Future 2 has entered seemingly its worst chapter because it first launched – which is basically saying loads. After Bungie laid off “round 8%” of employees just lately, stories got here out suggesting that a pointy drop in income is partly accountable for the layoffs.
All of it seemingly started with the launch of the Lightfall enlargement in February, when issues actually began trending downwards for Future 2 – inflicting the sport to reportedly miss its income targets by a staggering 45%.
Sentiment is one factor, in fact, however exhausting knowledge is a special story. As noticed by Forbes, Future 2’s participant numbers have been in a free fall for some time now. A fast look on the recreation’s SteamDB numbers exhibits that it used to peak at over 300,000 gamers, over 200,000 gamers, and over 100,000 gamers at its worst. Numbers have now fallen nicely beneath that.
Issues have been fluctuating since July, however drops turned very critical in October, and have now reached the all-time low peak concurrent of underneath 60,000 gamers. The common participant quantity has dropped from 135,102 in March (shortly after Lightfall launched), to simply 34,383 over the past 30 days.
Clearly, Steam is the one platform Future 2 is out there on that shares numbers with such depth, however it’s not exhausting to think about issues being dire elsewhere, too. To go from giving Future 2 its highest-ever Steam concurrent participant rely, to its lowest-ever – Lightfall definitely has earned its identify.
Because the Forbes article notes, the reported delay of The Ultimate Form – Future 2’s subsequent enlargement, implies that the following season will must be prolonged, which places an excellent larger pressure on an already beleaguered recreation. It’s totally doable that issues will worsen, however the fear is that, at any time when The Ultimate Form arrives, it will not be sufficient to show issues round.
The Ultimate Form is presently, formally set for launch in February, 2024. Bungie has but to remark publicly on the reported delay, and has even doubled down on the previously-communicated February 27 launch date in a current weblog put up.