Instead of Buzz Aldrin telling the kid about Shepard and such, we see a random female alien basically saying the same thing, indicating that Commander Shepard’s fight and Liara’s beacon did succeed and the cycle was successfully broken by the next generation. The absolute best part happens after the credits for Reject. The epilogue shows Liara’s beacon on one of the developing planets, providing information about the Reapers, Commander Shepard and the cycle. All the civilizations we know and love are destroyed. With Harbinger’s voice, he then says, "So be it." This has cemented the idea in my mind that Harbinger is secretly tsundere for Commander Shepard and offered the other options in the hopes Shepard would choose Control or Synthesis so Harbinger and Shepard could be together forever.Īt that point the Reapers win. You can trigger it through dialogue choices or by just turning around and shooting at the Starchild.Įither way, it makes the Starchild break character. The biggest change is the Refuse ending, which has Shepard rejecting all of the Starchild’s options. This time, an explanatory dialogue option is available as the Starchild lectures about the various choices, so Shepard can see what would happen, a vague idea why and how it would influence the galaxy. Starchild then says having the Catalyst added to the Citadel and offers each option for Shepard to choose. (You can’t point to EDI or the Geth as examples of synthetic/organic harmony). The Starchild then goes into the diatribe about how the race that made the Synthetic Reapers did so to prevent chaos and prevent synthetics from eventually wiping out organic life. Unfortunately, you still encounter the ridiculous Starchild after Shepard passes out trying to reach the console to activate the Catalyst. He then learns Shepard made it to the Citadel, which explains why he knew to hail her. Admiral Hackett is on his ship and a datapad is passed to him. It’s his new Reaper-tech exerting a controlling influence over both Anderson and Shepard.Ī new cutscene then appears after Shepard either talks the Illusive Man to death or shoots him.
Once Shepard reaches the platform area, it’s also made very clear that the black squiggles and clouds that appear on the edges of the screen are the Illusive Man’s influence. Anderson clearly says that he came up after Shepard, explaining why we didn’t see him running. Things are much clearer once Shepard is on the Citadel as well.
As a result, the meaningful goodbye between Garrus and Shepard, in which she told him she loves him and vice versa, was rendered totally unromantic and dramatic. The game would slow to a crawl or nearly freeze up throughout this segment. I took Garrus and Tali with me on this final mission, and Tali kept disappearing. I’m not sure if my experience was unique, but this segment was ridiculously buggy and glitchy. Shepard calls in the Normandy to pick the squadmates up. Now, BioWare’s inserted a scene where one of the squadmates is injured by Harbinger’s attack. Previously, Harbinger would fly in, shoot a beam and the squadmates with Shepard disappear, only to magically reappear on the Normandy. The changes start when Commander Shepard makes her run for the beam that will take her and her squad up to the Citadel. I only play as FemShep so that’s how I tend to think of Commander Shepard.) (Also, forgive me for the use of female pronouns. Spoilers abound ahead, so turn back if you haven’t finished either the regular ending or Extended Cut endings.
BioWare has just let out the free Extended Cut DLC which, at a massive 1.8GB for PS3 owners, expands upon what we knew to help fill up those gaping plotholes. Remember what happened when you beat Mass Effect 3 months ago? Good.