The Destiny Community Thinks the Game Is in Trouble. Is It?
Destiny 2 hit its lowest active player count since launching on Steam, but do the broader numbers actually indicate a problem?
Wait, Is That Destiny Stuff True?
There’s a narrative going around the community that Destiny 2 is in trouble. You see, this week the game hit its lowest active player count since the game made the move to Steam. That is, if you look exclusively at this one graph on Steam charts.
I’ll concede that Destiny players really are feeling the burnout. We’re now four years and 15 seasons into this formulaic content structure and while the story and characters remain a strong point, the grind inevitably wears you down.
The introduction of weapon patterns, a way to craft and grind weapons for god rolls instead of being entirely reliant on RNG hasn’t helped either. Rather than being another option, for many it feels like an obligation. The season isn’t complete until I can craft all of that season’s weapons.
I could talk about Destiny specific problems all day, but in the end we’re here to talk numbers. Is that one chart really indicating a problem?
The short answer is no. All it takes is one quick look at SteamDB which provides similar charts and nothing really looks out of the ordinary. That’s also setting aside the fact that one bad day or week hardly means anything in the grand scheme of things.
Since people are using Steam Charts’ graph to argue there’s a problem, I dug into the much broader reported data below.
If your metric for success is peak daily players, say at least 100,000 concurrent users per day, then there are only ten months since Destiny 2 launched on Steam where that’s happened. Four were in 2020, four in 2021, and there’s only been two in 2022 back in January before the Witch Queen launch, and April after its release.
Lowest Peak Destiny 2 Player Counts
November 2021 - 76,188
May 2020 - 76,476
January 2022 - 78,752
January 2021 - 79,290
March 2021 - 87,476
But peak players could just be a onetime spike/drop, what about average players across the entire month? It’s rare for Destiny 2 to average fewer than 55,000 players on any given day, so I used that as the benchmark. Again, the math shows the game is stronger than ever on Steam. Out of the nine months were the game has averaged fewer than 55 thousand players, three were in 2020, five were in 2021, and only one - January - was in 2022.
Lowest Average Destiny 2 Player Counts
November 2021 - 44,240
January 2021 - 44,864
April 2021 - 45,629
October 2020 - 50,809
May 2020 - 51,827
Even if you doom and gloom about the last 30 days specifically, the numbers just don’t bear that out. The game is currently averaging about 53,000 players per day in the last month which is still way more than January, April, and November of 2021 where the game was at a much lower 45,000.
Go even wider and average out entire years and 2022 has been more popular than it was in ‘20 or ‘21.
2022 - 67,900 players (so far)
2021 - 58,000 players
2020 - 66,750 players
That’s not to say that a downward trend can’t be concerning, especially for people whose livelihoods are directly tied to the success of the game. But as always, I beg people to just do a little due diligence and look at the 100+ other numbers on your screen.
Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how the game continues to grow, despite the fact that the game was just shut down in China.
The Top Five this week were: Modern Warfare II, Apex Legends, CS: GO, Lost Ark, and War Thunder. Full list here.
Five New Games 🆕
HARVESTELLA (#20)
Time for another Square Enix game which has quietly released. A good game to check out if you’re into farming, everyday life, exploration, combat, and making friends. It’s a life simulation game meets fantasy RPG.
Deep Rock Galactic - Biohazard Pack (#41)
I’ve never played Deep Rock Galactic, but I’m certainly surprised to see a pack of cosmetics ranked so high.
Against the Storm (#44)
I remember wishlisting Against the Storm this time last year. Apparently it has spent a year exclusively on the Epic Games Store and has now migrated over to Steam.
This is a roguelike city builder. Hold on, just letting that sink in. The idea is really wild. Rather than manage just one town, you instead bounce between a network of different settlements, trying to keep them all alive.
The Entropy Centre (#84)
Need a new puzzle game? Entropy Centre is all about planning ahead before moving objects backwards through time. It’s hard to explain. Check out the game’s page to see it in action.
Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga (#82)
Weirdly enough, despite being November there were only four new games that made the charts. So for the final title, I recommend checking out Symphony of War. If you’re looking for a 2D tactics game with a 30-40 hour campaign, 50+ character classes, relationships, romance, and more, give it a look.
The Movers 🆙
Steam does this weird thing where games that chart from preorders aren’t shown as “new” after they’re released. If you feel cheated out of Sonic Frontiers being listed, here’s a handy link.
+89 Deep Rock Galactic
+84 Warhammer: Vermintide 2
+68 Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
+66 Sonic Frontiers
+61 Battlefront 1
In Danger ⚡
For now this section will highlight games that have been in the Top 100 for at least ten weeks and are in danger of dropping off. Good news, none of the games from last week dropped off. Here are the latest games on the bubble.
Stellaris (#78) - 106 Weeks
Cities: Skylines (#76) - 105 Weeks
Cult of the Lamb (#74) - 14 Weeks
Sea of Thieves (#72) - 127 Weeks
Plate Up! (#70) - 14 Weeks
Longest Lasting ⌛
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (535 Weeks)
Warframe (502 Weeks)
Grand Theft Auto V (408 Weeks)
The Elder Scrolls Online (407 Weeks)
Rust (385 Weeks)
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (364 Weeks)
Final Fantasy XIV Online (310 Weeks)
Dead by Daylight (287 Weeks)
Destiny 2 (174 Weeks)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (153 Weeks)