Ex-Bioware developer and the lead writer of Mass Effect & Mass Effect 2, Drew Karpyshyn, has discussed how he originally planned for the trilogy to end. Karpyshyn left the Bioware team before the completion of Mass Effect 2 and was replaced by Mac Walters as lead writer on the final game.

The plot line Karpyshyn had in mind focussed on the spread of Dark energy. In the second game this was something alluded to by several characters though it's never mentioned again after this. Karpyshyn, in an interview with gaming radio show VGS describes this plot as "something that wasn't super fleshed out" but he still went on to give a detailed overview of how this plot thread could've panned out.

Karpyshyn explained, "Dark Energy was something that only organics could access because of various techno-science magic reasons we hadn't decided on yet. Maybe using this Dark Energy was having a ripple effect on the space-time continuum.

"Maybe the Reapers kept wiping out organic life because organics keep evolving to the state where they would use biotics and dark energy and that caused an entropic effect that would hasten the end of the universe. Being immortal beings, that's something they wouldn't want to see.

"Then we thought, let's take it to the next level. Maybe the Reapers are looking at a way to stop this. Maybe there's an inevitable descent into the opposite of the Big Bang (the Big Crunch) and the Reapers realise that the only way they can stop it is by using biotics, but since they can't use biotics they have to keep rebuilding society - as they try and find the perfect group to use biotics for this purpose. The Asari were close but they weren't quite right, the Protheans were close as well.

"Again it's very vague and not fleshed out, it was something we considered but we ended up going in a different direction."

Upon hearing this different version of events some fans of the games may prefer this to the ending that we actually got. Indeed, the fact that a majority of fans disliked the final ending is hardly a secret, if the existence of this mod is anything to go by. However Karpyshyn was quick to point out that his rejected plotline would've likely displeased plenty of fans too had it actually ended up in Mass Effect 3.

"I find it funny that fans end up hearing a couple things they like about it and in their minds they add in all the details they specifically want. It's like vapourware - vapourware is always perfect, anytime someone talks about the new greatest game. It's perfect until it comes out. I'm a little weary about going into too much detail because, whatever we came up with, it probably wouldn't be what people want it to be."

Karpyshyn also discussed some other rejected plot ideas, which included the twist that player character Shepard was in fact an alien (maybe it's for the best that that didn't make it into the game. Sounds all a bit too 'Deckard was a replicant all along' to me).

Karpyshyn recalls, "Some of the ideas were a little bit wacky and a little bit crazy. At one point we thought that maybe Shepard could be an alien but didn't know it. But we then thought that might be a little too close to [Knights of the Old Republic character] Revan."

But what some may find most interesting is that Karpyshyn had an idea for the opening of Mass Effect 2 that resembled what Walters eventually wrote for the Mass Effect 3 ending (Spoilers). Karpyshyn concluded, "There was some ideas that maybe Shepard gets his essence transferred into some kind of machine, becoming a cyborg and becoming a bridge between synthetics and organics - which is a theme that does play up in the game. At one point we thought, maybe that's how he survives into Mass Effect 2."