Sovereign was destroyed while assuming direct control over Saren. This transfer of power to its mass effect generators leaves the Reaper's kinetic barriers at only partial strength. For example, to land on a planet, a Reaper must substantially reduce its mass. This “ queen” would express that the Reapers' old ways were no longer viable and would offer Shepard the chance to bring peace by combining the Reapers with organic life. The Reapers' energy sources are not infinite. From there, Shepard would meet the “ God of the Reapers” in a virtual space that Wilkinson compares to The Matrix. Related: Mass Effect's Gameplay Was Shot On Gone With The Wind's StageĪccording to The Gamer, Mass Effect 3 was originally going to end very differently, with Commander Shepard coming face-to-face with a “Reaper Queen.” In a documentary on the People Make Games YouTube channel, Mass Effect 3 animation director Dave Wilkinson explains that Shepard would augment themselves with Reaper technology in an effort to understand the machines, so much so that they would eventually plug themselves into the main Reaper mind on the Citadel during Mass Effect 3’s climax. The backlash to Mass Effect 3’s ending was swift and widespread throughout the Mass Effect fandom, and BioWare quickly worked to alleviate their outcry with the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut, a DLC add-on that brought additional context to the original ending. The problem players took with this ending was that none of the three choices given provided proper closure to the story that they spent three entire games shaping through dialogue options and major narrative choices, and that the Reapers' motives and actions came across as nonsensical and hypocritical. This program explains the Reapers' mission of protecting organics from rebellion by synthetics and gives Shepard three options to stop the cycle of violence once and for all. This culminates in 2012’s Mass Effect 3, where Shepard finds themselves face-to-face with the AI commanding the Reapers. Throughout the original Mass Effect series, the fully customizable Commander Shepard and their ever-growing team of allies were fighting to defend the Milky Way Galaxy from the Reapers, a race of AI-controlled warships whose goal was to eradicate all organic life. One of the possible endings for Mass Effect 3 had Sheppard transfer their mind into a Reaper, but BioWare was originally planning to take things a step further and have the hero become the ruler of the machines after a confrontation with their “Queen.” Even nearly a decade after Mass Effect 3 was first released, the ending to BioWare’s sweeping sci-fi RPG storyline remains one of the most controversial in all of gaming.