How the existence of DLC undermines uncertain endings.
NOTE: I would classify this post as not at all spoilery for any of the series mentioned, but that’s just me.
There are two TV series that I love more dearly than any other series in existence (aside, obviously, from Doctor Who) and those are Twin Peaks and the Prisoner.
The astute reader might already know where I’m heading with this line of thought, but for those that may not have experienced these two televisual masterpieces, they are infamous for their endings. At the time of the Prisoner’s initial broadcast Patrick Mcgoohan had to literally leave the country to avoid fans’ ire over the fact that its final episode raised more questions than it answered and, come to think of it, didn’t really answer anything that had gone before. Twin Peaks too left its main threat very much present after one of the most powerful finales ever crafted, giving only a minimal sense of closure to a select group of characters’ story arcs.
A lot of people didn’t like this, a lot of people did. Personally I stand in the group that says; if the only way out of this dire situation is a deus ex machina, then don’t bother even trying to show me a solution because it will serve only to undermine the trials and threats my favourite characters have faced up until now.
What a lot of people didn’t do, however, was convince themselves that that wasn’t the real ending and a comforting, cosy, straightforward ending was going to appear later and consist almost entirely of going through every single plot point that had ever arisen and tying them all up in a neat bow.
Because that’s the trouble with DLC, and Mass Effect in particular has suffered from having not-quite-major-but-still-quite-important plot points being amputated from the main game to be sold on later. I know in my game the characters wouldn’t stop banging on about the destruction of a mass relay that occurred in a DLC pack six months after ME2 came out (give or take)- a piece of DLC I’d not played and I would assume most others weren’t even aware of at that late stage.
DLC storytelling sets a dangerous precedent, because it forces developers to add leeway to the plot for business reasons and so undermines any narrative decision to leave a storyline open for interpretation.
Games are a young medium, but they are also one of the few forms of entertainment where the act of selling them intrudes so strongly on the content of that entertainment. Is it any wonder, therefore, that if we present gamers with a game as open as John Carpenter’s The Thing- or even a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid- they react with cynicism rather than admiration?
