Highlights

  • Destiny 2's latest update has led to a surge in player numbers on Steam, hitting a peak of over 134,000 users on release day.
  • The upcoming expansion, The Final Shape, is expected to further boost player interest and potentially bring the game back to the top of the charts.
  • Leaks indicate Destiny 3 might be in the works.

Shortly after Destiny 2's Into the Light update, Bungie's shooter reached its highest concurrent player count on Steam in seven months and is maintaining solid numbers. Destiny 2's player health is likely in for another boost when The Final Shape expansion arrives in June.

On April 9, Destiny 2's Into the Light update added an assortment of exciting features for returning and new fans alike to try out. The significant patch was headlined by the Onslaught PvE mode, Hall of Champions social space, returning BRAVE weapons, new PvP maps, and more, features that have clearly been tempting enough to bring a major upswing to Destiny 2's popularity.

Destiny 2 Prismatic
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Destiny 2 hit a peak player count on Steam of just over 134,000 users on the day of Into the Light's release, according to SteamDB. That was the game's highest peak since September, when Destiny 2 reached about 141,000 Steam users. Since April 9 and the launch of the recent update, Destiny 2 has managed to maintain its newest wave of popularity by hitting over 90,000 concurrent Steam users on most days. This is a huge upgrade over recent months when Destiny 2's player count struggled, as it finished with an average in March of just under 40,000 concurrent Steam users. It's unclear how much the game's popularity has increased on Xbox and PlayStation, but there is likely a similar trend.

Destiny 2's Peak Player Count on Steam Each Month

  • April (as of April 15): 134,042
  • March: 75,959
  • February: 46,649
  • January: 58,803
  • December: 94,159
  • November: 103,704
  • October: 69,434
  • September: 141,741

This is good news for the Destiny 2 community, which is looking ahead to June's The Final Shape update. The major expansion is Destiny 2's first since Lightfall in February 2023 and was originally planned to launch in February of this year until it ran into significant delays. Destiny 2's newest resurgence combined with June's update could help the game return to its place near the top of player charts for months to come if things go well. Recently, Bungie shared plenty of The Final Shape's details including its new enemy faction and subclass.

The Final Shape is set to introduce major quality-of-life changes as well, including adjustments to Destiny 2's HUD. The HUD changes aim to make information related to buffs much more digestible by allowing for more buffs to be displayed on screen while still maintaining an organized and readable display.

As for the franchise's future, a Destiny 3 leak from earlier this year was partially legitimized when Bungie's Into the Light update confirmed some of the leaker's claims, which included the recently announced Prismatic sublass. The leaker said that work on Destiny 3 is underway at Bungie under the codename Payback.