A few months back, something that everyone thought was impossible actually happened in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Nuclear disarmament was achieved.
For those unaware, everyone in MGSV can build nukes at their home base in order to discourage potential invaders from getting all uppity. It’s a clear analog to today’s “mutually assured destruction” deterrence that keeps the peace even as nations keep building up their nuclear arsenals.
People can choose to build their nukes, but they can also choose to not build nukes and get rid of the nukes they’ve already built. If everyone decides to throw away all their nuclear missiles at the same time, then it unlocks a special cinematic where Kazuhira Miller gives a speech and erects a monument to world peace.
Normally, this would be next to impossible because there are still thousands of nukes on the Steam and PS4 versions of the game. Getting that many people to agree to lay down their arms seems even more difficult than getting the dozen or so nations of the world to lay down their nuclear arms.
However, the PS3 version of the game has much fewer players, making consensus that much easier. And so, on July 28, 2020, everyone in Metal Gear Solid V threw away their nukes to watch a nice cinematic ending to their five-year-old game.
Nuclear peace lasted all of five seconds as players started building up their nuclear arsenal pretty much immediately after raising that statue commemorating that one the world achieved nuclear disarmament. And now Konami says they didn’t even do it fairly.
According to a trio of tweets from the official Metal Gear Solid Twitter account, the only reason why nuclear disarmament happened at all was because somebody cheated.
"The nuke disarmament event which took place July 28, 2020 (JST) was not caused because the disarmament was achieved,” wrote Konami, adding that the “improper conduct by a certain user" was why everyone was treated to that extremely rare cinematic.
Konami didn’t say what exactly the “improper conduct” was, but they did say that the player who did it has been banned and that “countermeasures” have been put in place to prevent it from happening again.
Frankly, this seems short-sighted. If people need to cheat in order to rid the world of nukes, then by all means, cheat away! It's a noble goal, and in this one case at least, the ends totally justify the means.
Source: Konami/Twitter