A month ahead of Destiny 2: Renegades, a Star Wars-flavored expansion due December 2, developer Bungie has begun pushing out more flashy trailers and still more familiar reassurances, but the latest one-two punch of marketing and communication hasn't exactly inspired confidence.
On November 4, Bungie released a short trailer showing off some new gear coming in Renegades, with particular emphasis on (genuinely cool) Exotics like a Titan jetpack, heavy sniper rifle, and various Star Wars lasers that go voooom. For reference, the previous Renegades bit on the official YouTube channel was a September 12 stream.
On the heels of this trailer, principal communications manager dmg04 waded into the increasingly feverish discussions around a long-promised roadmap for Destiny 2, which has looked to be rudderless and taking on water in the aftermath of a weak expansion defined by dramatic shifts to Bungie's business model and to the in-game gear economy.
"Cannot apologize enough for the delay here," dmg said to one concerned fan on Twitter. I haven't seen the official Destiny 2 Team social media accounts share similar sentiments in a more official or visible capacity, so for now, it really does feel like dmg is just solo tanking the meat shield role.
"Team's still jamming. Hope to have some comms out soon," he continues. "Please continue to yell at me directly, and I say this without any sarcasm. They're focused on our immediate and long-term future. I am happy to take 100% of the blame here in promising comms early that we could not execute on in the projected timeline."
This wouldn't be the first time Bungie's jumped the gun or – whisper it – over-promised during hard times, but these times are particularly hard. 11 years into this MMO, Destiny 2 suddenly feels like a fairly different, noticeably worse game. Coupled with the natural climax of The Final Shape, which capped off the 10-year Light and Darkness Saga quite well, it's been easy for many players to exit the game.
SteamDB reports that Destiny 2's player count has continued a slow decline for months, reaching record low peaks of well under 20,000 in recent weeks. November's barely begun and the game has already fallen below a previous, already alarming historic low.
A third-party tracker called Popularity.report has also gained traction during this slump. It shows an (unverified, but reasonably sourced and impressively detailed) breakdown of Destiny 2's player base by expansion, and yep, things are looking real bad for The Edge of Fate across all platforms, not just PC. There are several hundred thousand people playing, according to this tracker, but that's still below the near game-ending drought that was the Curse of Osiris arc in 2018. By all publicly available and estimated metrics, Destiny 2 has never been in a worse position.
Dmg continues in a separate reply: "We want to make Destiny the best game it can be. Not just game, but [a] place for people to make long lasting friendships and life long memories."
You'll be shocked to hear that the Destiny subreddit's response to dmg's comments – not-unreasonably interpreted as tacit admission that Bungie doesn't have a great plan here, or at least not one that's clear enough to share right now – has not been optimistic.
There is, as ever, ample chatter about the 'From the game director' community letters Bungie used to run, the still-missing roadmap, the low-key lead-up to Renegades, and silence from Bungie on the visibly dwindling pool of players that this expansion is about to high-dive into.
You've got to feel bad for community folks taking heat after very distinctly not bungling the loot and progression themselves, but it's hard to argue with the state of Destiny 2. Renegades has been positioned as "More Destiny, but it's Star Wars now," but it feels pretty clear that what Destiny 2 needs is triage.
