No, numbers do not lie. There are reasons players are NOT flocking back. 1) years of making the game harder, EOF topped that off by tying LL progression to difficulty and creating a new Ultimate difficulty mode. Players do not like this and will not come back as long as this is in place. 2) too few new activities, 6 in lawless frontier, just 6. 3) timers, limited revives, TIMERS on everything 4)No new exotic wihtou8t legendary mode campaign, and once started on normal, you can't change it or repeat campaign on harder difficulty. Bungie is continuing to make bad decisions about changes to the game. QOL changes are not enough and not timely. Prime example: The Vault changes we have been asking for neigh on 10 years, too little too late. Players are NOT coming back for vault changes.

Steam is a good indicator for observing a direction or a trend. Right now, there are 15,000 people playing Destiny 2 -- a massively multiplayer online game. And even if there are bigger numbers on console (maybe?), with a trend like this, it can't be much more. I know a lot of players who stopped after Bungie announced the changes for "Year of Prophecy." Players, more from console than on PC. Paladins (of Discord), Sherpas, and brilliant players who build the backbone of a game like this. Destiny 2 went its way... the way Bungie created for years. That's how easy it is. Edit: Text correction

It is unfortunate that Bungie has this game. I would like to see it in more capable hands.

By that metric, Borderlands 4 is a failure and dead game with its 7k steam player count which is lower than Destiny 2 was months into Edge of Fate. An 8 year old game at 77k isnt even bad considering it's not even a pvp focused game.

Stop listening to Trashi

Another 'the sky is falling' opinion based on steam numbers lol. 1 day yall will learn.

I think the number one reason by far for Destiny 2's player decline is simply that it's old. Plenty of games, even fantastic ones, fade into oblivion. I don't think D2 being a live service game makes it immune to that dynamic. It's just the way of things. New games come along to compete, or older players get jaded, new players get lost in learning the game, you name it. Though people who still love D2 hate to admit it, the world moves on. But this brings up my real complaint against Bungie. When one door closes, another is supposed to open. That door is supposed to be Destiny 3 or Marathon, which is the problem. One doesn't exist, and the other one maybe shouldn't exist. Where's the new vision or adventures we can look forward to? Absent of those, D2 is all there is left to cling to. Bungie needs to get their long-term strategic vision together fast. Even if the current development team performs miracles with Destiny 2, it will probably still fade into a fringe game. Bungie needs to show D2 players that their loyalty won't be wasted. They could even retain or even expand the player base a bit if players thought something good was still coming down the road. But right now, that's lacking, and that lack of vision and the game's age is taking its toll. Anyways, I still hope something of interest might still be coming. We'll see.

Once Marathon flops them they will suddenly understand where they went wrong. But honestly, Probably not though, because Bungie doesn't learn from mistakes