What Woud You Change if You Were Given the Option to Remake Mass Effect 3

[Winter]

A couple of years ago I wrote up a synopsis on how I would change ME3 I wanted to go over what I change and would like to know what you would change if you were given the option to remake Mass Effect 3. While the games biggest issue is it's ending as even over a decade later it is still regarded as one of the worst endings in the history of Pop-Culture there were a number of other issues the game had so when I wrote my idea for a remake I removed elements I didn't like or outright hated while still working to keep what I enjoyed about the game.

Here's my Original Remake that I posted on DeviantArt Back in 2017.

https://www.deviantart.com/winterthe-ma ... -718178807

https://www.deviantart.com/winterthe-ma ... -719018574

https://www.deviantart.com/winterthe-ma ... -719220781

https://www.deviantart.com/winterthe-ma ... -720434621

https://www.deviantart.com/winterthe-ma ... -721595548

https://www.deviantart.com/winterthe-ma ... -721595783

https://www.deviantart.com/winterthe-ma ... -721596004

https://www.deviantart.com/winterthe-ma ... -722756943

Not my best work but I'm still really proud of it and I would like to know what you all think on it. Though, as the title says, I'm more interested to know what you would all change about ME3 if you were given the option to rewrite the game?

[Beelzquill]

I'm totally gonna read that, it might take me a couple of weeks because I am currently terrible at reading but I will.

As for what I would do, well for starters I would change up the beginning of the game drastically. I would show a little of the trial, either for arrival or working with Cerberus to begin with. That seems like the best place to get exposition out for new players anyway. I wouldn't have promoted Ashley Williams to Lt. Commander of all ranks because that was ridiculous. I'd have her just be a lieutenant which makes way more sense and naturally progresses her family story. Kaiden wouldn't be promoted because he doesn't really need to be and it's kind of confusing for Sheppard to be the leader when Kaiden definitely outranks him on missions. I would have the kid be replaced by mentions of the Virmire Casualty and have that character be the ghost that haunts Sheppard in between story missions. The dead kid being something sheppard focuses on for the rest of the game doesn't have an emotional impact unless the player cares about the kid and the prologue is just not enough time for that. I would have the trial be on Arcturus Station instead of earth and actually not have the reapers curbstomp Earth as badly as in the main game. I would have the alliance actually hold steady but be beaten back as the game progresses so that it's more believable that you could take earth back.

People rightly crap on the ending but the beginning isn't exactly great either. I might compose more walls of text later but the only thing I can think of now is making Javik a plot important main character instead of dlc.

[Winter]

I'm totally gonna read that, it might take me a couple of weeks because I am currently terrible at reading but I will.

I hope you enjoy it and please tell what you think of it when you're done as it was a bit of a passion project for me. Though I would like to apologize in advance as due to my dyslexia there are SEVERAL writing errors and some sentences that just abruptly end and some lines of thoughts that just come out of nowhere. I did my best but if some bits seem a bit insane that is purely down to my brain now knowing how to literally write.

Still, besides that, I'm still proud of said project and I hope you enjoy it.

[Beelzquill]

I hope you enjoy it and please tell what you think of it when you're done as it was a bit of a passion project for me. Though I would like to apologize in advance as due to my dyslexia there are SEVERAL writing errors and some sentences that just abruptly end and some lines of thoughts that just come out of nowhere. I did my best but if some bits seem a bit insane that is purely down to my brain now knowing how to literally write.

Still, besides that, I'm still proud of said project and I hope you enjoy it.

Ok, I just finished reading the Arrival expansion pack post. I totally agree that it is the place to start. I love bringing Padik and Dagg to introduce them. That makes me care for them a lot more in ME3 and gives a lot more backstory depth to them. I like the idea of Ajax but I'll admit the name throws me off. For some reason I allways imagined Batarian names should be Indian or Pakistani styled, Khar'shan just sounds like a south Asian name to me, maybe a name like Shova, Rojash would feel more natural. Then again I'm probably falling into the Planet of Hat trope assuming all Batarians should be named on One Theme even though billions of people would have extremely different cultures and naming conventions. I think it would be more interesting to have Ajax be not friendly to Shepard, but friendly to Jamison since Jamison has worked with Batarians and Shepard most likely has a bad history with them(bring down the sky, Colonist Shepard, War hero shepard, And definitely Ruthless Shep).

I have to disagree about having a nonshepard pc though. I think having Shepard be resurrected by Cerberus kinda seals the whole "Shepard is too important to lose" idea and having him/her surviving the Suicide Mission not be necessary makes the whole of ME2 kinda pointless. That being said I allways thought ME2 killing and resurrecting Shepard was one of the biggest mistakes of ME2 so if you're thinking along the lines of "This Shepard wasn't killed and resurrected" then I'm totally onboard with that. I also like the way Jamison sounds.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Virmire Survivor story. On the one hand, it's definitely better than what happened canonically. But on the other hand, maybe them not trusting Shepard and rebuilding that trust would be better rewritten in 3 rather than an expansion pack between games.

As far as the missions go, I like them, I'm curious as to whether or not Shepard/Jamison get hard data that confirms reapers are coming or if it's yet another we have to destroy everything because indoctrination. I really like that the Thanix cannon isn't nerfed here. I wouldn't mind more characterization of Kensen though, she didn't really have much of a character in the main game and if she is a potential squadmate that I can take for 5 missions I feel like she should make an impression, then again I haven't played Arrival in a really long time.

Overall I'm really impressed and interested in your story so far. will post again later.
Edit: stupid grammar

[CharlesPhipps]

Weird fact, I'd only change ONE THING.

The game ends when Shepard lies down beside Admiral Anderson. The last thing before the credits is Admiral Hackett calling you and saying, "The Reapers are blowing up, Shepard! You did it!"

[fade to black]

The End.

[Winter]

Weird fact, I'd only change ONE THING.

The game ends when Shepard lies down beside Admiral Anderson. The last thing before the credits is Admiral Hackett calling you and saying, "The Reapers are blowing up, Shepard! You did it!"

[fade to black]

The End.

Well, that's one ending I sort of wrote which is all about giving Shepard a funeral if s/he died in the final battle. I did my best to account for all the ways the game could end by splitting it into 4 versions. A happy ending, a bitter sweet ending, a downer ending and a rocks falls every body dies ending. I know there's no way to please everyone but I did what I could to end the Trilogy on the idea that it would have Multiple endings that were A) Narratively Satisfying and B) Were affected by your choices throughout the Trilogy (like how Tuchanka and Rannoch were) as the developers had promised.

I have to admit I didn't enjoy writing Shepard dying and never getting a chance to be with their love interest but I also had to take into account that some fans my want that ending and it WAS worked into the narrative of the story I wrote so I had to write.

So, I hope that if some day, SOMEHOW, I end up turning this into a reality (unlikely I know but strangers things have happened) I hope you enjoy it on the whole.

[Riedquat]

No simple "win" button. The Crucible should've been introduced in ME2 (1 sets up the threat, 2 finds the solution, 3 implements it), and it's enough to provide the edge needed rather than a magic Reaper sorter-outer. No contrived negatives just to make it not seem too good ("can't have a completely happy ending, that would be unconvincing, so let's just arbitrarily chuck in some downsides just to deal with that"). Realise that Synthesis is the horror that it is. Ditch Kai Leng. Face the issues with curing the genophage - they're just brushed under the carpet - why shouldn't we expect another Krogan Rebellion with them? Although that was easily the best arc of the game despite that. Drop the "Udina's a bad guy" part - just as it was giving the impression that he may be an arsehole but still on the right side it shoved him back to nope, no redeeming features. Black and white villain after all, how boring.

Perhaps somehow involve all the war assets from the game as a strategy-type thing at the end, although that could easily be a disaster due to the complete change of style, so would be very difficult to pull off successfully.

[CharlesPhipps]

Kai leng is awesome and should kill most of your companions and maybe betray Harbinger.



I really like the idea that in any fight, Kai Leng will just utterly dominate Shepard and his companions.

[Beelzquill]

I'm totally gonna read that, it might take me a couple of weeks because I am currently terrible at reading but I will.

I hope you enjoy it and please tell what you think of it when you're done as it was a bit of a passion project for me.

Allright Winter, I have read the whole rewrite. Be warned, I just typed over fifteen hundred words.

Where to start, I guess I'll start with the gameplay. Overall I love the redesign for the Normandy and the vehicle ideas. I missed the Mako in ME3. The matchmaker idea is very interesting, though I don't know if I would hook up Jack and Miranda but then again it really should be up to the player so, I'm down with it. Tell you what, your femshep can romance Tali if my broshep can romance Garrus . I have to disagree with cutting Infiltrator, Vanguard, and especially Sentinel though. Those are literally my 2nd, 3rd, and #1 classes to play as respectively. I just want to Tech Armor in peace man. I like the level ideas as well, I am not particularly good at level design so I have little to add there.

Now for the story sections. Your Act One is perfect. I would not change a damn thing. I actually got a little invested in Lane's character reading that, and I knew she would die. Only thing that confused me was the use of the term Man-of-war because I thought in Mass Effect there were only Frigates, Cruisers, Dreadnoughts, and recently Carriers as far as big ships were concerned. I really like using the squad assignment idea to explain Liara forcing the non-James party member out. It is much a much more natural way to execute that in comparison to the what the game actually did. I think you decided that EDI shouldn't be a squadmate and I completely agree, that actually was slightly annoying in the original game that I would take this deathbot that was made by my enemies and was trying to kill me ten seconds ago as a squadmate. I guess the only thing I might say is that Ajax should not be killable in Arrival just so you definitely have a tech focused squadmate in this game but that's really it. I'm really enjoying this rewrite so far.

For Act Two, I'm a still mostly liking it but I am a little confused. I really like Sur'Kesh, Tuchanka, Citadel, and Palaven. I am neutral on Rannoch(fitting since that one is the least changed but was arguably the best mission in the original game) and Leviathan. I am somewhat confused by Thessia and Omega.

I'll talk about Omega first, I don't understand why you think Aria being willing to sacrifice hundreds of civilians to save herself is out of character. She's basically someone who killed her way to a position of power that actually rivals the Citadel in the Milky Way Galaxy. Sure, she has a soft side and isn't actively malicious but the type of person who becomes a crime boss has to be capable of killing innocents to save herself. Nyreen surviving and potentially being a permanent squadmate is still a plus though.

Now for Thessia, I do not understand the Thessia conflict. Why would the Justicars be fighting the Commandos? If anything, I think the Commandos would basically be on the Justicar side, seeing as they are probably a good amount of the recruiting pool for the Justicar order. Wouldn't the Justicars be more likely to be in conflict with business tycoons of Illium and the Mecenary captains? They seemed to be the least traditional of the Asari and would oppose the very traditional Justicars. Actually, now that I think about it, the Justicars and Mercs would be the military assets of the traditional, conservative factions and the unorthodox, liberal factions of Asari society. I guess I really didn't get why the commandos and Justicars were fighting. I do like getting Samara as a squadmate again though, she was one of the squadmates whose not rejoining made the least sense to me.

Not much to say for Rannoch. I totally agree on seeing Tali's face. I totally agree it didn't need to be changed much. The only thing I can think of and I'm not sure of this myself, is that I would like the geth consensus mission to show us more of the bad acts of Geth. To be clear, I don't the Geth to be "the bad guys" of the Morning War, just that it seems like Legion/GethVI shows us something that very positive for the Geth and paints the Quarians as the total and complete instigators in the war. I would have liked to see loyal Legion give us a more complete picture while disloyal Legion or the Geth VI shows up the original footage but that's just me. It is totally fine as it.

As for Leviation, I think it's fine but there should probably be a little more strategy and tactics to cover the Reaper War since this is basically the campaign that gives the allied races a fighting chance. I get that you probably didn't want to go into that (hell, I don't really want to get into it too much and I'm asking for it) but it would help the players understand why they're important, and why they are necessary to get to the thread act( sorry, couldn't resist, as you can no doubt see, I am much worse at grammar, believe me) and not Tuchanka, Rannoch, or Omega.

Now for the ones I really like. Tuchanka is great, the only thing I would put back in is the Turian platoon/bomb plot but I get why you removed it. The only two things I'm confused about in Citadel is if Jamison is doomed to die because s/he doesn't have implants and where exactly Thane gets his tearjerking death scene? Ok, one more thing, I really think there should be a flaying Kai Leng alive section but whatever.

I love the evacuate Palaven campaign. I really want to see how the Turian people are this military culture and how well they fight back and even that is not enough. Being able to piss the Turian Primarch off enough that he will try to genocide humanity after the war is really interesting. I really wanted to meet Garrus's dad in the trilogy so bad. The only thing I would change is having these "anger the Turians" options be a clear short term gain. There should definitely be an player rationalization to do these things.

I think my favorite of these new campaigns is Sur'Kesh. The Salarians are my favorite race in Mass Effect and getting to be involved in their society Winter Palace style is incredibly cool to me. Would Iniga be the feminine version of Inigo? Eh, Inigo does sound better anyway and Salarians don't have to follow our gendered language conventions so screw it I think the name is good. It makes sense you would have to work for the overthrow of the government, Linron would be entrenched and you would need inside people like Wiiks and Kirrahe to get the STG on board with it. Man do I want to see what a Salarian city really looks like and not just that lab we got in the original game.

I have basically nothing of note to say about the side quests, I still haven't played Witcher 3 but I'm sure using them as a frame of reference is a good idea, everybody I've met who has played it vouches for them. Wouldn't going to the Hanar homeworld involve going underwater in divesuit or something? How would that work in a firefight context? As far as From the Ashes is concerned. I get it, with your rewrite, the whole prothean device being cut makes Javik sort of unneccessary. I personally loved Javik, he has this whole bitter outlook on the universe that undercuts how bad it can get if we lose this war. I don't know what I would do with him in you're rewrite honestly. Maybe make him tech oriented and be the mandatory Tech guy provided you don't have either Ajax or EDI as squadmates? Yeah I think you probably have the best that can be written for him in this rewrite.

Now for Act Three. It feels like it would be epic. Promoting Shepard to Admiral or Commodore is something that would make me feel like s/he has made this huge mark on the galaxy and I adore it. My only real question is why would we even have a ground campaign? Wouldn't it be better to fight the reapers in space and take out the fleet then when you have full void and atmospheric supremacy, make mincemeat out of the remaining husks on the ground? In the original game, the reason we needed to land was obvious, the only way to get inside the Citadel, and thus the only way to activate the Crucible, was through the conduit on the planet and we needed to take it. But all in all if you can get a justification for that, I am with this ending a hundred percent. I like the Dragon Age Origins reference where you use your armies as a power wheel.

Overall, I love your rewrite and if that was the game instead, I probably would have loved ME3, though I would have been pissed I couldn't Tech Armor but still, from a plot angle I loved it.

[Winter]

Allright Winter, I have read the whole rewrite. Be warned, I just typed over fifteen hundred words.

Where to start, I guess I'll start with the gameplay. Overall I love the redesign for the Normandy and the vehicle ideas. I missed the Mako in ME3. The matchmaker idea is very interesting, though I don't know if I would hook up Jack and Miranda but then again it really should be up to the player so, I'm down with it. Tell you what, your femshep can romance Tali if my broshep can romance Garrus . I have to disagree with cutting Infiltrator, Vanguard, and especially Sentinel though. Those are literally my 2nd, 3rd, and #1 classes to play as respectively. I just want to Tech Armor in peace man. I like the level ideas as well, I am not particularly good at level design so I have little to add there.

Now for the story sections. Your Act One is perfect. I would not change a damn thing. I actually got a little invested in Lane's character reading that, and I knew she would die. Only thing that confused me was the use of the term Man-of-war because I thought in Mass Effect there were only Frigates, Cruisers, Dreadnoughts, and recently Carriers as far as big ships were concerned. I really like using the squad assignment idea to explain Liara forcing the non-James party member out. It is much a much more natural way to execute that in comparison to the what the game actually did. I think you decided that EDI shouldn't be a squadmate and I completely agree, that actually was slightly annoying in the original game that I would take this deathbot that was made by my enemies and was trying to kill me ten seconds ago as a squadmate. I guess the only thing I might say is that Ajax should not be killable in Arrival just so you definitely have a tech focused squadmate in this game but that's really it. I'm really enjoying this rewrite so far.

For Act Two, I'm a still mostly liking it but I am a little confused. I really like Sur'Kesh, Tuchanka, Citadel, and Palaven. I am neutral on Rannoch(fitting since that one is the least changed but was arguably the best mission in the original game) and Leviathan. I am somewhat confused by Thessia and Omega.

I'll talk about Omega first, I don't understand why you think Aria being willing to sacrifice hundreds of civilians to save herself is out of character. She's basically someone who killed her way to a position of power that actually rivals the Citadel in the Milky Way Galaxy. Sure, she has a soft side and isn't actively malicious but the type of person who becomes a crime boss has to be capable of killing innocents to save herself. Nyreen surviving and potentially being a permanent squadmate is still a plus though.

Now for Thessia, I do not understand the Thessia conflict. Why would the Justicars be fighting the Commandos? If anything, I think the Commandos would basically be on the Justicar side, seeing as they are probably a good amount of the recruiting pool for the Justicar order. Wouldn't the Justicars be more likely to be in conflict with business tycoons of Illium and the Mecenary captains? They seemed to be the least traditional of the Asari and would oppose the very traditional Justicars. Actually, now that I think about it, the Justicars and Mercs would be the military assets of the traditional, conservative factions and the unorthodox, liberal factions of Asari society. I guess I really didn't get why the commandos and Justicars were fighting. I do like getting Samara as a squadmate again though, she was one of the squadmates whose not rejoining made the least sense to me.

Not much to say for Rannoch. I totally agree on seeing Tali's face. I totally agree it didn't need to be changed much. The only thing I can think of and I'm not sure of this myself, is that I would like the geth consensus mission to show us more of the bad acts of Geth. To be clear, I don't the Geth to be "the bad guys" of the Morning War, just that it seems like Legion/GethVI shows us something that very positive for the Geth and paints the Quarians as the total and complete instigators in the war. I would have liked to see loyal Legion give us a more complete picture while disloyal Legion or the Geth VI shows up the original footage but that's just me. It is totally fine as it.

As for Leviation, I think it's fine but there should probably be a little more strategy and tactics to cover the Reaper War since this is basically the campaign that gives the allied races a fighting chance. I get that you probably didn't want to go into that (hell, I don't really want to get into it too much and I'm asking for it) but it would help the players understand why they're important, and why they are necessary to get to the thread act( sorry, couldn't resist, as you can no doubt see, I am much worse at grammar, believe me) and not Tuchanka, Rannoch, or Omega.

Now for the ones I really like. Tuchanka is great, the only thing I would put back in is the Turian platoon/bomb plot but I get why you removed it. The only two things I'm confused about in Citadel is if Jamison is doomed to die because s/he doesn't have implants and where exactly Thane gets his tearjerking death scene? Ok, one more thing, I really think there should be a flaying Kai Leng alive section but whatever.

I love the evacuate Palaven campaign. I really want to see how the Turian people are this military culture and how well they fight back and even that is not enough. Being able to piss the Turian Primarch off enough that he will try to genocide humanity after the war is really interesting. I really wanted to meet Garrus's dad in the trilogy so bad. The only thing I would change is having these "anger the Turians" options be a clear short term gain. There should definitely be an player rationalization to do these things.

I think my favorite of these new campaigns is Sur'Kesh. The Salarians are my favorite race in Mass Effect and getting to be involved in their society Winter Palace style is incredibly cool to me. Would Iniga be the feminine version of Inigo? Eh, Inigo does sound better anyway and Salarians don't have to follow our gendered language conventions so screw it I think the name is good. It makes sense you would have to work for the overthrow of the government, Linron would be entrenched and you would need inside people like Wiiks and Kirrahe to get the STG on board with it. Man do I want to see what a Salarian city really looks like and not just that lab we got in the original game.

I have basically nothing of note to say about the side quests, I still haven't played Witcher 3 but I'm sure using them as a frame of reference is a good idea, everybody I've met who has played it vouches for them. Wouldn't going to the Hanar homeworld involve going underwater in divesuit or something? How would that work in a firefight context? As far as From the Ashes is concerned. I get it, with your rewrite, the whole prothean device being cut makes Javik sort of unneccessary. I personally loved Javik, he has this whole bitter outlook on the universe that undercuts how bad it can get if we lose this war. I don't know what I would do with him in you're rewrite honestly. Maybe make him tech oriented and be the mandatory Tech guy provided you don't have either Ajax or EDI as squadmates? Yeah I think you probably have the best that can be written for him in this rewrite.

Now for Act Three. It feels like it would be epic. Promoting Shepard to Admiral or Commodore is something that would make me feel like s/he has made this huge mark on the galaxy and I adore it. My only real question is why would we even have a ground campaign? Wouldn't it be better to fight the reapers in space and take out the fleet then when you have full void and atmospheric supremacy, make mincemeat out of the remaining husks on the ground? In the original game, the reason we needed to land was obvious, the only way to get inside the Citadel, and thus the only way to activate the Crucible, was through the conduit on the planet and we needed to take it. But all in all if you can get a justification for that, I am with this ending a hundred percent. I like the Dragon Age Origins reference where you use your armies as a power wheel.

Overall, I love your rewrite and if that was the game instead, I probably would have loved ME3, though I would have been pissed I couldn't Tech Armor but still, from a plot angle I loved it.

First, thank you for taking the time to read through my rewrite and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

But onto your questions I do want to address a few of them starting with Omega. It wasn't that I felt that Aria was out of character rather I just think she was TO ruthless. As I said in the rewrite when even Renegade Players are put off by how coldblooded she was it's time to take a few steps back. And yeah, that was a criticism of Omega, that even people who played as a Renegade were put off to how uncaring Aria was in the DLC.

I think it was mostly down to the scene were Aria insists on overloading the reactor just to get out of a fight a little early. I mean she wants to just kill people just because she doesn't want to fight anymore even though she and Nyreen aren't in that much danger. Causing the people of Omega to become a mob is something most Renegade players were okay with as many of them would likely have done the same thing.

But straight up murdering several innocents just to avoid what is, really, a minor inconvenience for everyone involved I think was the straw that broke the Renegade Players back.

As for Thessia. Part of the problem I face with Rewriting ME3 was that I needed to keep to what was set up or hinted at in ME1 and ME2 and sadly there wasn't really much set up with the Asari. With Sur'Kesh it was fairly easy as your main view points into the Salarian world was done mostly through the eyes of those who had been wronged by them, those who worked for them and those you worked for. And none of them painted a good picture about the Salarian leadership so having it were there were those who wanted to over throw the Government was an easy conclusion to come to.

But the Asari? Are main view points to the Asari world was main Liara & Samara and we don't really get much of idea of how the Asari world works so I had to improvise. While many Asari say they admire the Justicar the ones who actually talk about them seem just as much afraid of them as they admire them.

I remembered what Samara said about the Justicar being like Samurai and Knights Errant and my mind wondered to The Last Samurai where the film was all about the changing world of Japan and how the ideas of the Samurai were being cast aside for more modern ideas. The only consistent theme between our three Asari Squad Mates was that they all had a fascination in the past (Liara is an archeologist Samara's being a Justicar has already been talked about and Morinth's ties to the Ardat-Yakshi makes it clear that she wishes she was born in the days the Ardat-Yakshi were worship as Goddesses) while also trying to also adapt to the present.

So, my thought was to explore that idea. Sure, some Asari see the Justicars as heroes but the Asari are a people and people have wildly different opinions on anything and everything. I could see the Justicars developing something of a rivalry with the Asari Commandos (which is a group often talked about but never really explored) with the latter often crossing paths with the former and killing one or several of their numbers to appease their code.

The idea fits into the themes of Mass Effect as the sins or virtues of the past are often debated and given so little of Asari culture was explored I thought this would be a good way to get more of a view into their world that tied into that theme.

As for continuing to go on the ground after being promoted, at the end of the day Mass Effect is a shooter and changing the game to a strategy game in the final act would be rather jarring. Not that it couldn't be done it would just be hard to pull off and I was still sticking to the gameplay from the original so a sudden change never really occurred to me and even now I would likely keep the gameplay as is because I'm $#!t at Strategy games and can't talk about something I'm terrible at.

I hope this helped explain my reasoning for making these chooses and I'm glad you overall enjoyed the rewrite. Now that Mass Effect is returning and it looks like BioWare is planning to choose one of the colors and ignoring the rest let's hope that the next ME game manages to avoid the mistakes of the past and that they are able to move the series in a new direction.