PC players have nearly all the nukes in Metal Gear Solid V

Last week, Konami finally explained how to trigger the secret event in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain that was discovered back in September. The trick is complete nuclear disarmament: The number of nuclear weapons on the regional server for your platform of choice must be reduced to zero. Konami said at the time that it would track the status of the deproliferation effort on the official Metal Gear Twitter account, and the numbers it's posted since then have revealed a serious arsenal imbalance.

Xbox 360: 31
Xbox One: 44
PlayStation 3: 135
PlayStation 4: 165
Steam: 10,450

No, that's not a typo: Whereas consoles can collectively put together less than 400 nukes, PC owners have well over ten thousand of the things. If this was a real-world scenario, that would be an alarming imbalance of power; as it is, it's just hilarious.

How did we end up with so much firepower? The answer would appear to be, as it so often is, we cheated: The MGS5 Cheat Engine lets us get away with things that console gamers can't. As for why, the aforementioned "hilarious" element probably has a lot to do with it, but there's a practical aspect to them as well. Dismantling nukes earns Heroism, and high levels of Heroism means you'll have more, and better, recruits at your base.

And they're being dismantled at an impressive rate: As of November 1, PC players had amassed 36,551 warheads, and a two-thirds reduction in less than a month is nothing to sneeze at. But being able to build nukes with cheats means being able to build them without effort, and that could be bad news for anyone hoping to see this secret ending actually happen.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.