The studio’s original vision for Mass Effect 3 wasn’t the best, and that’s why the developers at BioWare have been given extra work…

People Make Games have released a new documentary. In it, several developers who were working at BioWare at the time shared their experiences from over nine and a half years ago. Many received hate messages and death threats, while others talked about how they had no idea until the very end of development how Mass Effect 3 would even be finished! Casey Hudson, the director of the Mass Effect series at the time, was behind the whole scandal when he told Game Informer that there would be no traditional (i.e. A, B, or C) ending to the game…

Except that there was. Player choices had minimal impact on only one of the three endings, and the decision at the very end of the game was behind it all. The scenes were also mostly the same, with the only exception being the explosion of the Citadel. And that, understandably, became so divisive that the developers who were no longer working there at the time spoke out about the scandalously neglected ending. (They tried to remedy this with the Extended Cut DLC…)

John Ebenger, the cinematics designer (he left BioWare in 2017), said that the team didn’t have much insight into what the ending of Mass Effect 3 would look like. His colleague Zachariah Scott said the same, but he added that there was originally a version that was “completely different on every level”. Manveer Heir, the gameplay designer, admitted that he couldn’t even count how many hate messages he received, while Marc-Antoine Matton pointed out that female developers fared even worse.

BioWare has given in after a petition. It demanded the end of Mass Effect 3, and they decided to work overtime to make a new ending for the game. Many developers believe that this has hurt the studio’s morale, as many thought that they could finally rest after the game’s release… but they couldn’t. After pushing the Extended Cut DLC out the door, they started Dragon Age: Inquisition immediately, which caused many people to seek therapy…

Source: PSL