Player choice is at the heart of many BioWare games, and the side and optional missions in Mass Effect 3, but there are several missions or decisions that don't really matter.
Mass Effect 3 is the third and final installment in Commander Shepard's saga, and many players were expecting every decision found throughout the game to be significant. However, this was not the case, and unfortunately, choices that don’t end up mattering are not uncommon in the franchise. Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 both offered players the opportunity to make choices that did not affect the ending. As a result of this exact problem, the series has been criticized at times.
Mass Effect 3 does feature events that have been influenced by the choices of previous games. In Mass Effect 3, players are given a number of choices that lead them to believe they could have significant consequences. Fans of BioWare’s games will be hoping that any options presented in Mass Effect 4 will continue the original trilogy and its story.
Saving The Rachni Breeder In ME3 Is Pointless
The Breeder is an artificially bred Rachni queen and will only be encountered by players who chose to kill the original Rachni queen on Noveria in Mass Effect 1. The Rachni queen is first discovered when tracking down Matriarch Benezia, mother of Shepard’s companion Liara T'Soni, and is being used to mass-produce an army. Players are given a choice in Mass Effect 1 to kill her or free her.
If spared, the original Rachni queen will be encountered on Utukku, having been captured by the Reapers in Mass Effect 3. Once again, players are given the choice of her fate, with Shepard able to choose between leaving her with the Reapers, killing her, or freeing her again. If released, she will assist Shepard in the war. However, this comes at the cost of severely injuring Shepard’s companion Grunt and the death of the Krogan warriors of Aralakh Company. If players killed the original queen in Mass Effect 3, the Reapers would have bred an artificial one known as the Breeder.
When met on Utukku, players are given a choice to kill or spare the Breeder, with the Breeder Rachni queen promising to spawn ‘children’ loyal to Shepard in exchange. The option offered to players in Mass Effect 3 is between saving the Krogan or saving the Breeder, and it is tempting to save the queen given the offer she makes for unlimited troops. However, if freed, she will betray Shepard, resulting in heavy losses for the war effort, making the choice presented to players pointless.
Rerouting Omega's Reactor In ME 3's Omega DLC Lacks Repurcussions
In the Mass Effect 3 DLC Omega players are sent to the space station of the same name. The ‘ruler’ of Omega Aria has been ousted by Oleg Petrovsky, who works for Mass Effect bad guys Cerberus, and Aria is very unhappy, to say the least. She promises to help players with the war if they help her get Omega back. As the events of the DLC unfold, players are faced with a choice when allies Aria and Turian mercenary Nyreen find themselves trapped. Shepard has the opportunity to save them both but seemingly at the cost of thousands of civilian lives. Players must choose whether to follow Nyreen’s idea of rerouting the power of Omega’s reactor to shut down forcefields trapping them or Aria’s plan of overriding the forcefields, which will kill many citizens of Omega.
At first glance, this Mass Effect player choice seems like a simple one: Nyreen’s plan will take time and could cost the lives of her and Aria. However, in reality, both will survive the encounter if the player follows the Paragon option. By not interrupting the cutscenes between Aria, Nyreen, and Petrovsky, Shepard will continue to reroute the power and eventually lower the forcefields.
The choice is presented as a dramatic one, where there will be severe consequences for the war effort if Aria and Nyreen die. The lack of repercussions makes this choice unimportant and the whole mission disappointing and stressful. However, as Aria and Nyreen will survive no matter what the player chooses to do, then the only real difference is Aria's attitude to Shepard at the end of the DLC.
Mass Effect 3's Controversial Ending Choice
The ending of Mass Effect 3 will perhaps go down in gaming history for all the wrong reasons. Ultimately everything is broken down to a three-way choice where nothing the player has done so far really matters. Unsurprisingly, many players found this insulting and a poor end to Shepard’s story. Throughout the game, the player is urged to collect war assets to battle the invading Reapers; however, none of them matter when it comes down to it. Although BioWare added a fourth choice to defy the Catalyst, it isn’t a real option as it results in the Reapers destroying everything in the galaxy. So the choice for players becomes to obey the Catalyst or die, which isn’t a real choice at all.
Rendering all the player’s forces useless with no actual battle with Mass Effects’ Reaper invasion is more than a little frustrating. Whether a player chooses to Destroy (Red), Control (Blue), or Synthesis (Green) should have been impacted by the war assets gathered. In the end, choices made throughout the game only really impact Shepard’s ending in Mass Effect 3 rather than the galaxy as a whole.
Fans of the series can only hope BioWare has learned from player and choices will have more of an impact in future Mass Effect games. Choices made in this kind of RPG should matter to the overall story, and while the example listed here are annoying, they are only a tiny part of a much larger story. Mass Effect 3 is a game full of meaningful choices allowing players to roleplay their version of Commander Shepard in a way that matters to them.