In Destiny 2, the Vault of Glass significantly boosts player numbers. Why is this piece of Destiny history still so popular today, and is Bungie’s focus on nostalgia paying off?
That the Vault of Glass enjoys cult status among Guardians is part of a Guardian’s basic knowledge. However, how popular this ancient raid really is can only be seen in the enormous increase in player numbers. The re-release of the Vault of Glass attracted as many players to the MMO shooter as the major expansion Beyond Light did at the end of 2020.
We look at MeinMMO to see what makes the 2014 raid so popular today and why Bungie hit the mark perfectly with the nostalgia attack in Season 14.
What do the numbers say about the popularity of Destiny 2?
Here’s how it looks on Steam: Since Destiny 2 moved to Steam, we can closely monitor the player population on PC.
- For most of the year, Destiny 2 hovers around a solid 60,000 to just over 90,000 average players on Steam. This is during a season and was quite stable in 2020 and 2021 (via Steam).
- There was a significant spike in early November 2020: At peak, 241,843 players were playing the new expansion Beyond Light at launch, even though it was a rocky start.
- At the start of Season 13 (February 2021), the peak was 131,640 Guardians.
- At the start of Season 14 (May 2021), there were initially 102,928 players, and once the severe technical launch issues were resolved, even 157,679 players at peak.
- The Vault of Glass catapulted the simultaneous active Guardians to a proud high of 187,504 on May 22.
The boom even temporarily earned Destiny 2 the third spot among all games on Steam. Only the two heavyweights DOTA and Counter Strike GO were more popular. Today (May 25 at 11:00 AM), Destiny 2 is ranked 7th on the platform (via Steam).
What about consoles? The exact numbers for PlayStation 5 and 4 as well as Xbox Series X/S and One are a mystery. Unfortunately, the population cannot be read as specifically as on Steam.
However, through API functions, data banks, and trackers for Destiny 2, we can see that even more Guardians are active on both consoles than on Steam. We can therefore infer that the numbers here are even higher, but this can only be accurately proven by Sony or Microsoft. It should also be noted that some Guardians are also fighting on Google Stadia. However, since the launch of the cloud service, the number of Guardians on that platform has been by far the lowest.
By 2021, all Guardians are set to save the universe together. Completely cross-play should connect all platforms. You can already test the feature today:
The Vault of Glass evokes the good old days
The first raid from 2014 was many player’s first raid experience and especially a complete novelty for shooter players. The Vault of Glass is from the “Golden Age” when everything in Destiny was new and exciting. Thus, the feelings, weapons, and the search for secrets burned into the collective memory of the Guardians.
But even younger Guardians have heard about the idealized raid over the years through word of mouth, which must almost be like the Holy Grail of Destiny. Just the mention of weapons like the Fatebringer brings a smile to the face, or in the case of the Vex Mythoclast makes the anxiety sweat kick in immediately.
Raids are … popular? Generally, new content of this magnitude attracts many players. The last raid was the Deep Stone Crypt, which went live in November 2020 and managed to engage an above-average number of Guardians. For a long time, raids in Destiny 2 were considered something only a few elite Guardians played.
But that has changed. A look at the completions of raids on Day 1 shows that endgame activity in Destiny 2 has truly become popular.
A glance at the distribution of the Guardians also shows that suddenly so many are raiding, more than ever. This also explains why raid weapons are currently among the most played guns and dominate the meta in PvE.
Here’s why so many Guardians were present: The great interest in the Vault of Glass was also boosted by several factors:
- All players can explore the re-release of the Vault of Glass completely free of charge.
- The Free2Play version of Destiny 2 is sufficient, as the raid is not tied to any DLCs or season pass content.
- To accommodate returning players and newcomers, the required power level was set quite low. Therefore, it’s doable without much grind to master the first encounters of the raid.
- In contrast to season starts, the raid launch went almost completely smoothly (a deactivated exotic here, a bugged Prometheus Lens at the Gatekeeper there, just the usual).
- There was one downside: For the first 24 hours, the Vault of Glass was in a special competitive mode that was considerably too challenging for many casual Guardians. However, this did ensure that streamers had great viewing numbers…
- Bungie has also heavily promoted the nostalgic trip to Venus in their blog posts, on Twitter, and in the game itself.
Is this it for nostalgia in Destiny 2?
In Season 14, Bungie is adopting a strategy that we could nicely call nostalgia – while harsh critics might say it’s heavy recycling. For example, in the Trial of the Trials, iconic guns like the Unification (Hung Jury) await, making veteran hearts race.
There is also genuinely new content, but it is currently overshadowed. However, it must be noted that Bungie has made a memorable moment with the adorable alien babies and the story told in-game causes serious political stomach pains.
More to come for sure: Since Beyond Light, the content vault has unleashed the Cosmodrome and brought back old strikes from Destiny 1. In general, we have almost all old legendary and exotic weapons and armor that people remember (yes Titans, you’re missing the Duskfall Garrison).
But success proves Bungie right. You can therefore expect with considerable certainty that more raids from Destiny 1 are on the way.
Just as popular as the Vault of Glass is the King’s Fall raid, if not even more popular. So can we soon look forward to a reunion with the ultimate villain Oryx – at least in a simulation, or whatever explanation Bungie provides?
What do you think of the “new” Vault of Glass? Can you understand the hype around the ancient raid and are you riding the nostalgic wave fully? Let us know in the comments.
What is set to come for the MMO shooter in 2021 and beyond has reportedly already been leaked: Huge leak reveals plenty of details about the future of Destiny 2 – What’s the truth?
