I hate: Bioware Finales

But not for the reasons that you think

It sure has been a hot minute since I've done one of these, now hasn't it? And before you start theorising about this being because I've 'grown and matured' over the year, let it be known that in truth I was just being lazy. Oh boy, do I still have endless thousands of truly blood boil-worthy topics to tap into that wholly touch upon the pit of writhing hatred that I call my heart. In fact, this here is an idea that I originally conceived of but never had the chance to attack; it just never seemed like the right time, or perhaps the right target. Maybe I say that as someone who honestly does hold a special place of love for the aggrieving developer, so when they are the one's I'm signalling out it does sort of feel like a betrayal of that love. But then I remind myself of their transgressions, their failings, and how the Bioware of today shares but a name with that old hero; this all helps to affirm that old saying in my head, that love and hatred are siblings, not rivals. Thus I ask you all today to acknowledge the heavy heart with which I ask: Bioware; what is up with your endings?

Closing a book is an event worthy of celebration. It should mark the conclusion of a story, perhaps not the entire breadth of it but at least significant chapter, and thus you'll be met with some slimmer of resolution and maybe even a touch of pathos, if you're lucky. Therefore, conclusions are of such significance to the storytelling process that the commonly held approach of today is to start there, because if you ain't got a decent finale cooking then you're just setting everyone up for disappointment. Nothing robs the wind from your sails like getting to a poor ending, painting all the time you've invested as a waste and oftentimes ruining what might have been a brilliant journey. (>cough< Game of Thrones >cough<) But what if I told you that there exists a way to screw up the ending beyond the narrative construction? Specifically, a plague which can afflict gaming. Does that start to illuminate where I'm going with this blog? If not, let me clearer: Bioware often ruins it's finales to it's many classic games my making the same blunder in each one. I'm being serious; almost every award-worthy title from their halls slips up in the same way!

Let me take a second off to reiterate how bizarre that is. Bioware is not Ubisoft; they haven't stuck themselves in a holding pattern of making the same stupid game over and over with minor gimmicks thrown in each entry and an engine update on good years. Yes, each Bioware game is an RPG but the extent they go to in order to ensure that formula doesn't get old is frankly inspiring. Never, in the same series of games will you encounter two successive Bioware titles that have the same narrative structure; each time it changes up to a significant degree. Dragon Age Origins follows the traditional journey across the country and solving the local problems of the world in whatever order you please so that you might unite folk against the larger overarching problem. Dragon Age 2, on the otherhand, takes place in a single city, where you follow a linear journey of one family's attempt to survive an age of significant upset and turmoil. A lot of the time you don't even have an overarching endgame to fuel you. In Mass Effect you travel across the universe in order to solve others problems, but you do so whilst investigating your own trouble, making each individual story feel like a stepping stone on your own. You get the picture, right? Bioware doesn't stagnate and let themselves dry up. But then, what could be the mistake which they all manage to make in the Nth hour?

Endless enemy spam. In the final mission. Every time. Now take some time to process that whilst I impress upon what type of games that Bioware makes. They're all real-time RPGs that rely on positioning, crowd control, resource management and tactile ability use in order to make up their gameplay. Oftentimes, difficulty spikes occur when the types of enemies you're facing get tougher, or start using more powerful abilities against you. Boss battles are always endurance duels and almost every one of their games requires an instant pause button because they know that with the complexity of everything that could be going on in any given moment, players cherish the opportunity to lean back and really absorb it all in. But when the final mission comes around, all that goes out the window.

Every. Single. Time. Somehow it dawns to the staff that the entire games worth of intelligent enemy placement, group compositioning and steady difficulty balancing just isn't metal enough. "I Know! How about we just chuck a sea of enemies at them which never stop spawning until they push forward to an arbitrary trigger? I know that goes against the precedent established by every single encounter up until now, where we've asked players to solve each fight methodically and totally, but who's going to complain?" I'm going to complain, imaginary Bioware dev, me! Do you know how eyerolling it is, in each game, to hit that point of "Huh, I've been standing here dealing with trash mobs for a while now." Only to stop and realise. "Oh, it must be that time again. Great." It's never an interesting raise to the challenge, it's hardly even ever really all that difficult, it's just a moment of deflation at what is meant to be the climax.

"So what's the issue" you might be wondering. "If it isn't frustratingly difficult and it doesn't ruin what you still consider to be great games, why do you hate it so much?" Well, first of all, it is frustrating, and secondly; because, as everyone says when they're about to give over to their personal lunacy just that little bit, it's a matter of principle. Imagine you're hosting a dinner party for important guests and have just managed to get through every single course impeccably, each plate has come back clean, anticipation kills the conversation every time you enter the room with a new course, you are the muse of the night. And then, for desert, you suddenly decide that the triple tier quilted fondant masterpiece you've hand crafted is looking a little bare, and so you top it off with ketchup. Not a drop, either. You slather that bottle on there and make sure it's crimson residue is caked over every sculpted summit. Can you imagine the faces of the guests when you serve that? The disappointment? The resounding sense that there was something really special here that you just ruined for no good reason? That's my face when I get to the Bioware enemy spam. Everytime.

But how many games have Bioware tainted with their inexplicable little practise? It's hard to say without an encyclopaedic knowledge of ever single Bioware game ever made, which I do not posses, however I have played a lot of them so allow me to get the ball rolling. At the end of 'Dragon Age Origins' you hit an endless spawn hall before the tower right outside the final boss,  2 has this problem at the Act II and Act III finale as I remember, and Inquisition has this issue with every single open world area. I can only imagine the finale is no different. (Yes, I still haven't finished it, sue me.) Mass Effect has a spawn hall during the Citadel Tower climb, at that one long stretch where the Geth Destroyer charges you. ME2 doesn't, because it's the perfect sequel in every way, but ME3 brings that back during the London scene. (Although that is a survival challenge moment, and so I'm a little more lenient to it.) Knights of the Old Republic has this one spawn hall right at the beginning of the final mission, bizarrely. Kotor 2 has it. Andromeda has it.  Anthem apparently has it, but no plays that game so I couldn't say for certain. You getting the picture now? (Shadow Realms would have had it. Somehow, despite not even being an overly storybased game from what I can tell. I feel it in my bones)

For the future, the Dragon Age 4 and new Mass Effect game, I hardly expect this sordid tradition to change, because somewhere in that company there's a company vet with seniority who hates just me and wants me to be punished. As long as Bioware exists, so will these unexplainable moments of incredulous last-minute design decisions, and there's nothing we can really do about it because the rest of these games tend to be pretty good. (I'm counting the majority here.) And yes, I know that I touched upon this exact issue in my blog about enemy spam (thanks for reminding me) but having replayed almost every Bioware title I own again since then sparked a special hatred in me. Though now that I've ranted, I can rest. At least until the next strangely over-specific game design quirk that only I notice hops across my path...