It’s hard to come up with words to describe what Destiny fans are, or rather have been, over the past few weeks, but relentless certainly comes to mind. After Bungie announced it would close the book on Destiny's live-service development, I've seen nothing short of an onslaught of pleas from fans begging Bungie and Sony to revive the franchise and give them Destiny 3, a sequel to Bungie's FPS, RPG, MMO-like looter shooter.
Players have gone so far as to flood Sony’s recent State of Play broadcast, creating petitions, and rallying behind a community-wide push to log in yesterday, on June 9, 2026, in an effort to send a message to Bungie and Sony. Well, they showed up in force, and then some.
For those unaware, SteamDB is a popular free-to-access database that tracks all things Steam, including player counts, game updates, and sales data. Thanks to an influx of more than 167,000 players jumping into Destiny 2, the site struggled to keep up and briefly crashed under the load.
It wasn’t just SteamDB that struggled under the pressure, either. Destiny 2 itself had trouble handling the massive influx of players, with many across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC reporting login errors as they attempted to get online.
The surge in activity also propelled Destiny 2 to the No. 1 spot on Steam's Global Top Sellers chart, and even I managed to finish getting the remainder of the DLC I needed due to a massive sale. This just further highlights how many players turned up for the game's final major update.
Now, while I’m certainly not one for pointing fingers, many were quick to point out that during this same period, Bungie’s other live-service game, Marathon, had just 5,000 players on Steam. Even as I write this, Destiny 2 is sitting at around 60,000 players, while Marathon is at roughly 7,000, so make of that what you will.
It’s also worth mentioning that Destiny 2 blasted past Marathon’s 88,000-player peak on Steam within minutes, which, for lack of a better phrase, feels like a bit of a middle finger to Bungie. More than anything, though, it’s also a testament to just how much people still care about Destiny, and I’m genuinely impressed.
I never really got into Destiny myself, but I do now own all the DLC, having recently started playing it with a friend, and I must say I can definitely see the appeal. So, I say fight on, Guardians, and I hope Bungie takes notice of this massive outcry from fans.
But enough about me. Did you take part in the Destiny 2 mass login, or have you already moved on? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:
Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.
