The Fall of Destiny 2? Why People Are Giving Up on Bungie’s Latest Title

Last Updated: July 13, 2018

Destiny 2 launched to rave reviews, happy customers and near-complete domination of the video-games market. It broke a number of sales records and saw its active player-base hit over 3 million users. The launch was nothing short of massive and Bungie enjoyed great success with its Destiny sequel, but this inflated success appears to short lived.

The console population of Destiny 2 is dwindling, with the player rate drop off picking up speed rapidly and showing no signs of leveling out just yet. From its peak of 3.5 million active users, the game is currently down to 1.8 million — its audience nearly slashed in half over the course of just one month.

While the game is soon to be released on the PC, which will likely see user numbers climb (briefly at least) the dramatic drop in players does make us wonder what happened to the popularity of Bungie’s big 2017 title.

So why are so many people leaving Destiny 2 and not coming back?

Destiny 2

 

It’s More of the Same

You can dress a dog up with a fancy hat and coat but at the end of the day, it’s still the same damn dog. Bungie has done exactly this with Destiny 2. They’ve taken the basis of Destiny and produced something the same but different.

There is more story, but it is bare-bones and not too engaging, similar to Destiny. You also have the same classes — granted with a couple extra subclasses — the same PvP/PvE experiences and a nearly identical weapon and gear collection system.

While Destiny 2 does feel like an evolution of the franchise, in terms of quality and design, it is not enough to keep players interested, especially those who spent a lot of time on the first game. Some might even go as far to say that Destiny 2 feels more like an expansion than a new game in its own right.

There Isn’t Much to Do

The story in Destiny 2 is more diverse and lengthier than its predecessor, but it still only lasts a few hours.

When you’ve completed the story and hit max level, the game is about building up power through acquiring gear in Nightfalls, Strikes, events, Crucible and raids. But this doesn’t take all that long either.

Once you’ve started to climb to the higher tiers, and the dust has settled, players are left with relatively little to actually do. MMOs are often about the grind, reaching the lofty heights of endgame and taking on the hardest challenges available. However, Destiny 2’s endgame is also mostly a grind, and the options for grinding really aren’t that diverse.

Anyone who has played Destiny 2, even for a little bit, has done enough public events to make the thought of another thoroughly unappealing — and the Nightfalls and Strikes start to get pretty tiresome after a while, too.

There is the Crucible to sink your teeth into, but given the fact that the PvP community dropped from 3.5 million users to just 800,000 over the course of a month, it’s pretty obvious that nobody is that interested in it. Again, it is just more of the same. With only small, 4v4 teams, a very limited pool of maps and a handful of game modes, it gets very samey very quickly.

When you compare this to what was available in the original Destiny as well, it just doesn’t stack up. There isn’t enough content to keep players engaged and online. The point of an MMO is that it is engrossing, that it can easily take over your life if you let it because there is just so much to do. Destiny 2 lacks that level of content and detail and also lacks the mechanics and gameplay diversity to keep people coming back for random PvP carnage.

Destiny 2 launched too thin and after sinking enough game time in, most will find themselves bored and ready for to play something new.

Lots of New, Exciting Titles

Destiny 2 launched during a surprisingly strong season of gaming. Shortly after the game’s release, we saw titles such as South Park, Shadow of War and Fifa 18 hit the shelves. But things are only set to get worse for Destiny 2 in terms of competition.

With titles like Assassin’s Creed, Mario Odyssey, Forza 7, Evil Within, Gran Turismo and a host of other massive games coming in the latter quarter of 2017, there are only more reasons for players to leave Bungie behind.

These game releases really spell trouble for Destiny 2. Unable to keep hold of its audience now, with only a couple of major releases hitting the market since its launch, the upcoming slew of massive and exciting titles is going to hit the franchise hard.

Is It All Over for Destiny 2?

Like all MMOs, Destiny 2 will have a die-hard player-base that keeps the title relevant and alive. However, Bungie will be wanting to retain as many users as possible and right now, it’s not in a good position to do so.

Before we call ‘time of death’ on Destiny 2 though, there are still two rays of hope for the Halo creators:

  1. The PC Launch: With the launch of Destiny 2 on PC very soon, the community is going to thrive for a little longer. Bungie now has to work really hard to keep these players onside.
  2. DLC: Destiny was known for its high-quality DLC and with plenty of new content heading to Destiny 2 very soon, beefing up the endgame of the 2017 release might just help bring more players back to the fold.

What is clear from the fan reaction to Destiny 2 is that the game is good and fun to play, but lacks enough content to keep them engaged, especially with so many new titles coming out to steal their attention. What Bungie has to do now is bring out diverse and creative expansions to keep people playing and give them more of what they love.

The clock is ticking for the developer. The longer they wait, and the more drop off their is, the harder it will be to bring people back to their game. The future of Destiny 2 is currently rocky, how it will fair in 2018 is anyone’s guess.

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