Destiny 2, the ongoing live service shooter from Bungie, is seriously struggling to retain players right now.
To be fair, the game does have a fairly sizeable DLC coming up in December — you know, the Star Wars one — but at the time of writing this article, there’s some real doom and gloom surrounding Destiny 2 as a whole.
A particularly in-depth report from The Game Post does a great job of highlighting the numerous problems that the development team’s up against.
Basically, the community’s faith in Bungie is low; there’s a growing sentiment that Destiny 2 just isn’t doing enough to keep its players engaged — a tale as old as time. And unfortunately, this is a criticism that’s backed up by data.
On Steam, where such data is readily available, Destiny 2 has hit its lowest ever player count of just 18,439 (on average, over the last 30 days).
Now, for plenty of games, that’ll be a healthy return — but for Destiny 2, it’s a sobering indication of just how far the shooter has fallen. This is a title that, just over a year ago, was tripling those numbers.
Bit by bit by bit, the shooter’s been shedding players at a pretty steady rate for the past 18 months or so. Expansions usually bring a solid surge in popularity — as you’d expect — but even then, the peaks are getting smaller.
Case in point: The Final Shape, which launched in June 2024, peaked at an impressive 314,634 players. Jump to The Edge of Fate, which dropped this summer, and the game peaked at just 98,211 players.
Of course, Steam figures aren’t everything, but they’re often a very solid indicator of a game’s popularity in a general sense. There’s little reason to doubt that Destiny 2 has been in decline for quite a while.
Many have argued that Bungie should have started phasing the game out some time ago, back when the studio’s seasonal content plans were initially scrutinised. Naturally, there have been calls for Destiny 3 — but given Bungie’s current state, a project of that magnitude is starting to seem more and more unrealistic.
Which leads us full circle to Sony’s acquisition of the company. At this point, the $3.6 billion buyout feels like it happened a lifetime ago — it was in 2022 — but it was a move that continues to be questioned.
After all, Bungie’s very rarely made positive headlines over these last few years. It goes without saying that Marathon has only added to the negativity; Bungie’s other shooter is finally getting back in the saddle with a technical test this month, but it’s going to have to be something special to turn public opinion after all the controversy.
What are your thoughts on this whole Bungie saga? What do you think the future holds for Destiny 2? You can try to stay somewhat positive in the comments section below.
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