Destiny 2 might be coming to the end of its live-service road, but players are making sure it does not go quietly into that good night.
Today marks the launch of Monument of Triumph, Bungie’s final live-service content update for Destiny 2 before it throws all of its weight behind Marathon, and faces down an uncertain future. The game itself is not being shut down and Bungie has said it will remain playable, much like the original Destiny, but active development is coming to an end after nearly nine years of expansions, seasons, raids, controversies, triumphs, disasters, and that one bloke in your fireteam who still does not understand the mechanics.
Players have been flooding back in huge numbers. According to SteamDB, Destiny 2 surged far beyond its usual daily concurrent player counts, climbing to around 166,000 players on Steam alone. That’s at the time of writing – it may climb higher. That’s the most concurrent players the game has had on Steam in over 2-years, since around the time that The Final Shape launched. And who knows how many more have logged in on console as well?
That is a remarkable jump for a game that has spent recent months ticking along at far lower numbers, and it turns today into something more than just another patch day.
It is part farewell, part protest, part celebration, and part “look, Sony, people still care about this thing.”
There does appear to have been some organisation behind the surge. In the days leading up to Monument of Triumph, fans rallied around the idea of logging in on June 9 to show support for Destiny’s future, especially as calls for Destiny 3 have grown louder. Bungie community lead Dylan “dmg04” Gafner also helped fan the flames by reposting calls for players to log in, while the Destiny community has been loudly arguing that the franchise deserves more than to simply fade into maintenance mode.
Whether that player spike will actually influence anything is impossible to know. Sony and Bungie are not going to greenlight Destiny 3 because of one good day on SteamDB, no matter how dramatically the community stares at the concurrent player chart. Just recently, Paul Tassi said that “Unfortunately, neither the petition nor the planned login surge on the 9th has any chance of reversing the recent decision or greenlighting Destiny 3, as well-intentioned as they may be.”
But it does make for one hell of a statement: for all its mistakes, exhaustion and baggage, Destiny 2 still has a huge audience willing to come back when there is something meaningful to rally around. The recent State of Play held by Sony was flooded with people in the live comments calling for Destiny 3, and the fan petition has reached over 373,000 signatures.
To Bungie’s credit, Monument of Triumph is not just a sad little goodbye card with a shader taped to it. This is a monster of an update.
The patch notes reportedly stretch to 71 pages and around 17,000 words, which is both absurd and strangely perfect for Destiny. Among the additions are the permanent return of Pantheon and Sparrow Racing League, a restored Director, a simplified Portal, refreshed loot across raids, dungeons and destinations, new ways to chase specific weapon drops, 25 new exotic weapon catalysts, 300 extra vault slots, eight more loadout slots, seven selectable artifacts, new class aspects, new Stasis and Strand grenades, buffs to primary weapons, a huge balance pass and even the return of Gambit.
Check out the official blog for more details.
At the centre of it all is the Monument of Triumph itself, a new Tower feature built to celebrate everything players have accomplished since Destiny 2 launched. Players can complete Triumphs to earn Legendary Marks, then spend those on free armour ornaments, accessories, weapon engrams and other rewards from Guardian Tenet vendors.
In other words, Bungie is trying to leave Destiny 2 in a better place than it has been for a while. Which is nice. Also extremely funny, because apparently the best time to get back into Destiny 2 might be the exact moment Bungie is stepping away from it. Hell, they even announced a Destiny 2: The Collection, which packs together the main game along with a heap of expansions and packs. But it doesn’t include all the content locked away in the Vault, a major sore spot for fans who had hoped Bungie would unlock it all as they retire Destiny 2 from live-service.
There is a bittersweet edge to the whole thing. Destiny 2 has been brilliant, baffling, frustrating and occasionally magical. It has given players some of the best FPS raiding ever made, some astonishing music, incredible skyboxes, legendary community moments, and enough confusing currency systems to make an accountant weep into their Ghost shell.
It has also been a game defined by missed opportunities, content vaulting, awkward onboarding, expensive expansions, uneven storytelling and a live-service structure that often seemed determined to devour itself. It’s a game that arguably ended two years ago with The Final Shape, but then kept going.
But today’s player spike shows that, despite everything, people still care. A lot.
Maybe they are logging in to say goodbye. Maybe they are logging in to demand a future. Maybe they just want to race Sparrows again because, honestly, fair enough.
Whatever the reason, Destiny 2’s final major update has turned into a massive community moment. Not quite a funeral. Not quite a resurrection. More like one last raid night where everyone came back, the servers started sweating, and the fireteam somehow still had a space for you.
Eyes up, Guardian. One last time.
WGB 