The Forsaken expansion for Destiny 2 has been playable for a few days now and is receiving largely positive feedback from the majority of fans. But how have the player numbers developed since the launch?
If the information from the website Destiny-Tracker is to be believed, the player numbers have tripled since the end of August. Although the numbers from the Destiny 2 launch have not been reached, the increase with Forsaken was still substantial.
Destiny 2 – Significant increase in player numbers since the end of August
The current player numbers: The website Destiny-Tracker recorded 1.3 million players in the Crucible and 2.6 million Guardians in PvE on September 7. These figures include players from all three platforms – PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
This is how the statistics are compiled: Only the accounts tracked by the site are considered. The actual statistics are likely even higher. Even considering that these figures are spread across three platforms, it represents a significant jump in a very short time.
This is how it was at the end of August: Although Destiny-Tracker discontinued its extensive player count statistics last year and since then only displays the current numbers on the main page, one can still get a good overview of their development thanks to some web archives.
The last copy of the Destiny-Tracker front page on the archive site Wayback Machine is from August 28, 2018. At that time, 462,000 Crucible players and 767,000 Guardians in PvE were registered.
Does PS Plus play a role? During this time, in addition to the Forsaken release, there was another significant event that may have impacted player numbers. Destiny 2 was made available for free to all PS Plus subscribers on PS4 in September. However, it is difficult to assess how much this action affected the numbers.
Many newcomers as well as returnees: However, looking at the total number of tracked players, it has increased from 9.8 million to 10.5 million between August 28 and September 7. This corresponds to nearly 700,000 new players. In relation to the increase, this number, however, shows that there are not only newcomers, but many returning players who want to take another look at Destiny 2 with Forsaken.
What is special about Forsaken? Many fans consider the Forsaken expansion to be Bungie’s last chance to get the much-maligned Destiny 2 back on track. Apparently, many want to make their own impressions of this last chance. The figures speak a clear language.
And from initial impressions, it seems that Bungie is finally on the right track with Forsaken. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive at least at the beginning – both from the press and from the fans.
Forsaken delivers at launch – but more needs to come: With Forsaken, Bungie addresses the previous core issues of the game for the first time and brings many community-requested features. The expansion is thus not only attractive for newcomers, it also offers veterans many reasons to come back.
However, whether the add-on can convince in the long run remains to be seen. Because especially regarding long-term motivation and in endgame, the major autumn expansion still needs to prove itself. If it can also score points in these aspects, fans may finally get the game they have been waiting so long for.
