Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

How Konami Just Nuked Half the Gaming Population

How Konami Just Nuked Half the Gaming Population

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is something of an enigma. There are quite a few secrets lurking within, but none so big as the nuclear ending. It’s so big, people had to datamine the game to even find the thing, Konami is pulling down YouTube videos that show it, and Ken-ichiro Imaizumi, the game’s producer, even went so far as to say he couldn’t talk about it on Twitter.

If that were the only part of this Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain ending’s tale, it would be the end of it. Everything would be fine, we could chalk this up to developers being a creative and dramatic bunch, and wonder how the dang thing gets unlocked. Except the nuke ending seems to already have hints as to how it happens, as well as a subreddit dedicated to getting it, and the situation doesn’t seem promising.

Here come the spoilers.

In the Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain nuke ending, it suggests that Venom Snake and the Diamond Dogs have wiped the world of nuclear weapons. Everyone is disarmed and peace apparently reigns. Which apparently means the online multiplayer element of the game is tied to the solo experience, which isn’t cool. People who have leveled up their Mother Base areas enough can develop and use nukes in game, and this ending hints that everyone who has gotten that far either has to be taken out or agree to get rid of their nukes.

Which could be an impossible task. It means everyone would have to coordinate to stop nuke creation and take out people who do still have them. This requires high level players, since only people at that level can really handle ones who have nukes. It’s also incredibly unfair, as it could be tying a solo ending to multiplayer conditions.

It’s like those school projects people had thrust upon them in grade school, high school, and even college. You know you’re capable of your own work, but instead of being held accountable for your own progress and standards, your grade is held hostage by other people you don’t know and can’t trust. It’s a flawed system that screws people over. At least with those wretched school projects, one or two people could team up to get a passing grade for the group. That can’t happen here.

How Konami Just Nuked Half the Gaming Population

And it’s something that’s been tried in games before and failed. Remember Mass Effect 3 ? Originally, it’s endings were tied to multiplayer participation. People had to play a certain amount to keep their contribution up for the war efforts to get the best ending. BioWare realized this was a bad idea at some point, because it eventually reduced the amount of Effective Military Strength required for endings. That patch made it possible to avoid the multiplayer entirely and still do well.

Which is hopefully what Konami will eventually do, if Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain ‘s nuke ending is tied to multiplayer actions. It’s both unreasonable and perhaps impossible to expect millions of people to all work together in the multiplayer element to earn a single player achievement.

To top