MadalinStroe: SPOILER: Isn't there a special ending where if you get the war assets to 100% you get to see a glimpse of Shepard's corpse and you see him/her draw breath and then it cuts to black. I would say that is clearly the true ending, the universe is saved and Shepard survives.
Mugiwarah: SPOIL
I know, i got it as i choose destruction with a high war asset but for those who didn't rise enough war asset and want to keep it that way or choose another ending where Shepard vanish to control or to make them fuse with the machine, how would they start the mass effect 4 with a Shepard alive or even a Galaxy for those who lose everything.
SPOILER...
I'm not going to argue about the endings, one way or the other, but for the entire trilogy Shepard has fought against the Reapers. I find the notion that the trilogy could possibly end in any other way, other than with the destruction of the Reapers absurd.
SPOILER John Wick.
It's like having the film John Wick play out exactly the same, but during the last minute of the film, John Wick decides to: 1. join the bad guy,
2. walk away,
3. replace the bad guy as the leader of his crime organization, with the promise that he'll change their way.
None of those endings work in the context of what was presented in the film previously. There's only one possible ending.
Having said that, lets not pretend that there was any thought put in the overall story and ending of Mass Effect. They just made shit up as they needed to fill out the playtime. And if EA can squeeze any more money out of Mass Effect, by making a sequel, they're going to do it, and they'll even add microtransations in it to fuel a live service monetization.