In case you haven’t been following the saga of Destiny 2, things aren’t looking so good for the ‘forever game’ whose story kicked off over a decade ago. Player morale has been in freefall for a while now, compounded by the disastrous launch of the ‘Portal’ – an ill-thought-out replacement to the game’s seasonal content system – and some time-hostile decisions about power levels and loot.
Before we dig into the latest disaster plaguing the Solar System, let’s do a quick recap. I’ve already shared my scepticism about the inclusion of the Star Wars licence in Bungie’s shared world shooter, and we heard back in August that ex-Bungie CEO Pete Parsons was to step down as head of the company after a series of gaffes and controversies. In the summer, I assessed the issue with the game and its impossible task of retaining current players, and teasing back lapsed ones. Before that – way back in 2023 – I wrote about how the layoff of Michael Salvatori marked the beginning of the end for the series. And it looks like, sadly, I may have been right.
Over the weekend, a new tool appeared online that lets us dig into the player count of Destiny 2 in a way we’ve never been able to before. Previously, we’ve used data from SteamDB; whilst it shows us one element of the MMOFPS’ popularity, its use is limited to Steam players, only. This new tool, popularity.report courtesy of rich-destiny, is far more granular, and shows just how dire the issue is for Bungie ahead of the Renegades update due to launch later this year.
As you can see from the chart, if accurate, overall player numbers are – by far – the worst we’ve ever seen. Notably, the falloff here is even worse than the Curse of Osiris era (marked in yellow on the chart), which saw the community in complete rebellion against Bungie as players lamented the short story, the repetitive patrol area, a weak endgame, and a complete fumbling of the sandbox. Weirdly, now, some eight years later, we’re in the exact same spot, with players bemoaning an unsatisfying story, repetitive encounters and activities, a terrible endgame, and a frustrating and unengaging meta and endgame. Funny how history repeats itself.
Back in the alarming days of Curse of Osiris, Bungie thought its goose was cooked. Then-Destiny 2 general manager Justin Truman showed off a presentation at GDC about two years ago that reviewed the state of the game, and how the studio has navigated the choppy waters of live service hell. Regarding the unpopularity of Curse of Osiris, Truman noted:
“[Showing the impact of the update visually], this was our weekly active users for Destiny 2 in the first few months and for comparison, this is what Destiny 1 looked like. So far so good! But then this started happening. And this moment, right here – in February of 2018, was fucking terrifying.”
“So this graph shows the trend of our Weekly Active Users,” he continues. “And at the rate we were shedding players, we did the math, and if this continued for five more weeks, our entire player population would be gone. We were, seriously, one month away from having to just close up shop on Destiny 2 altogether. So, like I said, that was late February of 2018.”
The studio has shrunk since then, too. Mass layoffs and talent being moved over to the perpetually-delayed Marathon mean that resources on Destiny 2 are far more sparse than they were. Creators like Gladd, Datto and GernaderJake have all stopped streaming and playing the game. The player exodus continues apace. If the studio was ‘terrifed’ of the impact of Curse of Osiris, morale within the ranks must be at an all-time-low now.
And it’s not just me that thinks this is the end. The most popular post in the Destiny subreddit from the past month is a bleakly-titled “I think this game is finally dying” dispatch that sees the community at large complaining about Bungie’s way of managing the title over the past year-plus. “This is such an insult to me and the other 48 people that still play Destiny,” jokes one of the most popular replies. Now, the Destiny community has never been happy, really, but I can’t recall a time in the game’s decade-plus history in which things looked so bad. And I was in the trenches for the Curse of Osiris days, too.
So, what’s next? Maybe the Renegades expansion will right some of the wrongs – Bungie has already been making some good noises and promises to renege on some of its more controversial plans (like resetting the power cap, again). Will it be enough to drag people back into the Tower? With the success of Battlefield 6 and a shiny new Call of Duty to play with, Bungie is going to face more competition in the shooter space than it has for a little while, and as player satisfaction is at this nadir, the studio is really going to have to pull out all the stops to stem this life-threatening haemorrhaging.
Can a Star Wars-themed update really reverse the damage? I’m not sure. There are far bigger problems in Destiny 2 than something a new expansion can paper over: the new player journey is atrocious, a lot of the story is now gated as legacy content, the menuing in-game has become more of a chore than most players are comfortable with. After Curse of Osiris, the Forsaken update fixed a lot that was wrong with Destiny 2 at launch, the problems now are a lot more bedded in. Forsaken proved Bungie was willing to listen to player feedback and modify its approach to suit the playerbase… but the way things stand now, myself and a large portion of the community feel the developer is being evasive and single-minded.
I think the writing may be on the wall for a series that I’ve sunk over 1000 hours into, and that, I promise you, is a very painful thing to type.