Despite all the criticism surrounding the launch of the Lightfall DLC earlier this year, Destiny 2 appears to be doing remarkably well on PC after all. Even though many players felt that the previous Witch Queen DLC had substantially more to offer than its successor, this does not seem to have affected the game's real-world performance on PC.
It didn't take long after the release of the new DLC for community members to proclaim that Destiny 2: Lightfall dropped the ball compared to Witch Queen. This sentiment was shared by many reviewers and critics, and things weren't looking great for Bungie's flagship offering. Now that the dust has settled, however, not everything seems quite as cut and dry as it first appeared.
According to Steam Charts, Destiny 2 is doing so well on PC that it's beating its Witch Queen records by a fair margin. Specifically, Reddit users have discovered that the average number of Destiny 2 players in March marks some of the best figures the game has ever had on the platform, with the 30-day peaks handily beating its PC player counts after the Witch Queen DLC came out.
This isn't necessarily as big of an anomaly as it may appear at first, it's worth pointing out. Even though Destiny 2: Lightfall still has big issues, the majority of them center around the DLC's main narrative and storytelling, neither of which play a big role in Destiny 2's core gameplay loop. Players believe that, in the end, Lightfall has ended up being more replayable than Witch Queen was, with more engaging gameplay mechanics to bolster its longevity.
Reddit user MNneck explained that, even though they loved Witch Queen's main campaign, they found the post-campaign content available in Lightfall and its subsequent seasonal developments have ended up drawing more of their attention in the end. MNneck attributes this to Lightfall's many quality-of-life improvements and the introduction of the Strand subclass, making it more likely that they'll engage in their daily Destiny 2 activities more than they might have otherwise.
Destiny 2's post-Lightfall performance has been quite stellar on PC, despite all the critique the DLC received upon release. While its current numbers haven't yet beaten the popularity Destiny 2 enjoyed during its Shadowkeep era, when it first went free-to-play and before its initial round of content sunsetting, it does seem that the game won't suffer from player retention problems due to the quality of Lightfall's main narrative.
Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Steam Charts
