Lo and behold, Bungie’s bad choices have resulted in Destiny 2's worst player numbers – ever

Destiny 2 has entered seemingly its worst chapter since it first released - which is really saying a lot. After Bungie laid off "around 8%" of staff recently, reports came out suggesting that a sharp drop in revenue is partly to blame for the layoffs.

It all seemingly began with the launch of the Lightfall expansion in February, when things really started trending downwards for Destiny 2 - causing the game to reportedly miss its revenue targets by a staggering 45%.

Sentiment is one thing, of course, but hard data is a different story. As spotted by Forbes, Destiny 2's player numbers have been in a free fall for a while now. A quick glance at the game's SteamDB numbers shows that it used to peak at over 300,000 players, over 200,000 players, and over 100,000 players at its worst. Numbers have now fallen well below that.

Things have been fluctuating since July, but drops became very serious in October, and have now reached the all-time low peak concurrent of under 60,000 players. The average player number has dropped from 135,102 in March (shortly after Lightfall launched), to just 34,383 over the last 30 days.

Obviously, Steam is the only platform Destiny 2 is available on that shares numbers with such depth, but it's not hard to imagine things being dire elsewhere, too. To go from giving Destiny 2 its highest-ever Steam concurrent player count, to its lowest-ever - Lightfall certainly has earned its name.

As the Forbes article notes, the reported delay of The Final Shape - Destiny 2's next expansion, means that the next season will need to be extended, which puts an even bigger strain on an already beleaguered game. It's very possible that things will get worse, but the worry is that, whenever The Final Shape arrives, it won't be enough to turn things around.

The Final Shape is currently, officially set for release in February, 2024. Bungie has yet to comment publicly on the reported delay, and has even doubled down on the previously-communicated February 27 release date in a recent blog post.