All is not well in Destiny 2. The Edge of Fate expansion’s new Portal—the disastrous replacement for the game’s seasonal update model—has caused many issues, and the recent Ash & Iron update has not persuaded players to return. It’s not just an anecdotal feeling; Bungie’s recent moves have done nothing to stop players from leaving, at least if Steam’s data is considered representative of the playerbase at large.
Recently, Destiny 2 posted its lowest daily peak concurrent player count in the game’s history—16,067 players. That ‘beats’ the previous low of 18,023 back in the doldrums of Revenant—the last expansion cycle’s worst episode. While a limited snapshot, this data undeniably signals a concerning trend for a game struggling to retain its audience, regardless of the precise number of active players across all platforms. As we analyze trends here at Digital Tech Explorer, this snapshot speaks volumes about the current state of the game.
Bungie’s Patchwork Solutions and the Critical Need for a Roadmap
From the outside, it appears that Bungie is scrambling to respond to the downturn in both player numbers and morale, with the Portal in its current form actively pushing players away. The most recent attempt to earn some goodwill is an announcement that the extremely controversial plan to reset seasonal power when Renegades launches in December is now being deferred. The Destiny 2 Team account posted, “Seasonal Power will now carry over into Season 28 in December. There will not be a Seasonal Power reset as in past Seasons.”
Seasonal power, representing levels earned over the current 200 soft cap, has been a contentious system. Progressing beyond this requires an agonisingly slow climb through Portal activities towards the seasonal cap of 550. This power level dictates the tier of rewards players can earn, explaining the widespread frustration at the prospect of a full reset back to 200 when Renegades launches, forcing players to repeat the arduous grind.
This deferral is just one of several recent adjustments attempting to smooth over the many rough edges in the current Portal design. Last month, for instance, Bungie announced that any weapons or armour earned this season would retain the ‘New Gear’ bonus when Renegades launches—a change to the original plan of New Gear buffs only applying to that season’s loot. The obvious question, however, becomes: What happens after Renegades? The announcement is carefully worded, giving no indication of how seasonal power will change in future seasons. It also isn’t clear if we’ll see a power cap increase in Renegades—if we do, and players can no longer earn tier five loot at 450+ power, there’s very little effective difference between that and a full reset in the first place.
Week after week, Bungie seems to roll out yet another quick fix, attempting to placate a community that has largely rejected what many see as a fundamentally flawed system. Two weeks ago, the studio announced a change to Portal challenge modifiers in an attempt to make the system “more accessible and more rewarding at all Power levels”. But as part of this, Bungie is introducing power deltas—fixed difficulty caps—to everything in the Portal. This move should have been the final nail in the coffin for the power grind; it fully exposes it as an artificial block on players’ ability to earn the gear they’re chasing. If you can’t outlevel an activity, power as defined by a number is rendered meaningless. Instead, these caps will exist alongside the power climb—the worst of both worlds.
For the last few weeks, Bungie has been hinting at a roadmap that plans to outline what the Portal will become on a longer timeline. This is going to be an absolutely critical moment if the studio wants to reassure the community that there is a strategic plan in place that goes beyond short-term quick fixes, directly addressing the root issues inherent to how Destiny 2 operates right now.