Destiny 2: Edge of Fate, the first in a new and more regular release cycle of medium-sized expansions, is finally out, but you wouldn't know it from looking at the MMO's Steam player charts. Where new expansions historically rocket the game to the realm of 300,000 concurrent players, Edge of Fate's release has yet to break the 100,000 mark at the time of writing.
SteamDB shows that the 24-hour player peak for Destiny 2 has been 99,193, agonizingly close to six digits. That said, 100,000 concurrent players is decidedly not a good showing compared to previous releases.
Going back to November 2020, during one of Destiny 2's off-kilter delayed releases, Beyond Light reached 242,284 peak concurrents on Steam. When we returned to normal – that is, the new normal, with Bungie adjusting its release calendar – in February 2022 with The Witch Queen, widely regarded as one of the best expansions, Destiny 2 jumped up to 290,112.
For two years now, a new Destiny 2 expansion has guaranteed 300,000+ players. Ironically, Lightfall, still bemoaned as one of the worst releases in Destiny history, still holds the record: 316,750 Steam concurrents at its peak. Granted, players didn't know going in that it would be middling to bad, and anticipation was high for a Witch Queen follow-up. That said, The Final Shape, the climax to the Light and Darkness Saga that Bungie had been building for a decade, came very close at 314,634 peak concurrents.
Between these expansion highs, Destiny 2 follows the typical live service pattern of player falloff. An expansion brings everyone back, they blast through the new content, and then most of them move on to other games for a while. Seasonal launches then bring some people back in, propping up considerably smaller mini-peaks. But Edge of Fate is barely beating those – in fact, it's below Witch Queen seasonal peaks (193,000 to 103,000) and only just above The Final Shape Episode peaks (the biggest being 89,000).
We only have concrete data for Steam players, and Destiny 2 does have a very large console audience, but the comparison for Edge of Fate is not flattering, and I say that as someone who's enjoying the expansion so far (and playing on PC).
Edge of Fate would've been a smaller project for Bungie given its medium-sized scope, so it presumably doesn't need the return of a full-fat Final Shape-sized expansion, but I would at least imagine Bungie was hoping for an expansion launch more distinguished from seasonal rollouts (and for Steam reviews higher than, for now, 49% positive).
I've seen some folks say, well, it's Tuesday, the peak hasn't come yet because everyone is busy working or whatever, let's watch the weekend. And, yeah, sure, but the fact is Edge of Fate has followed the exact same Tuesday launch pattern as recent expansions, and it is not like it's a little behind. It's hovering around one-third of the past two expansions, and launch days are consistently a big deal not just for Destiny but across many MMOs.
More plausible explanations for Edge of Fate's lower peak might be an audience that's more spending-conscious in today's expensive world, Episode fatigue, heightened competition from other games, the lack of a tentpole feature like a new class (Strand, arguably the only great part of Lightfall) or enemy faction (the Dread in The Final Shape), and confusion surrounding the content of the expansion.
I don't want to read too much into things one day into the expansion, or into one platform's stats in general, and Destiny 2 is still top of Steam's top sellers right now, but the math here is speaking.
As a 10-year player I'm kind of scared of the Destiny 2: Edge of Fate patch notes, which might be a Bungie record for new currencies and MMO loot MacGuffins.
