Destiny 2: The Final Shape barely misses setting a player record on its first day

Destiny 2: The Final Shape, the narrative-concluding premium DLC chapter for Bungie’s seven-year-old loot shooter, came ever so close to helping the title set a player-count record on PC, according to SteamDB. The 314,634 peak concurrent users on Tuesday is a huge spike in playership and participation, but it’s about 2,000 short of the all-time peak of 316,750 set when the Lightfall expansion dropped in February 2023.

Though impressive, it’s still just one slice out of a game that is also available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. If nothing else, the jump in player numbers indicates The Final Shape will be a hit among players for reasons more than simple nostalgia.

Some Destiny 2 players did find long queue times and server sign-on issues on Tuesday afternoon, which were officially acknowledged by the game’s official X account and followed by “background maintenance” to help servers bear the load. In any case, the game was still able to support 300,000 players logging in on PC, with even more coming in later in the day from the consoles.

DESTINY 2 MAINTENANCE
❖Update 8.0.0.1

Destiny 2 background maintenance is ongoing as we continue to investigate sign-on and stability issues. We will provide additional updates in 2 hours.

— Bungie Help (@BungieHelp) June 4, 2024

Destiny 2: The Final Shape, culminating the light-versus-darkness conflict that has built up in the sci-fi shooter adventure since 2014 with the first Destiny, launched on June 4, although a slip-up with PlayStation 5’s cloud streaming capabilities did leak the expansion early on that platform. (It was quickly fixed.) It is the game’s sixth major expansion, and was delayed from its original launch date in February.

The expansion introduces a new character subclass, Prismatic, as well as the usual spread of new weapons, gear, and other loot. A new enemy species “The Dread” will confront players as they approach a final showdown with the Destiny canon’s big bad, The Witness.

The expansion’s raid, always a major event for diehard fans, will go live on June 7. We have much more about the expansion and what it entails for those interested.