Mass Effect 3: The Extended Cut Delivers!

Last month I finally posted an article about the ending to action/RPG Mass Effect 3 and how it was fundamentally broken as a means of effective storytelling. This came after months of fan-outcry over the abrupt, plot-hole ridden denouement that left them with virtually no closure, no catharsis, and no hope. Well, developer BioWare heard the message loud and clear, and earlier this week, they released a piece of DLC at no additional charge known as the Extended Cut. While the nearly two gigabytes worth of content does not actually change the ending, it does clarify some things and elaborate on others. And it works. It works surprisingly well. WARNING! SPOILERS TO FOLLOW.


Many of the "fixes" are easy enough to spot. Plot holes are filled with addition scenes of injuries occurring and orders of retreat being issued. The scene with the Catalyst is extended, giving Shepard time to ask questions and get a better sense of what's going on and what the implications of his decision will be. This scene and this character now feel much more like a part of the Mass Effect universe as a whole, rather than something tacked on at the end in order to bring about the conclusion. An epilogue scene was also added, expanding on the implications of your final decision and how this will affect the galaxy at large, while some of the visuals show the results of previous choices, such as the Genophage storyline. This goes a long way to adding some closure, as well as making the different endings more distinct and individualized. And finally, we see the Normandy repaired and take off, dispelling the fear that your beloved crew was stranded forever.

The most important change, however, is a bit more subtle, I believe. In the original ending, it appears that the Mass Relay network explodes, for seemingly no reason, after the Crucible fires. The implications of this completely break the ME universe. Space travel becomes limited, galactic unity becomes splintered. That's before you realize that an exploding relay will go supernova. Entire planets and civilizations are destroyed. This one detail starts a change reaction that leaves the galaxy broken and (for all we know) doomed. The Extended Cut reveals that the relays do not explode. They are actually carrying the Crucible's energy, relaying it across the network before dispersing it into their individual areas. This leaves them broken but intact and (we are told) repairable. Not only does this negate the above doomsday scenario, it creates a solution that is much more consistent with ME lore. The relays have always been your tactical secret weapon. The Mu Relay and the Conduit were instrumental in your quest to stop Saren. The Omega 4 Relay was both a mystery to be solved and a tool to stop the Collectors. Making the entire relay network part of your solution to the Reaper threat feels thematically appropriate. The science-fiction genre is all about using technology to solve your problem. The ending is now consistent with this idea.

While I have not yet experience all the new epilogues, the ones I have seen have been very good. My renegade picked Control, and then basically became a god. His essence replaced the Catalyst and took over the Reapers. He now uses them to build his ideal utopia and enforces it across the galaxy. It's empowering in a creepy, fascist sort of way. But it fits my renegade because that guy was an asshole. My paragon chose Destroy, ending all synthetic life. But the technology can be rebuilt. And it now seems clear that Shep survives this scenario and will be found when others get onto the Citadel (via the still active Conduit in London). Also, knowing now that the relays dispersed the Crucible's energy, and that the Geth consensus is located in dark space "between stars," it's easy to imagine that at least some of them escaped. That sense of hope is one of the big difference between the original ending and the Extended Cut. If the other choices play out just as well, I will be more than happy. I will be thrilled.

But what's perhaps most interesting to me is how well all of this fits. It's seems to me that this content should have been there to begin with. The extended conversation with the Catalyst, for example, is almost certainly from a previous recording session that was later cut. The question is why? The first answer one thinks is there was simply a time crunch to hit their deadline and their publisher, the notorious EA, would not give them an extension. And most gamers/conspiracy theorists would believe that, I think. But I'm more inclined to believe something else. I think it was cut not for time, but for pacing. In a movie, if the world was about to end, the hero doesn't stop to ask questions. It slows the action down, it releases dramatic tension. No, the hero just does whatever it is they have to do. Pacing. But pacing is a purely cinematic concept, which is why I think this was the real reason. The trend in video games for the past few years has been to make games more cinematic. This is largely because games, as an art form, do not have their own language yet. Games are still a relatively new medium, and as in the early days of cinema when they borrowed the language of theatre, games are borrowing from the language of cinema. This ending controversy is a clear example that video games are ready to move beyond this. Games are an interactive experience; they put the player in the driver's seat. But at the (original) end of ME3, players lose their identity, their individuality, and their ability to coherently interpret the scenario they are interacting with . . . all for the sake of pacing, for making the game more cinematic. The Extended Cut fixes this by putting the player back in the driver's seat and allowing them to experience the game as a game. This solution is crying out for video games to develop their own language, their own way of telling stories and sharing experiences. And BioWare has always been at the forefront of story-driven gameplay. Hopefully they got the message.

Of course, that's how I interpret it, anyway.

Regardless of how you feel about the original ending, the Extended Cut offers great additional content, and as a free DLC, there's no reason why you shouldn't pick it up. Thank you, BioWare, for listening to your fans and responding. You knocked this one out of the park!