Is Destiny 2 Dead? Lowest Player Count In 2023 Since Release

Destiny 2 has had quite a journey since releasing in 2017. While it was released under a pay-to-play model, once it became free-to-play (on October 1, 2019) and turned into a live service game, it got a huge boost of players. It stayed in the top most played games list on Steam, that is, until now.

Destiny 2 Lowest Player Count

As of November 2023, Destiny 2 has the lowest player count since its release. On the 20th of November, it had 23,000+ current players and 37,659 players 24h peak.

Screenshot via SteamDB

In comparison, as per Steamdb, the all-time peak player count of Destiny 2 is a whopping 316,750 which was 9 months ago.

On November 20, 2023, the game’s Twitch stats didn’t look very promising either:

• 1,829 – viewers right now
• 4,774 – 24-hour peak
• 523,610 – all-time peak 9 months ago

Juggernauts like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, PUBG, and Apex Legends still hold the top 4 spots under Most Played. Destiny 2 stands in the 30s under Most Played games. This isn’t bad per se, but surely a fall from glory.

Source: SteamDB

Developer Bungie Laid Off 100 Employees

While ups and downs are a part of every online game, Destiny 2 is seeing some back-to-back blows, with Bloomberg reporting about layoffs at Bungie in October 2023.

About 100 employees were laid off, and the reason, according to IGN’s source is due to how Destiny 2 has underperformed revenue-wise in the past year.

According to Bloomberg, sales at Bungie are 45% below the expected projections and the Destiny 2 playtime is hitting an all-time low too.

Plus, the game survives on expansions and it seems that there are “lower-than-expected preorders for upcoming expansion The Final Shape.” IGN further confirms that the expansion has been delayed to June 2024 (it was initially February, 27, 2024). Due to all of these issues, Marathon has been delayed to 2025 as well.

Why is Destiny 2 Losing Players?

Image credit: Bungie

Discourse on Reddit can give us an idea about the reason why the player base is leaving Destiny 2 and immersing themselves in other games. Here are a few community reactions from this thread:

u/Shack70 says:

I loved playing Destiny but got tired of paying for the same game over and over every time there was more content.

And this seems to be the sentiment of more than 3000 other players.

u/Pennyhawk says:

Destiny’s issue is that unless the company is pumping out new content every month to keep players engaged then it gets boring AF. Since it’s designed with strict linear progression despite being somewhat open-world. When a new update released, all of the old content is immediately made obsolete to encourage grinding for the new content.

There’s literally no point in enjoying 95% of the game. All content from the release up to the most recent DLC is useless. You’ll just trash it once you get to the newest stuff.

That system isn’t great for longevity.

u/Vincentaneous says:

DLC has always been hard to understand because every season and every expansion (less so recently but still exists) has content that goes away.

You can’t go back to previous seasons to buy a pass to have access to that season’s weapons/armor and most expansions tend to have their content cut after a year to make way for newer things that are limited as well.

If everything Bungie made was still in the game and people could still buy them and have access to them there’d be a whole lot less to complain about.

I do get that Bungie can’t support everything too, it perfectly makes sense. Of course, if an engine couldn’t be specifically designed for all the uncertainty in the years ahead, but man.. change the model of the game to support yourself and the players.. make it work for you. No more under-delivery BS.

u/ScorchedConvict says:

I’m not surprised.

Been playing since D1 day one. I used to be an active player for many years.

Nowadays I rarely even log in to D2 unless I’m bored and feel like running a quick strike or two and I stopped giving Bungie my money years ago. In fact, a good chunk of D2 doesn’t even exist anymore and it’s never coming back. Vaulting and sunsetting (both were done twice) were the beginning of the end for me. The battle pass system got repetitive fast and the new player experience… yeah.

These comments of players who were invested in Destiny 2 but no longer log in, tell us why the game is losing its player base. It’s just a lot of the same thing, in different environments, and also the removed/locked content which breaks the continuity of players who join in later.

Source: Reddit

Is Destiny 2 Dead?

As of now? No, it cannot be called dead. Definitely not Redfall-level dead (with 22 players right now and 48 players in its 24-hour peak).

But if Bungie doesn’t take player sentiment into consideration, then things are bound to tank further.

Destiny is an awesome game that deserves better planning, and treatment and unless there is an overhaul, players will continue hunting for a game that hooks them, just like this one did.