Happy endings?

As an aspiring writer I had noticed something very interesting in 2012 when it came to the world of game writing. I find this a fascinating industry for writers to be in, but can’t help but wonder if you have to sell out before you can make it? Over the year we saw a lot of game trilogies come to an end, yet the third act to nearly all of them have left a sour taste in every gamers mouths it seems.

Looking back at the start of 2012 we had Mass Effect 3. The space epic created by Bioware this game managed to redefine player controlled story in a game. Players could choose how to react to situations throughout each game and would have to deal with the consequences of those actions. It worked very well during the first game and was made even better by the second; choices from the first were taken over to the second and onward to the third and final part.

That’s a lot of content to write for, a lot of alternative options to be taken at every step, the team of writers done a wonderful job… until the last few moments of Mass Effect 3 that is. It seems with their lead writer from Mass Effect 1 (and co-lead writer for ME2) Drew Karpyshyn gone they forgot about the overall arc and what we were left with was an ending so bad it caused a media storm over fan reactions to it. How did a game praised for its brilliant writing become shamed by it? Was this unavoidable though? The games ending can’t please everyone after all and the writers have to end it as best they can given the varied choices throughout all 3 games. But I can’t help but feel that laziness was the issue here, having one ending painted 3 different colours to give the illusion of choice does not sit well with audiences Bioware learnt. They since have had to go back and “re-edit” the endings for free because of their poor choices… how ironic.

Towards the end of the year another big series of games came to an end; Assassins Creed 3 has a similar tale of third act woes. I question if the writing team had any say on matters when it came to AC3; the ending was so poorly written I was left speechless – had I really invested 3 games (well 5 if we count the two large DLC editions) for such a throw away ending? what happened to this great story arc? When the first game came out way back in 2007 the story itself had a deadline – Desmond Miles had to stop the Templars before December 21st 2012. The writers had five years to work through two more games to conclude this story, yet by AC2 in 2009 this overall arc was put way into the background it seemed. Two further games came out (Brotherhood 2010 & Revelations 2011) and still no big advancements had been made on their overall arc. As a player you knew 2012 was vastly approaching in actual time now and it was frustrating. Could it be the production company “milking it” as it were – what was a trilogy became a game that was being released every year since 2010.

I can’t understand how writers can lose sight of their overall story arc. Are the writers even to blame in the industry though? Lead writers leaving before the end of their created arcs as in Mass Effect 3 – was this to do with Directors, Producers, Designers, Publishers wanting more control over the story? Maybe Assassins creed 3 is an example of why these people shouldn’t have a say in story, who knows what happened there at the moment. If you have writers that can create amazing worlds and characters that excite your audience don’t force them to change what they’re doing! There’s only so much “It was our creative vision” and “artistic integrity” an audience can take.