This former BioWare dev's alternate ME3 ending is canon as far as I'm concerned

An image of Mass Effect's Shepard and The Illusive Man in a passionate embrace.

(Image credit: Violet McVinnie)

Mass Effect 3, the Mass Effect game we were all very upset about until they put out the next one, got a lot of flack for its endings. Fans said they were unsatisfying, that they didn't take your decisions into account, and that choosing between them was anticlimactic. Not unreasonable, but they all miss the real point: Why didn't everyone just kiss and make up?

Violet McVinnie, a former BioWare dev who now heads her own studio, clearly agrees. When she still worked at BioWare, McVinnie had a tradition of creating alternate ending videos for the studio's games that envisioned what would happen if everyone just snogged it out. Here's ME3's.

So I had an interesting habit when I worked at BioWare. The day after we finished making a game I'd always throw together a quick video envisioning what it would be like if our characters would just kiss and make up. I'd need to find the Dragon Age version again. pic.twitter.com/6i4mcGraeXNovember 23, 2022

Touching, heartwarming, overwhelming. A cinematic triumph, and a more emotionally resonant final scene than any of that nonsense about "Control" or "Synthesis". Seeing Shepard and The Illusive Man finally put aside their differences and embrace really puts the Mass Effect series' themes into proper perspective, whatever they were.

Well, alright, I'll admit even this ending leaves something to be desired. Naturally, I'd rather that the lover awaiting Shepard at the end of his long run past all his dying friends was Harbinger, the two-kilometre tall space-dwelling elder god bent on the extermination of all advanced organic life. I guess Martin Sheen will have to do for now. Maybe in Mass Effect 4.

Speaking of which, it was N7 day recently, and BioWare gave fans a few more crumbs to feast on in the form of some old concept art with a hidden message in it. In it, Mass Effect's Liara T'soni can be heard saying "Exactly, the council will be furious, although they should know by now not to underestimate human defiance," which didn't really clear up any remaining questions I had about the next Mass Effect game. We do know the next game will be made in Unreal Engine 5, though, and that a few Mass Effect veterans are returning to work on the game. Also, it probably won't end on a passionate embrace with the main antagonist. Sigh.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.