So, uh, apparently, Bioware’s not beating around the bush, informing the world via their blog that they’re unleashing the much-ballyhooed extended ending DLC for Mass Effect 3 upon the populace this coming Tuesday, June 26th. The quick and dirty of it all is this:
- Yes, it’s free.
- Europe, sorry, you gotta wait a week.
- The full download’s about 2 gigs. Clear some space.
- If you wanna get right to the goods, the new content begins right before you assault the Cerberus Base. You *have* been keeping multiple saves, right?
In addition to the announcements, Casey Hudson and Mac Walters from Bioware released a special podcast to elaborate a lot more on their decisions in the original ending, and how the new one really came about. It’s a quick, interesting listen, and even with these guys still in a little bit of damage control mode, the passion these guys have for this story and its ideas is still glaringly obvious. Not that it has a Prince’s chance at a Klan rally of stopping douchebags from raking them over the coals no matter what they do, but still. Scroll a little further down for that.
Personally, if nothing else, I like that they hammer home again and again that they did not change our choices, just that we see how the last choices affect the universe and the characters. There’s a line in terms of how much bang for our buck we should get here–a layer of ambiguity here is a good thing–but I’m feeling pretty good that whatever we’re getting Tuesday, it won’t be something they half-assed. This will officially be the end of the story we remember, and one worth remembering. I was happy already. They do their job, and deliver a new denouement that hits me as just as hard as that final Shepard/Anderson scene did, we can all rest our collective sphincters about the greatness Mass Effect legacy being assured.
9 comments
My primary complaint with the end of this trilogy was that it was always James Cameron’s “Aliens” and it tried to be “2001” in the zero hour and fell on it’s face.
Also not letting people know what happened to well over half of the characters in a very character driven narrative at it’s conclusion doesn’t help the people saying that the end did not serve as DLC baiting. Yes it’s free, but you can thank a shitstorm of biblical proportions for the new price tag.
Still if you haven’t played them, do it.
Aliens? My god what horrible fucking analogy.
Doubt this will mend it as much as the game needs. I played all three back to back after finishing the third one for the first time. The trajectory in the games’ quality is thrown into such sharp relief it almost makes you laugh. I at first thought the ending was the only problem with that game. No. It has far, far more issues that a gleeful first playthrough allows you to merrily overlook.
What you mean bits of character moments breaking apart action beats is somehow off the mark?
If you are speaking in terms of quality there is a vast difference.
Releasing up against the first Skytime DLC. It’ll be interesting to see how the sales effect eachother.
Well, since one is a free DLC and the other is not I think the answer to your query is “not at all.”
Just trying go for “2001” is pretty damn respectable in my opinion, even if they didn’t quite slam-dunk it.
Ah, somehow I missed that Mass Effect 3 was going to be a free DLC. Though people downloading Mass Effect 3 to play through the new ending instead of jumping on Skyrim could still have an impact on sales of Dawnguard
If it does have an impact it’ll probably only be the first day sales, and probably only slightly. I think the main audience for the EC is going to mainly be Mass Effect fans, the average gamer probably doesn’t care about it that much; and it’s going to be them that make up the majority of “Dawnguard’s” sales.
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