Destiny 2 has started its new saga not with a bang, but a whimper, as the Edge of Fate expansion launches to the lowest player count yet.
From the very beginning of Destiny 1 all the way through to last year, Bungie was slowly but surely layering plot threads for a single, cohesive narrative. Known as the Light and Darkness saga, this decade-long effort spanned 12 expansions all up.
It came to a head in June 2024 with the release of The Final Shape. Since then, Destiny 2 fans have been kept waiting for the start of the next big thing while smaller content drops tied up loose ends.
Edge of Fate finally kicked off that new era on July 15 as the first major expansion of the Fate Saga. However, it did so to the weakest reception thus far.
Destiny 2 starts new era at an all-time low
Historically, the launch of new expansions draws the most players to Destiny 2. With new story content often paired with new characters, locations, Exotics, and more, it’s the best time to jump back in.
For the release of Edge of Fate, though, that hasn’t quite been the case. The new expansion hit its peak of 99,193 players on Steam on July 16. Failing to crack the six-figure mark, it falls short of even half the peak of the second-weakest expansion launch.
For comparison, 2024’s expansion, The Final Shape, hit 314,000 concurrent players on Steam. Before that was Lightfall in 2023, which drove the all-time Destiny 2 player count peak on the platform, reaching 316,750 concurrent players.
The Witch Queen and Beyond Light failed to crack the 300K mark, coming in at 290,000 and 242,000 concurrent players at their respective peaks.
While there’s always a chance Edge of Fate’s Raid, The Desert Perpetual, could drive a slightly higher peak, that’s typically not the case given the grind necessary to even access the endgame content. Thus, it’s usually a spike in viewership on streaming platforms instead.
Though, it is worth bearing in mind these figures don’t paint the full picture. There’s no word on console data at the time of writing.
We’ll have to wait and see what this weaker launch may mean for the future of Destiny 2, but it comes amid an already turbulent time for the team at Bungie.
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