I came to comment on the same thing, only that it reminded me of an old browser-based game called Archmage [1] which would allow players, with enough resources, to research and cast Armageddon to end the world and cause a full reset of the game.
There was also an Armageddon spell in Ultima7 which killed off the majority of NPCs, leaving only a handful alive. The dialogue with the survivors was pretty cool.
A great post-apocalyptic MUD that I can't remember the name of at the moment sort of started like this. Every year or so the admins would reset the game, and when people logged in, it would be pre-apocalyptic... and one lucky player would have to cause the apocalypse to set the game in motion again.
[1] https://www.the-reincarnation.com/ I'm amazed this is still around: I used to play this in the late 90s.