In Destiny 2, the Trials of the Nine have reached a new negative record in player numbers. If the trend continues, the event will hardly have any participants in a month.
The MMO shooter Destiny 2 is currently going through a difficult phase. The Guardians are migrating to new games, and there is little motivation to log in to Destiny 2 regularly. Bungie needs to roll out significant endgame changes and new content to spark enthusiasm in the community again. But significant changes are likely not expected until May.
The Trials, the Trials of the Nine, are currently particularly suffering: For weeks, regular reddit posts have emerged indicating that the Trials have set new negative records in player numbers. Twitch streamers are also turning away from Destiny 2 and the Trials. Players are abandoning the Trials of the Nine.
What is the status of the Trials in Destiny 2?
The last Trials, which ran from February 2 to February 6, reached the next low point. Only 77,800 players participated cross-platform in the Trials.
For comparison:
- In early February 2016, around the same time after “The Taken King”, about 500,000 Guardians participated in the Trials in Destiny 1. That was more than 6 times as much as now.
- In early February 2017, the February after “The Rise of Iron”, there were still over 270,000 Guardians participating in the Trials.
- And even in August 2017, when the Trials in Destiny 1 had their low point, the player count was still around 150,000. That was still twice as much as now.
The trend shows: It’s going further down
In mid-September, the first Trials of Destiny 2 started with a high number of participants beyond 1 million. However, it quickly went downhill from there.
- By mid-January 2018, only 141,000 Guardians were playing the Trials. Already then, the lowest player numbers from Destiny 1 were surpassed.
- The following week, it was even fewer: 121,000.
- In the last week of January, it suddenly dropped to 95,000. For the first time, the participant count fell below the 100,000 mark.
- And now, at the beginning of February, it was 77,800.
For four weeks, the player numbers have been decreasing by around 20,000 Guardians each week. If this trend continues, there will hardly be any players in the Trials in four weeks, at the beginning of March.
Normally, such a trend tends to reinforce itself. Because the fewer players participate, the longer the matchmaking takes, which frustrates the players who still want to play. These players eventually also leave. This would equate to the end of the Trials.
It will be interesting to see how Bungie plans to turn this around. At the end of January, it was announced that they were internally discussing “Trials of the Nine” improvements. They are now collecting suggestions and feedback from the community.
In the forums, the suggestion keeps coming up: Bungie should just reactivate the Trials in Destiny 1.
Are you still an active Trials player?
