Despite strong story reception, Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate has hit the lowest day-one peak player count on Steam since the game moved to the platform.
Destiny 2’s newest expansion, The Edge of Fate, officially launched yesterday, kicking off the start of a brand-new Fate saga, following the conclusion of The Final Shape. The launch day had hardly any technical hiccups. Players were able to log in and play almost immediately, no long queues, no server crashes. Compared to past launches, this one was pretty smooth.
On top of that, early feedback on the expansion’s story has been pretty positive. Many players are saying the narrative is surprisingly strong, with the new characters and tone offering a fresh direction for the game.
But even with a solid launch and strong early impressions, the player numbers are telling a different story.
Destiny 2 Edge of Fate Steam Player Count
According to live tracking apps like SteamDB, Edge of Fate reached a day-one peak of 99,193 concurrent players on Steam. That’s the lowest launch-day peak for a Destiny 2 expansion since the game moved to Steam back in 2019. It’s a pretty big drop when you compare it to earlier expansions.
Here’s the quick breakdown:
- Shadowkeep: 214,000
- Beyond Light: 242,284
- The Witch Queen: 290,112
- Lightfall: 316,750 (all-time high)
- The Final Shape: 314,634
- The Edge of Fate: 99,193
That’s less than a third of Lightfall and The Final Shape’s number. For a game that once pulled in over 300k players in a single day on one platform, that kind of drop is hard to ignore.
There are a few reasons behind it. First, Edge of Fate marks the beginning of a whole new saga in Destiny 2, the first new saga since 2014. It doesn’t have the same kind of built-up momentum that The Final Shape did, which wrapped up a 10-year story arc. A lot of players saw that as a natural endpoint and stepped away.
There’s also the general mood around Bungie right now. After last year’s layoffs and ongoing community frustrations with monetization and communication, many long-time players have simply lost interest or trust.
Backing this up, a recent analysis using emblem tracking data suggests that pre-orders for Edge of Fate were down nearly 50% compared to The Final Shape. That kind of drop is massive and definitely shows up in the launch-day numbers.
That said, there’s still content to look forward to. The new raid, The Desert Perpetual, is set to launch this Saturday with a 48-hour contest mode for those chasing the World First title. You can learn more about it here.
What do you think of Edge of Fate so far? Are you playing it, or did you sit this one out? Let us know in the comments.
