Destiny 2 on Google Stadia has dropped off a cliff in terms of player numbers. Destiny 2 was built up on the platform as the banner carrying title for the service. As a streaming-based gaming service, Stadia really needed a killer app to reel in the numbers. Stadia has its Pro membership level, including a variety of free games for the monthly fee. Problem is, that the games on the service are pretty skim. Three of the 12 launch titles were all from the Tomb Raider franchise, setting a tone for a lack of variety. And even though Google quickly added 10 new launch titles, it seems as though some gamers picked up on the same problem.
In Stadia’s first week, the game came in with pretty decent numbers for the launch. Destiny 2 had around 19,000 players at peak, but it didn’t maintain those numbers very well at all. For the period between November 2019 and January 2020, the player numbers have dropped down to a low point of around 8,000 at peak.
There’s a few reasons why this could be though, and not necessarily does it imply that Destiny 2 on Google Stadia is bad. Destiny 2 is inherently a multiplayer title. Players can take part in Raids and a variety of other end-game content, but they need to be together to do that. But it seems like a lot of players just aren’t doing that. That means having people sitting in Patrol mode, which means just exploring the world rather than directly engaging with other multiplayer modes.
Stadia has been getting a lot of flak since it launched, for a variety of reasons. The difficulty with getting 4K resolution at 60 FPS has been well documented by this point. The service was also lacking crucial features like family share and widespread device compatibility. Google has been trying to make up things though, by offering more free games each month.
Destiny 2 is out now for Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 4, and Google Stadia.
