Now, we are entering the new “Frontiers” era of Destiny 2, which will debut with the Edge of Fate expansion launching just over a week from now. Being the next chapter in Destiny 2’s journey is significant, yes, but I’m not ready to label it as “make or break” in the conventional sense.

Why? It all comes down to expectations, although I suppose there's an underlying assumption that Sony isn't anticipating some extraordinary performance from Edge of Fate in terms of results for the franchise.

This isn’t meant as a knock against what’s coming, but the facts remain. Destiny 2 won't be able to reach the same levels of success it previously enjoyed moving forward, even though its peak was only a year ago during The Final Shape. The current state of Bungie, the structure of this new era, and the playerbase all factor into this reality.

The plan moving forward seems to be two smaller expansions per year, without traditional "real" seasons in between—just medium-sized content updates. Overall, it means less content than Destiny 2 has been producing in recent years. This shouldn’t come as a shock. After layoffs, staff departures, and Sony recently carving off part of the company to create a PlayStation-exclusive studio, Bungie is now roughly half the size it once was. Not to mention that around 300 Bungie developers are currently focused on Marathon, not Destiny 2.

The player count numbers speak clearly enough. After The Final Shape, we’ve seen record lows in concurrent players, which almost certainly reflect similarly on console platforms. That had to be expected, considering the decade-long Light and Darkness saga concluded with The Final Shape, and a sharp drop-off was inevitable after that milestone.

Not too long ago, I ran some calculations based on how player counts typically multiply from baseline to peak during an expansion launch. Historically, it's about a 3x multiplier, which helped illustrate how Witch Queen, Lightfall, and The Final Shape each drew around 300,000 players at launch. But by the same measure, my projections suggest that Edge of Fate might peak closer to 115,000 players, given the current trend. Possibly fewer if Edge of Fate turns out to be less compelling than previous releases.

Despite major system revisions, this was never going to be Destiny 3. If a full sequel were to launch and fail, that would be a different scenario entirely. But the signs are clear: Destiny 2 must transition into a lower-scale production model. That’s the reality now, and Bungie will have to work within these constraints and hope this new baseline can sustain the game effectively.

Then there's Marathon.

Marathon is arguably one of the reasons Sony acquired Bungie for billions in the first place. As the first brand-new PvP shooter from Bungie in over a decade, it was always going to be a major project, especially as a centerpiece for Sony’s live service ambitions.

This is a game Bungie has worked on in various forms for around five to six years, though recent reboots mean the current version has only really been in development for about two years now. Its release has been delayed again and is expected sometime in the next six to seven months.

With Destiny 2 inevitably drawing fewer players, Marathon needs to succeed. I've said before that expectations are high—it must perform well on NPD sales charts to even be considered a hit, let alone meet potential revenue targets from microtransactions (which haven’t been publicly revealed yet).

The reception surrounding Marathon following recent previews has been underwhelming, to put it bluntly. Some have gone so far as to call it “Concord 2,” referencing Sony’s infamous failed live PvP title that shut down within two weeks due to low player numbers.

It's unlikely Marathon will do that poorly, but there’s a big gap between being one of the worst games ever released and actually becoming a hit. My guess is that Marathon will have at least a year of runway to grow, adapt, and gradually pull in more players, even if it starts small (which looks likely). Early tests—now leaked and under NDA—have shown signs of improvement, but discussions about the game’s quality should probably wait until the next public test, as the topic has already been exhaustively covered (especially by me).

Bungie will survive if the Frontiers era of Destiny 2 performs decently and Marathon becomes a major success. However, if Frontiers is just okay while Marathon crashes spectacularly, then things could get dire. The consequences of such a failure would be severe, something both inside and outside the company fully recognize. Looking ahead, there are two distinct sets of expectations for Destiny and Marathon, and right now, one of them carries far more weight than the other.

The above is the detailed content of 'Destiny 2: The Edge Of Fate' Is Not Make Or Break For Bungie, But 'Marathon' Is. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!