"Mass Effect 3," which we all greatly resented until the next installment (open in new tab) came out, received a lot of flak for its ending. Fans said that the ending was lacking, that their decisions were not taken into account, and that choosing an ending was anticlimactic. Not unreasonably, none of this misses the real point: why didn't they all kiss and make up?

Violet McVinney, a former developer at BioWare who now heads her own studio, clearly agrees. When she was still working at BioWare, McViney had a tradition of creating alternate ending videos for the studio's games. This was "ME3."

It is moving, heartwarming, and overwhelming. It's a cinematic triumph, a final scene that resonates more emotionally than all that "Control" and "Synthesis" nonsense. The way Shepard and Illusive Man finally put aside their differences and embrace each other really puts the "Mass Effect" series in the right perspective, whatever the theme of the series is.

Well, well, I will admit that there is something unsatisfying about this ending as well. Naturally, I wanted the lover waiting for Shepard to pass his dying friend to be Harbinger, a two-kilometer-tall space-dwelling elder god who plots the extinction of all advanced organic life forms. Martin Sheen will have to suffice for now. Maybe he'll be in "Mass Effect 4" (open in new tab).

Speaking of which, it was N7 day the other day, and BioWare gave fans a little more treat in the form of old concept art (opens in new tab) with a hidden message. In it, you can hear Liara T'soni of Mass Effect saying, "You're right, the council will be furious, but you already know not to underestimate human rebellion. Nevertheless, we do know that the next game will be produced with Unreal Engine 5 and that several Mass Effect veterans are returning (open in new tab) to work on development. Also, it probably won't end with a passionate embrace of the lead antagonist. Huh...