But Mass Effect 3 was their last truly great game. Inquisition was very contentious but it did have SOME fans, but their next games were too busy chasing trends instead of sticking to their bread and butter. Each subsequent game doubled and tripled down on the things people didn't care about, while not trying to go back to their roots.
Hopefully the devs can transition into more indy companies, so that they can make the games they want for the niche communities they want to appeal to and not be tied to huge budgets, expecting even larger returns,
The issue of ME3 was never the ending. Start to finish the game was neutered of rpg systems, dialog, depth and focused heavily instead on streamlining and combat. It even contradicted its entire lore start to finish many times throughout the game. The ending was the product of all of that. The fact this sold to a wider audience meant you'd get more of the same, as you did with Anthem, Andromeda, Inquistion, Veilguard, etc.
If we keep pretending ME3 was a high quality rpg, then we completely miss how players agreed to the trajectory that EA-Ware was pushing for wider sales by larger audiences of combat focus and less on the depth.
Mass effect 2 did the same thing lol. Mass effect 2 actually shit on the lore even worse.
Cerberus? Actually not that bad guys. You know those guys who were actually the fucking most evil vile pieces of shit the whole time. Jk.
Also now you have ammo so the game can be a better shooter.
Also you have way less level abilities and choices for level ups.
Oh and now instead of dealing with missions that a specter deals with? Now you are doing them for Cerberus. Also even tho cerebrum is so anti alien they do horrible alien experiments they actually work with Aliens now or at least let you.
The geth actually aren’t evil. You know the guys who were only evil. Jk not anymore.
I could go on if you want. I am not saying these changes were bad. I like mass effect 2 more. But it is a pretty disrespectful sequel.
Mass effect 3 actually added a lot more rpg elements back into to the level ups and tied up a lot of character arcs very well.
The ending was indeed a big reason why it was bad
Kind of. Mass Effect 2 definitely maintained a connection to Mass Effect 1 and the first book and it did start the streamlining focus as it got more combat focused and changed skills into detonators and primers for combat, and it did cut down on neutral dialog, but it also maintained significant focus on companions far more than the prior game and encouraged heavy amounts of investigation dialog and dialog depth.
It is definitely a desire to expand population size for players with more combat and streamlining and visuals than ME1 was which was Old Guard through and through. But in itself that EA push to more combat wasn't a bad idea it just would have been better if it didn't cut a bit of depth.
The changes from ME1-ME2 were significant, but the changes from ME2-ME3 were a full forced neutering. It stopped being an rpg.
Cerberus puts up a front for you to get you to do something because your connections and capability is believed the only real avenue of access to uncover this secret, especially since Cerberus doesn't have the diplomatic ties or connections necessary. Being a Spectre also gives you significant access if you retake it, and if you don't well you technically still have it just not officially.
But the Geth weren't evil, remember we learned incredibly one-sided knowledge from Tali in ME1 about them but it was clear immediately that it was a sentience vs not sentience factor as we see in AI media all the time at that point. The question was just whether the Quarians made the first strike or not. We also knew the ones following Sovereign were definitely his minions but he was also worshipped by them as we saw in ME1.
Originally Cerberus was supposed to be an offshoot black ops team from Earth and the Alliance but now it's kind of become a company of sorts.
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u/SoupyStain 8h ago
I'd never celebrate people losing their jobs.
But Mass Effect 3 was their last truly great game. Inquisition was very contentious but it did have SOME fans, but their next games were too busy chasing trends instead of sticking to their bread and butter. Each subsequent game doubled and tripled down on the things people didn't care about, while not trying to go back to their roots.
Hopefully the devs can transition into more indy companies, so that they can make the games they want for the niche communities they want to appeal to and not be tied to huge budgets, expecting even larger returns,