The final act in the Mass Effect trilogy was an epic spacefaring adventure that was game maker Bioware's final goodbye to the story of Commander Shepard.
For those who finished the fight against the ancient evil known as the reapers, the game's endings were controversial and shocking. The problem is less than half of the players that started Mass Effect 3 actually finished. Bioware's online development director Fernando Melo said only about 42 percent of people that played the game have completed the finale, according to a report in Eurogamer.
Melo also revealed that Mass Effect 3's numbers were lower than the 56 percent of player who finished Mass Effect 2. Surprisingly only 40 percent of player finished the series' first entry. Other Bioware games such as Dragon Age: Origins was only completed by 36 percent, while Dragon Age 2 was completed by 41 percent of players.
It is very possible the controversy over the game's ending may have caused some gamers to shy away from the completion of the series. There are other possibilities as well. Mass Effect 3 was the first game in the series to feature a multiplayer aspect, which took some attention off of the single player mode. The game also forces gamers to level up their galactic battle readiness before the final single player mission. Those aspects of Mass Effect 3 could be slowing down players from getting to the game's ending.
When the game was released in March, gamers launched a campaign of complaints on Bioware's social media pages. Fans even created a petition, and held a fundraiser called "Retake Mass Effect." They raised $80,310 for the charity Child's Play from more than 4,000 contributors.
Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut was released as a direct response to the most common criticisms of the ending. The DLC doesn't actually change the quality of the ending, it just adds more content. The bulk of the added content is just extra dialogue.
In an interview on YouTube, Bioware's Casey Hudson explained the downloadable content, and spoke about the feedback from players, who said the original ending to the three-game series was a letdown.
"I think one aspect is that it's tough to let go of a storyline and characters that you enjoy," said Hudson. "The endings didn't really leave a lot of time to say goodbye to the experience. So a lot of people just wanted more closure."
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Mass Effect 3 will next release as a launch title on Nintendo's Wii U this holiday season.
