User blog comment:Putowtin/Commander Shepherd Can Lose in Mass Effect 3/@comment-3268946-20110827223657

This isn't that surprising. After all they do want to give your decisions weight and the only way to do that is to have a "punishment" for poor decisions. But the only way that the supremely bad ending would be possible is if you were to intentionally try to trigger it, much in the same way Shepard dies at the end of ME2 if you irresponsible with team and ship management. The reason that they would make the Reaper victory more difficult (or should I say less, if you skip side-quests) is to give players the satisfaction of playing for 25+ hours without having a major letdown at the end that destroys everything that you have been working towards for since ME1. What the ending will probably be structured like is a "best" ending, "worsting" ending, and a multitude of gray endings which are the results of a few poor decisions. By the way, the instant I finish I will be hopping onto Youtube to find the worst ending.