Grieving Destiny 2 players on Steam boosted the game from 32nd place all the way up to 5th for US active users last month
Destiny 2 has been one of the most influential and enduring online shooters of the last decade, and the news that active development is officially ending has prompted some intense reactions from fans.
Bungie threw caution to the wind last month with Destiny 2’s final update, Monument of Triumph, which made the game more active than it had been in years as current and lapsed players returned for the big send-off. Numbers from SteamDB showed Destiny 2’s concurrent Steam player count had climbed to more than 165,000 at the time, which was the highest number for the game since summer 2024, which saw the game approach its all-time peak of 316,750.
Now we have some data from Circana senior director Mat Piscatella demonstrating the success of Destiny 2’s last hurrah from a different angle. Instead of looking at raw player figures, Piscatella showed Steam’s ranking of games with the most active monthly US-based users from June 2026. The data shows that Destiny jumped all the way from the 32nd position to 5th place, an absolutely staggering leap for a game knocking on death’s door.
Circana Player Engagement Tracker US MAU charts for June 2026:
– Meccha Chameleon debuted on top of the Steam US monthly active user chart
– Destiny 2 jumped to 5th from 32nd in May on Steam
– Where Winds Meet launched in top 10 on Xbox with Game Pass release— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T00:02:35.627Z
Unfortunately, these impressive player numbers are far too little and too late to do anything more than satisfy the morbidly curious. PlayStation laid off most of the Destiny 2 team as Bungie shifts its focus over to Marathon, even if the shiny new extraction shooter hasn’t yet established itself as having anywhere near the impact of Destiny. Even developers from other studios, like Warframe lead Rebecca Ford, have said Destiny 2’s death is “horrible news” for everyone because if it can happen to Bungie, it can happen to anyone.
