The Division seems to be gaining players again in recent months – at least on Steam. We show you how the game has performed in recent months and present possible reasons for the upswing.
That player numbers fluctuate – especially in online games – is relatively normal. The Division, however, has special highs and lows due to its unique story.
The Division is becoming more popular: If we believe the Steam charts, the popularity of the Steam version of The Division has increased significantly recently. A clever Reddit user analyzed the data from recent months and found that since last May, increasingly more agents have been roaming Manhattan.
But first, let’s take a look at the highs and lows of player numbers on Steam. Keep in mind that this does not represent all platforms, but can still give a relatively good impression on a smaller scale.
Highs and Lows of The Division
Like most games, The Division reached the highest player numbers on Steam in its first month. According to the Steamcharts website, the shooter was able to achieve
- an average player count of 65,065
- and a peak of 113,877 players
as well. This was also the case on other platforms, after all, The Division remains the most successful launch title in Ubisoft’s company history. But after the peak came a steep decline, as shortly after release, the game was plagued by numerous issues.
Just half a year later, The Division was at rock bottom,
- due to numerous issues, the average player count dropped to a mere 1,972,
- the then peak in September 2016 was only 3,434 players.
In December 2016, the Survival launch and a free weekend led to another rise,
- an average of 14,027 players were active in that month
- and a total of 38,689 players dared to return
Until today, this is, apart from the release period, a peak value. Even then, there were discussions about the timed exclusivity of DLCs and the general division of the community due to paid content.
It took until December 2017 for the numbers to rise again and even made the servers sweat. Patch 1.8 caused a boom and showed that The Division can indeed still motivate both new and old players.
Now let’s take a look at the Steam data of recent months.
May 2018 – Another Low Point
The upswing from Patch 1.8 lasted a while, but ultimately the player count sank again to a relatively low level.
- In December 2017, there were still an average of 12,920 players active, with peak values of up to 33,452 players
- but by May 2018, there were only an average of 3,339 players with a peak of 7,262
The Possible Reasons for the Decline in Players
Despite the upswing due to Patch 1.8, the player numbers couldn’t remain high for too long. There are various reasons for this.
- Many have exhausted the content: Especially long-time Division players reached a point where there was nothing left for them to do.
- Frequent global events made it easy for agents to fully equip themselves: To celebrate the 2nd anniversary, for example, all global events were repeated every 2 days.
- Year 3 and The Division 2: Since March of this year, we know that The Division 2 is in development. At the same time, a Year 3 for the first part has been confirmed.
Why continue now when a second part is coming in the foreseeable future? The roadmap for Year 3 promised little. Two patches with no major new content and a repeated occurrence of global events that had already been quite frequent in the spring. But then came E3.
June 2018 – Player Numbers Rise Significantly
- In June, there was an average of 9,372 players online, with a peak of 21,497 agents
- Percentage-wise, this is an increase of around 180% compared to May
Since Update 1.8, there has been no jump as significant.
The Possible Reasons for Rising Numbers – E3, Sale, and Shields
Since the presentation of The Division 2, the original has also been on the rise again. Partly due to a convincing appearance at E3, and partly because of the shields that launched at the same time with Patch 1.8.2.
Shields bring rewards for The Division 2: The shield challenges were already announced with the Year 3 roadmap and provide rewards for both The Division 1 & 2. This incentive is likely a reason for both veterans and newcomers to come to Manhattan.
E3 presence of Massive encourages many fans: During E3, Massive gave visitors not only the opportunity to try out a demo of The Division 2, but also released numerous live streams and interviews with fans, YouTubers, and journalists.
YouTuber Skill Up conducted one of these interviews with Julian Gerighty (Creative Director) and Mathias Karlson. You can read all about it in detail with us.
This appearance may have sparked anticipation and reignited motivation for the first part, especially as many new players were likely attracted.
The Division on Sale: A factor is certainly that The Division is currently included in the Steam Summer Sale.
Also, at the time of E3, the Gold Edition of The Division was on sale in several stores. This would have definitely been beneficial.
What’s Next?
Patch 1.8.2 was according to the roadmap the last official update for The Division. From now until September, we can expect monthly global events; last week the outbreak event already started.
Further balance changes have not been ruled out; we may also expect a bug fix or two. However, we doubt there will be another large update before the release of The Division 2. Massive is likely to allocate all available resources to the second part.
Perhaps a surprise awaits us as well. We will definitely keep our ears open for you.
The 5-year history of The Division up to today can be read with us.
