Destiny 2: The Witch Queen has seen an explosion in popularity following the release of the latest expansion. The DLC, which had a generally smooth release, saw the game surpass one million concurrent players, according to stat trackers.
In many third-party statisticians, activity in destination 2 massively shot up. Most notably, as caught by dualshockersthe game has surpassed 1 million concurrent players based on data from PlayerCounter. That number has barely dropped, about sixteen hours after launch, the site claims there are still 905,969 players connected.
While these numbers are an estimate, the site relies on the Gohost Network Protocol, which tracks players across multiple platforms. Still, it is worth remembering that these numbers are not confirmed by Bungie.
However, there is more data out there showing how many are playing. In SteamChartsthe game peaked at 289,895 players yesterday, which is the highest seen since the release of the Shadowkeep expansion in 2019. This DLC saw 292,314 concurrent players, but importantly, so was the launch of PC and free-to-play versions of the game. .
As another point of comparison, the previous expansion, Beyond Light, released in November 2020, only reached 241,843 peak concurrent players.
Witch Queen isn’t just proving popular with gamers, the expansion has skyrocketed up the charts on Twitch. The game entered the top 5 of the most watched games on the streaming platform, reaching a high of 156,357 concurrent viewers across 11,476 channels, according to Sullygnome,
By available metrics, The Witch Queen proved to be massively popular. This looks to be one of the biggest releases of Destiny 2, which is approaching five years.
Analysis: The Witch Queen looks to be a big hit
Those numbers are impressive by Destiny 2 standards. The game, which goes through periods of inactivity, often in the lull between major releases, is still very popular when it comes to major releases. The numbers are still impressive, however. In January, the game peaked at 78,752 concurrent players on Steam, now more than three times that number playing today.
While a high player count might be good news for Bungie, the best news for gamers is that Witch Queen launched largely without a hitch. There were small queues at launch, but nothing as bad as previous releases.
There was still an important, and embarrassing, problem. Despite now being a Sony-owned studio, Bungie had an issue that prevented PS4 players preload Witch Queen. This meant that many were unable to play the game on launch day, especially those in Europe and Asia where the expansion didn’t release until tonight.
With the exception of the PS4 preload issue, Witch Queen appears to be Bungie’s most successful release.
- Want to play but don’t know where to start? Check out our guide to buying destiny 2.
