Theseries has always carried a strong undertone about the threat of nuclear proliferation.is taking that message to a new level by integrating an in-game metagame that will unlock a new story cutscene once all players have disarmed their in-game nuclear arsenals.

Nuclear weapons are a powerful force in MGSV's Forward Operating Base side-game, which lets players build up a personal army and arsenal that can be used to invade and plunder fellow players online. The nuclear bombs act as deterrents to invasion from other players, unless the invading force also has a nuclear weapon or has achieved Hero status through tireless do-gooding.

The nature of that in-game arms race led to tens of thousands of in-game nukes being deployed across the game's servers as of November 1, according to Konami's official count. But players also have reason to try to reverse that trend. As Konami recently officially announced, a "secret nuclear disarmament event" will be triggered for all players only when "All nuclear weapons on the regional server corresponding to your console or platform must have been dismantled. In other words, the amount of nukes on your platform's server must be equal to 0."

There were some clues to this "secret" event before now. Tinkerers managed to find a hidden cutscene announcing worldwide disarmament buried in the game's code shortly after it came out, though no one knew for sure how the scene was supposed to be triggered (there were theories, of course). The disarmament event was also discussed in the official hardcover guide for the game published by Piggyback.

The effort to disarm has taken on new urgency in recent days, though, as Konami has begun posting regular updates on the size of the game's nuclear stockpile on its Twitter feed. As of yesterday, console players are very close to disarming, with less than 200 weapons remaining per platform (the numbers cited by Konami seem to be worldwide counts, so regional counts might hit zero even sooner). PC players have a longer way to go; the nuclear arsenal on Steam has gone down from over 36,000 on November 1 to a bit over 11,000 yesterday.

There are already organized efforts to get those numbers down to zero. Groups like Reddit's Metal Gear Philanthropy have banded together to invade other players' bases to steal and disarm their bombs. On the trollier side of the equation, a group called Metal Gear Patriots is working to get as many nukes as possible on those servers, working to steal nukes back from the philanthropists to protect them.

While the community has made admirable progress toward disarming so far, getting to total disarmament might prove difficult. On the Xbox One, Konami's nuclear weapon count actually increased from 40 to 52 in recent days. It will be interesting to see how the numbers continue to fluctuate now that Konami is placing more attention on this intriguing little metagame.