With Bioware announcing that they will be releasing a DLC in order to extend the ending to the Mass Effect 3 ending, something that has caused a mass debate in the gamer/sci-fi community, the question has to be asked. Is this going to become a more prominent part of the way the public interacts with fiction? Should endings be set in stone or changed on a whim to suit the overall majority and what they want?
Outside of the DVD/Blu-ray directors cut (The film industry version of a DLC patch) changing an ending to something is still rare but not completely unheard of. Some very well-known games have in fact already edited endings before, just not on as grand a scale.
- Portal
Portal was a gamble that payed off well for valve but they had no idea at the time if there would ever be a sequel so they didn’t see the need to leave the ending open for one. The ending is seen through the first person view of a burning entrance to Aperture Labs and that is it. The end. You’re now free from testing and that mental robot woman. Suddenly Portal 2 was announced and Valve quickly realised that they needed a little something to bridge that gap. It wasn’t a large bridge, so small in fact that you might not have noticed. Instead of our hero just lying on the road, you see yourself being dragged away by some unknown thing while you’re still groggy from the explosion. There you have it, a reason for Chell to be back at Aperture being tested on again and again.
2. Fallout 3
The end of the main story to Fallout 3 was your classic No-win situation ripped from Star Trek II. For the benefit of the human race, someone has to go into a chamber and push the button, thus saving everyone but flooding the room with lethal radiation that you will definitely not have a chance in surviving. You have to decide to send in yourself (Good option) or send in Sarah Lyons like a coward to take the hit (Evil option.)
The thing that annoyed the hell out of me and many of my friends who encountered the same thing was that you had 2 companions with you that could have easily done the job and NOT died. Fawkes, the radiation proof super-mutant and Chiron, the ghoul who is actually healed by radiation. He could have gone in, done the job and come out feeling like he’d had a week in a health spa but No, they both tell me that this is my story to end. Thanks a fucking lot guys. Apparently the developers didn’t think this was strange at all but after some complaints with fans about not being able to continue playing the game after this final action, they patched it during the Broken Steel DLC: If you pushed the button you woke up 2 weeks later or Fawkes/Chiron would agree to your rather reasonable request to push that damn button.
3. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2
A game that left many knocked for six thanks to such an abrupt ending. This couldn’t have been the intended ending right? Right?
Actually that is right. Fan examination of the data files showed scripts and sound files that showed something had gone very wrong and Obsidian has scrapped most of its planned ending for the game. The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod is a bit unusual, in that it’s an unofficial patch that restores an official ending that had been buried allowing fans to get a bit more closure on quests that were left hanging there. Alright so this wasn’t so much a re-write but still worth a mention.
So not all endings are always set in stone but even though endings can be changed, should they be? Are we essentially spitting in the face of a writers creative vision because we simply didn’t like how something went? As George Lucas has gone on to prove, revisionism can just as easily ruin a brilliant thing.
When the Playstation first game out and we really started to dig into the idea of RPGs and games with Stories that you became attached to, developers didn’t have the luxury of just giving out a DLC patch in order to keep people happy if something wasn’t to their liking but then again, perhaps because of the “patch it later” culture that has developed, fans seem to think it is their right to get something altered to suit them.
People that scoff at the word “Art” being thrown around are, in my opinion, short-sighted. A writer is just that, no matter what medium they are doing it for. Be it a video game or a stage show, it is their vision that puts the actions on-screen or the words in actors mouths. To call it anything else is quite frankly a slap in the face of those who worked hard on the finished product.
The great Mass Effect 3 ending argument is turning into what can only be described as a toys out of the pram riot. People are finding plot holes to pick at instead of admitting that what they are having is an emotional response based on disappointment in what they got. People need to have a reason to justify said disappointment.I can only hope that when Bioware to release the DLC that it will at least shut some of the rabid annoyances up. Of course, as you know, you can’t please everyone all of the time. One can only hope those people who are STILL not happy when it’s all over and done just go back to writing bad fanfiction and be done with it.
Now if you don’t mind I have to write to George R. R. Martin and demand he change Game of Thrones…
I didn’t like the ending.
