Catalyst elaborates on the writers’ thought processes in all the wrong ways- way too much time spelling out, in detail, that the stupid thing they vaguely alluded to in the original is, in fact, what is happening. And still vague enough to feel like Shepard’s being patronized.
At least previously, I could pretend that the catalyst was the 100 million year old equivalent of Clippy (It looks like you’re trying to “Destroy Reapers.” Can I help?), but now, instead of seeming obtuse and limited, it acts intelligent and forthcoming enough to make the choice feel like “I could help you, but this is what we wrote for you. Take it or leave it.”
Although, I will note that one of the “we made some concept art to talk over!” bits got a surprisingly strong emotional reaction from me- Samara and (I’m assuming) her daughter, on what looked like Thessia, just… hanging out in a park. Looking content. That made me happy enough to have made the thing worth it, I suppose.
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