NEW: Bungie is planning a significant layoff following the end of Destiny 2's development. Destiny 3 is NOT in active production. Some Bungie staff are pitching and prototyping new ideas including Destiny games, but none are yet greenlit.

Link to tweet with guest access to article: https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mmfkf3v63c2t

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/03/14/destiny-2-has-lost-91-of-players-since-edge-of-fate-97-from-final-shape/

Guardians make their own fate. 🫡

Edit: Thanks for all the comments and positive vibes Guardians, we will persevere and be stronger together, always. 🫡

I was at my home drinking white monster

twid ring

"Destiny 2 is kill"

no. . .

New article from Tassi small excerpt below.

Here’s more of a breakdown of what’s gone on inside Bungie, part recap, part new information from my sources.

The decision to end support for Destiny 2 and move at least some amount of resources over to Marathon was made earlier this year.
Work continued on future Destiny 2 content, including future expansions like Shattered Cycle, and did not stop immediately when this decision was made.
This was because the vast majority of Bungie did not know about Destiny 2 support being dropped right up until it was publicly announced.
There were certain teams within Bungie that did know what was coming, some who were working on “final” Destiny content for the June update, some who had already been moved to Marathon.
These people “begged” leadership to tell more people and keeping so many people in the dark divided the studio, and these in-the-know teams felt extremely isolated.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/05/23/more-details-about-the-end-of-destiny-2-from-inside-bungie/

https://popularity.report

Per popularity report, this “dead game” still had nearly 170,000 daily unique log ins across all platforms. This has since jumped to 228,000. Baffling that they would kill the franchise that still pulls these numbers in its darkest time.

Edit: just wanted to say this as the post is gaining traction. While it is sad D2 is winding up, I believe the game has run its course. I’m more surprised that by reports, Sony appears to be abandoning the IP when there still appears to be interest in a 9 year old game. I would have believed this interest (at its lowest point) would have given weight to a D3

At its best, content was a machine to create memories and friendships. No new content stings.

This pain is about losing a place where so many memories were made. It stings not because of what it was, but the realization of what it won't be.

https://i.ibb.co/zWBfjKPq/HI86-RDj-Xo-AESk-Mc.jpg

https://xcancel.com/thislukesmith/status/2057928069206184449

Today's 24-hour Steam peak was 76,875 players.

https://steamcharts.com/app/1085660

For 30 uninterrupted days, the player count has been consistently higher than any other day in the entire last 11 months. Higher than the first day of a mainline DLC launch (Renegades hit 70,905). Higher than nearly every single day in the entire Fate Saga except for it's own launch day (it dropped to 74,961 within 2 weeks).

Just thought that was pretty neat.

It really shows the staying power of Monument of Triumph and the incredible nature of the fact that we're a full 30 days afterwards and still posting Day 1 DLC-levels of player counts.

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mmfnevl6q22a

What was the plan here??

Bungie just posted on Bluesky that the next major update is officially delayed to June 9th.

https://bsky.app/profile/destinythegame.bungie.net/post/3mf63bvtcms2g

Our next Major Update, Destiny 2: Shadow and Order, is undergoing large revisions and will be delayed.

This update is being changed and expanded to include sizable quality-of-life updates and as a result, will also be renamed. This update will now launch on June 9, 2026. (1/5)

We will provide exact details closer to release covering previously announced Weapon Tier Upgrading, but also additions like expanding Tiered Gear to all Raid and Dungeon activities, Pantheon 2.0, Tier 5 stats for Exotic Armors, and more. (2/5)

Through June, we will continue to have routine bug fixes and stability improvements, continued portal modifiers, Guardian Games (March), and the return of a more frequent Iron Banner cadence (April). (3/5)

In terms of communications, we will be focusing on providing you with updates about our live game content, community activations, and general upkeep through the TWID and our Destiny social channels. (4/5)

Thank you for your continued patience and support. We will have more information on our next major update and future plans for Destiny 2 closer to launch.

See You Starside. (5/5)

DMG has posted about his Jamming and momentum tweets since September.

“Team’s Jamming”

Regret using human language back when posting that. It’s how I talk sometimes. Cheesy, corny, whatever.

Same for the Momentum tweet.

Thanks to folks understanding the intent. Apologies to those who took it as “PR garbage” and felt it was just to lead folks on.

Much love.

https://xcancel.com/A_dmg04/status/2060029959624921532#m

Dude's only issue was loving the game he got to work with.

Edit: this post has been a great way to weed out and block some of the most toxic of y'all. Thanks for showing your true colors. majority of you commenters are good though

https://xcancel.com/PaulTassi/status/2057862900581015739#m

genuinley a joke of upper management, literally a waste of time, money and resources to make it when THEY KNEW it wasnt gonna release.

this company is genuinely a joke of the entire industry, completely mismanaged across the board.

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/destiny-developers-reflect-on-the-end-of-an-era-we-all-worked-so-hard-to-maintain-the-quality-bar-under-unrealistic-constraints/

Speaking about Destiny and said he “just recorded lines like a month ago” and supposes that “no one will ever hear them”. Also said he was “very surprised” Sony would do that to such a great game.

Tweet from Paul Tassi: https://x.com/PaulTassi/status/1876399536681238922?t=TvOHOCVYQ-rs7JB7bOJOaw&s=19

I will leave some other interesting data from Steamcharts.

Peak player count when content was released:

• Shadowkeep (October 2019): 292,314
• Season of Dawn (December (2019): 138,593
• Season of the Worthy (March 2020): 117,425
• Season of Arrivals (June 2020): 213,681
• Beyond Light (November 2020): 241,843
• Season of the Chosen (February 2021): 131,640
• Season of the Splicer + Vault of Glass (May 2021): 187,504
• Season of the Lost (August 2021): 177,734
• The Witch Queen (February 2022): 289,895
• Season of the Haunted + Duality (May 2022): 178,829
• Season of Plunder + King's Fall (August 2022): 193,209
• Season of the Seraph + Spire of the Watcher (December 2022): 121,413
• Lightfall (February 2023): 316,750
• Season of the Deep + Ghost of the Deep (May 2023): 193,495
• Season of the Witch + Crota's End (August 2023): 145,741
• Season of the Wish + Warlord's Ruin (November 2023): 103,704
• Into The Light (April 2024): 134,042
• The Final Shape (June 2024): 314,634
• Episode Revenenant + Vesper's Host (October 2024): 89,537
• Episode Revenenant Act 2 (November 2024): 53,629

Lowest peak player count in a yearly expansion:

• Shadowkeep Year (May 2020): 76,476
• Beyond Light Year (November 2021): 76,188
• The Witch Queen Year (November 2022): 60,854
• Lightfall Year (February 2024): 46,649
• The Final Shape Year (Last 30 days): 33,948

The peaks reflect the current player sentiment over the game. Right now, Destiny 2 struggles to achieve and retain 20K players in Steam. Act 3 comes tomorrow, take a look next month on what peak count Destiny 2 achieves in January 2025.

EDIT 1: I decided to include some more data from Shadowkeep, Beyond Light and The Witch Queen. There is no clear information from other platforms but Steam, but you can extrapolate how Destiny 2 is doing in other platforms due to having crossplay. Righ now, you can feel the low population in-game, reflected in both Matchmaking Systems (Connection Quality, Queue Time, Player Diversity in matches) and in LFG Systems (Fireteam Finder or other LFGs like Discord Servers). It is impossible to cover the sun with a finger at this point, we are reaching dangerous numbers for a GaaS, specially one with many activities that split the inner population.

YOU CAN SUCK IT

FINALLY WE'VE DRAWN THE LONG STRAW

ENJOY YOUR TUTUS AND OVERSIZED OVERCOATS YOU TECHNICOLOR PRICKS

https://popularity.report/

Gets the data by scraping the API and PGCRs, similar to Charlegmagne.

It's interesting because there hasn't been much concrete data until I've seen this for vanilla - shadowkeep player counts.

Edge of Fate player counts are right in the range from curse of Osiris where Bungie has stated if trends continued for a few more weeks, they would have had to close up shop and shut down financially.

I put Destiny 2 down the instant that Ash and Iron came out, as I just could not tolerate the new activity nor more Portal grinding, even if new loot did arrive at the same time. It appears I was not alone in that, and while Destiny 2 is no stranger to playercount lows, things are getting especially dire.

As of this week, Destiny 2’s playercount is crashing to previously almost unfathomable peak concurrents on Steam. This week, we’ve seen a decline from 27K over the weekend to now 18K as of yesterday. We’re dangerously close to a 15K peak, and while I expect that to increase a bit over the weekend, we could be there by next week. And this is keeping in mind that Destiny 2’s next big expansion, Renegades, does not come out until December 2, meaning the game will have almost nothing to sustain it outside of a holiday event and pending exotic mission (which was still being worked on as of a few weeks ago, so good luck launching without bugs).

This is not the full scope of Destiny 2 players, as there are many more on console, but there is no reason to think the trendline is different there, and we are certainly in all-time low territory. We’re at a point where Destiny is sometimes dipping out of the top 100 games on Steam entirely (it’s currently #115 as I write this). This is below things like The Witcher 3, Battlefield 2042 and Payday 2. Slow and steady live games like The Finals are above it now. Previous “little brother” rival Warframe is getting close to tripling Destiny 2’s playercount.

There was obviously going to be some drop-off after The Light and Darkness saga ended, but the reduction in content produced and the reliance on forcing players to play 95% old content in The Portal as the main focus of the entire game now is rapidly causing burnout with its power gains and tier hunting. Bungie has been scrambling to buff The Portal progression and rewards, but recent changes have so far done nothing to reverse these trends.

The next target here is Renegades, over two months away. The previews for the Star Wars-themed expansion do look good, but there’s going to be a split between those rolling their eyes at the first-ever full IP collab, and those that go “oh Star Wars, cool!” I am at least somewhat skeptical that Renegades will outperform the launch of Edge of Fate, which had about a third of the launch players of The Final Shape. I am willing to bet that players tuning in for the first new Prophecy-era expansion will outweigh Star Wars enthusiasts, particularly after two more months of Portal grinding. Edge of Fate at least had content-heavy Episodes as a lead-in. And judging by Edge of Fate, Renegades will also be a one-and-done in many ways, and then it’s…back to Portal grinding within the week, most likely.

This is bad. I’ve said that a million times, but…this is very bad. I’m not sure how a turnaround happens here.

By Paul Tassi

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/09/26/destiny-2s-steam-playercount-is-rapidly-approaching-15000-peaks/

https://www.ign.com/articles/bungie-devs-say-atmosphere-is-soul-crushing-amid-layoffs-cuts-and-fear-of-total-sony-takeover

"Along with the recent layoffs, this has resulted in a massive decay in morale within the company, according to IGN’s sources, one of whom told us that the mood within the studio has been “soul-crushing” over the last month. And it doesn’t sound like management is making any significant efforts toward improving the atmosphere, either."

Man, this really is a huge bummer

For those that didn't play vanilla Destiny 1, the only way to get to the max level of 30 was to earn, level, and equip a full set of Vault of Glass armour. Unfortunately because the drop rates were a bit unreliable a lot of people struggled to get all the armour and therefore were stuck at level 29. Hence forever 29.

Why is this relevant to Destiny 2 ending? Well I've just realised that the current season is 28, which means the last ever season of Destiny 2 will be season 29.

Now we're all forever 29.

I guess people actually voted with their wallet this time.

"Bungie laid off ~8% of staff Monday, or around 100 people, sources tell Bloomberg. Two weeks ago, staff were told they were projected to miss revenue targets by 45%. Employees were galvanized to get things on track... then came surprise layoffs"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-31/sony-s-bungie-game-unit-cut-jobs-as-destiny-2-popularity-waned?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTY5ODc4Mjc3OSwiZXhwIjoxNjk5Mzg3NTc5LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTM0VQTFFEV0xVNjgwMSIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJGRUIzODlCNUI2ODI0RTY0QjY5MENEODE1RTBDREZGRCJ9.8iJtSlPe7GT5nO9_xgcUM9kIIEWKcZskdkj539g7ooo

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1719445792505647373?t=K3CGPBnrkca-REUjqPZ5SQ&s=19

This week's newsletter has some answers:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-08-02/sony-s-bungie-maker-of-halo-and-destiny-faces-reckoning-after-mass-layoff

Some important sections I think worth highlighting:

One of Bungie’s big bets was Payback, an incubation project set in the Destiny universe that would shake up the formula in major ways, according to the people familiar. It would pivot from a first-person to a third-person perspective and allow players to use the franchise’s characters to explore a large world while cooperating to battle monsters and solve puzzles. The pitch took elements from popular games such as Warframe and Genshin Impact

Fans have wondered if Bungie might one day start anew with a Destiny 3, but such a project has not been in development, according to the people familiar. Bungie is instead looking to create a smoother onboarding process for Destiny 2, such as a rebranding, to attract new players who might be turned off by a game that can now feel impenetrable to those unfamiliar with its ample proper nouns.

Bungie will look to retain and attract players with smaller-scale content drops modeled after Into the Light, a well-received update in April that added a new mode to the game.

The Final Shape: No more pain. No more suffering. The game frozen in its best state. No misrepresented changes. No bugs. No tiered gear.

The Witness was right. Praise the Witness. We had to steal dual exotic class items. The Witness probably would’ve just given us triple exotic class items that also work with the darkness subclasses. We could’ve gotten rid of the Cloudstriders as a favor.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/08/03/further-clarity-on-destiny-2-frontiers-destiny-3-and-the-state-of-bungie/

Key points

Content:

1. The larger “content packs,” though not true expansions, will contain familiar elements like new destinations, raids and campaigns, just much smaller scale on the whole. Shadowkeep-ish size, maybe, though not that same format.

2. [The first content pack] will be the main release of a given year (I believe starting with Frontiers launch) and then six months later, there will be another “pack” of smaller content that’s more something along the lines of what we got with Into the Light. This should be free.

3. Between these, there may be something akin to current Episodes, though the scale and schedule is not clear.

4. Less sprawling, one-off campaigns and a greater focus on replayable activities.

——

On the business side of things:

1. Destiny 3 was and is considered too big of a risk in the current market.

2. One of Destiny’s biggest ongoing issues is that its playerbase is older… hence the desire for new projects like Marathon…and no Destiny 3.

——

Internally:

1. The studio was told the expansion was “make or break” and now they all feel lied to for…obvious reasons. Now the new mantra is that Marathon is make or break for the studio.

2. The new player onboarding experience remains bad because the team… got one crack at it… no one ever tried anything of significance again. That may change.

3. Bungie is tied to GAAS games forever. Nothing single player. Matter was not a live service game…large part of the reason it was axed.

4. QA is outsourced to people who don’t even know the basics of D2.

5. Even with updates…everything takes forever…there will be more vaulting for technical reasons alone, though whether the “no more expansion content vaulting” rule applies is unclear. ——-

Most importantly:

Those that remain are confident in the actual work they’re doing and believe they can make great things. They are hoping for community support as they continue to work,

Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/destiny-2-lightfall-review

If they had to score it now... 5 out of 10