At the GDC in San Francisco, not only are many innovations from game developers revealed, but also deeper insights into their games themselves. Bungie was also present for Destiny 2 and they revealed some information: including a graphic that shows how popular the loot shooter actually was in 2018.
What is the GDC? The “Game Developers Conference,” abbreviated as GDC, refers to a major event where game developers meet in San Francisco to discuss innovations. During this event, developers exchange ideas and talk about changes in the market.
In the meantime, Bungie was also present and provided some insights into Destiny 2. A graphic was shared that compares Destiny 1 & 2 and the weekly active player numbers in the first weeks after each release.
One can see from the statistics how extremely the player numbers dropped in the first weeks after the release of Destiny 2.
Bungie compares Destiny 1 and 2 at the GDC
How did the comparison look? Bungie created a graphic that compared both loot shooters: They compared the player number development in the first half year after each launch:
- Destiny 1 was released on September 9, 2014
- Destiny 2 was released in September 2017
Ben Hanson, a former video producer for Game Informer, photographed the graphic and tweeted it on Twitter for illustration.
Destiny 2 is marked in orange and Destiny 1 in white. It can be seen how drastically Destiny dropped after about 4 months:
- Destiny 1 experienced a surge in players 10 weeks after release and rose again. After six months, the player numbers were still solid.
- Destiny 2 did see surges after week 8 (PC release on October 24) and in week 14 (DLC release Curse of Osiris on December 5). However, after that the player numbers dropped rapidly. After 26 weeks – about half a year after the release of Destiny 2, active player numbers were at a low point
DLCs worked well in Destiny 1 – Failed completely in Destiny 2
What was the reason for the declining interest? There could be many reasons that the Guardians were fed up about half a year after the release of Destiny 2, in February 2018.
- stretched content
- few challenges
- unnecessary resource grind to keep players engaged
- patrols as the main activity
- weak DLCs
Also, the new raid wing in the former Leviathan could not impress. It even resembled a Worlds-First more of a sprint than a long race. Exotics did not feel special and were given away at every corner. Basically, the entire character of the loot shooter was banished.
Is Destiny 2 performing better in 2022? We do not have exact statistics on this, but we do know that Witch Queen, the new expansion for Destiny 2, sold a million copies. Many players also stated that it has the best story and the new raid is the best of its kind.
A lot has changed at Bungie since the split from Activision, and yet the development team was able to pull itself together and still achieve great things. It remains to be seen whether Bungie will continue to give it their all as they did with Witch Queen.
What did you think back in 2018 about the Curse expansion on Mercury? Did you play the expansion or were you fed up as well? Let us know!
