(Warning:
Mass Effect Series
Spoilers, especially Mass Effect 3. You have been warned.)
When
I proofread the column from last week, I had realized something.
While I did much to outline the problems in the
Mass Effect
series and its choices, specifically how they did not significantly
influence events in Mass
Effect 3,
I only outlined the problem. I did not spend time demonstrating
possible solutions. This week's article will be dedicated to that. I
am going to assume that you read the previous article, or at least
have familiarity with the three Mass Effect games and the outcomes
depicted in the second and third game of the player's decisions. As
such, I will not be explaining the decisions, the backstory, or the
consequences (or lack thereof) of any of them in any significant
detail. Fixing this problem might seem like a grand undertaking, but
the reality is that Bioware already laid down a great framework to
work with. Truthfully, the problem with choices having no influence
on the plot only needs a series of small, minor fixes in order to
work. While this does not do much since the game is already released,
it will serve as a good lesson to those who are writing their own
tales in the gaming industry.
First off, let us talk about the decision to save or kill the Rachni
Queen is the first game. Here is how I would have written the
outcomes to those decisions: I would keep the consequences for
sparing the Rachni Queen the exact same. The side-quest is already
pretty well-written for this choice. However, once the player has
made the decision of whether or not to save the Rachni Queen a second
time, there should be an aftermath to that decision reflected in the
gameplay. Choosing to save her a second time should result in not
only a slight drop in Ravager enemies (indoctrinated Rachni), but
there should be some places (only one or two) where the player has
the option of having Rachni soldiers fight with them, beyond the
increase in war assets. This would make sense as the Reapers would
have access to the Rachni still under their command and would still
have the capability to indoctrinate Rachni, albeit to a significantly
lower degree. Also, since the player saved the Queen twice now, she
should be grateful enough to lend a hand in as many ways as she is
able. She is no fool and knows that the galaxy is at stake.
Choosing to leave her to die if you spared her before should have an
even more dramatic drop in Ravager enemies than if you choose to save
her again. The reasoning behind this is that the Reapers would still
have access to the Ravagers they already possess. However, with the
death of the Queen, they are unable to make more Rachni to add to
their forces. Not doing this quest would leave the game as, because
the Reapers will still have control of the Rachni Queen and her
hoards.
If the player chose to kill the Rachni Queen in the original game,
then that should have dramatic effects on the world. Since the Rachni
would have been unable to make any more of themselves, the race would
have died out or come very close to it by the beginning of the third
game. This means that there would be no Ravagers in Mass Effect 3.
However, it would also mean that there would be no chance of adding
the Rachni to the player's war assets. This way, the player's choice
takes effect and it feels like they changed the world. Furthermore,
it means that neither choice was “incorrect” as both have their
pros and cons. Players who replay the game continue to agonize over
which choice they will make, determining whether an easier time
playing through the levels is worth having a harder time in getting a
strong enough fleet.
Building on this theme of choice and consequences, the decision to
save or abandon the Council in the original Mass Effect needed to
have more weigh in the overall plot. If the player saved the Council
in the first game, then they should be much more receptive to
him/her. While they dismiss Sheppard's claim that the Reapers are
coming in Mass Effect 2, the fact that Sheppard believes this should
cast doubt in their minds. (Anderson even implies that they are
scared and unsure in the second game if he becomes Councilor.)
Anxious, they begin to order their respective peoples to prepare
defenses, expand research on weapons/defense systems, boost military
recruitment and training, etc.. When the Reapers invade, these
advances should not be enough to repel the Reapers, but the races
will be able to hold there against the Reaper forces long enough to
evacuate non-combatants and world leaders to safer nebulae of space
because of them. When Sheppard approaches the Council for aid, they
would be more receptive to Sheppard's call for assistance. They would
send preliminary forces to aid Earth, but still need Sheppard to
assist them with the problems on their worlds before they could
mobilize their entire armadas against the Reaper forces. When doing
missions on the council race's home-worlds, there should be slightly
fewer enemies because they would have been better prepared to thwart
attacks from both the Reapers and Cerberus. However, abandoning the
council should have the same ramifications that it does already. The
new council should not trust Sheppard since he/she left the previous
council to die, making it more difficult to sway them. Doing it this
way allows the player to once again give meaning to his/her choice
without making that choice wipe out hours of gameplay.
The
next re-write that I would do would be to the effects of the choice
of who gets to be the human Councilor: Anderson or Udina. The biggest
problem with this choice is that the game negates it and makes Udina
councilor regardless, but that is not the only flaw. Still, the
groundwork here is solid, and only requires a few tweaks to have
meaningful consequences. First off, I do not think that the scenes in
Mass Effect 2
need changing. They are pretty well written and diversified depending
on who is Councilor and whether or not the Council was saved.
However, they should have more effects in the game. For example, if
Anderson is Councilor, then it should be possible to abandon Cerberus
altogether and join up with the Alliance in Mass
Effect 2.
The missions do not change, except the player receives Alliance
funding and the mission briefings/dossiers can be given to Sheppard
through Admiral Hackett or Anderson. (We can explain this away by
saying that there are Alliance spies in Cerberus.) In the third game,
Anderson (like the other Councilors) divides his attention between
politics and saving Earth. He will slowly spend more time focusing on
Earth and begin to leave the political bureaucracy to Udina. Udina
can still betray everyone for Cerberus, but with Anderson as
councilor, he will have significantly less influence and as such,
Cerberus will not be as strong of a force as it is in the current
game. Furthermore, once Sheppard arrives on the scene and reveals
that Udina is a traitor, Anderson will be there to either make Udina
answer to these accusations or order Kaiden/Ashley to stand down.
Anderson will then move to Earth to help lead the fight against the
Reapers in the end game. Making Udina councilor should leave all the
events in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 the same, since the sheer
scale of Udina's betrayal would be highly dependent on his position.
I would try to write a way to make the choice of Udina as Councilor
be equivalent in terms of pros and cons, but Udina is clearly shown
to be the “wrong” choice to make. Seriously, no
one
would choose Udina for any reason besides that they wanted to see
what would happen. This guy is a complete jerk and in no way was he
ever to be trusted. I am trying to be impartial, but it is harder
than you would think.
Lastly, I would probably make some major changes to the Geth-Quarian
conflict depending on the choices the player makes in the second game
regarding advising the Quarians and the Geth decision. This is
further compounded by the fact that it is possible for the player to
completely skip these decisions. To facilitate this, I will make the
current scene with the war being fought as the default scene for
skipping these choices, leaving room for variation with the death of
Tali or Legion. If the player advocated peace with the Geth, then I
would dramatically change the scene. I would have the Quarians and
the Geth be in the middle of peace negotiations when the Reaper
invasion begins. When the Reapers attack, then the two sides agree to
at least a temporary truce. However, the Reapers have set up a
barricade at the Mass Relay to prevent their fleets from leaving the
cluster. (The Normandy would be able to escape using its stealth
drive.) The fight would then be about defeating the Reaper forces in
the area so that the two forces can escape and provide support on the
fight for Earth. The missions do not change, except that the player
will now be going up against Reaper hoards instead of the Geth.
However, if the player did not take part in Legion's side-quest, then
Heretic Geth would also be mixed in with the hoard. If the player
blew up the Heretic Base, then there would be fewer Heretic Geth
because not all the Heretics would be blown up at the base. If the
player re-wrote the Heretics, then the Geth who are on the players
side will be strong enough to aid the player (at his/her behest) and
will contribute more to the fight to reclaim Earth.
The
player choosing to encourage the Quarians to fight the Geth should
also result in a similar scenario to the one that is already in the
main game. The only exception I would throw is that Legion and the
Geth will be more hesitant to trust Sheppard, since Sheppard helped
incite this war. The player would need to do additional tasks in
order to re-gain Legion's trust. Until they do so, it would be
impossible to side with the Geth or arrange peace with the two races.
Furthermore, it will also lock the player out of the Geth Consensus
side-quest until he/she achieves a good reputation with the Geth.
Re-writing the Heretics should add to the Geth forces fought during
missions and destroying the Base should result in a reduced number of
enemies to kill. It should not be impossible to side with the Geth
after advocating war, but it should be much more difficult than it
would be if the player either advocated peace or did not do anything.
I am not
saying that these solutions are perfect. Far from it. Admittedly,
these re-writes approach bad fan fiction at times. This is more to
prove a point. The point is that it is entirely possible to take
player choices into account when making the game beyond simply
referencing previous events in dialogue. Those choices could have
been used to alter the experience in a series of small ways that,
when combined, add to the total replay value of the game and make the
player feel like they truly had an influence on the world and its
inhabitants. Implementing systems like this would, no doubt, require
much effort on the part of Bioware. However, if they were unwilling
or unable to put this effort into the game, then they should have
though about that before marketing the game based on choice and
consequence. But again, I am being too harsh on the game. There is
much to be lauded about the Mass Effect franchise. The characters,
world, and lore are all very detailed, deep, and well-written.
Bioware has nearly perfected the gameplay of the franchise as the
series went on. Lastly, they did what many developers fail to do and
made the players feel attached to world and truly care about the
people in it. That is no small accomplishment by any means. That why
writing things like this hurts. It saddens me to think about all of
the wasted potential of the franchise. I love so many things about
it, but it is at its core, deeply flawed.
