Destiny 2 breaks its all-time concurrent player record

Bungie’s MMOFPS Destiny 2 has broken its record for the most players online at once on Steam following the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall.

The details:

• On February 28, players saw the release of Destiny 2's highly anticipated Lightfall expansion, bringing new equipment and a new campaign to the live service shooter. According to SteamDB, the game reached a new all-time high of 316,750 players shortly after the expansion's release at 20:00 UTC.
• The previous record was 292,513 back in 2019 when the game launched as a free-to-play title on Steam, demonstrating how the game's popularity has grown as more content is added. Due to engine limitations, previous content had to be vaulted by the developers, but engine changes have allowed Bungie to re-add previously playable content from older expansions.
• Bungie is aiming to maintain solid player numbers into March, with the new "Root of Nightmares" raid launching on March 10, which is likely to cause a smaller spike in player numbers. With the next expansion set to close out the series’ first major storyline, we expect that the future release of Destiny 2: The Final Shape, will be even bigger.

Other noteworthy Bungie news:

• Last month, the studio won a $4.4 million legal battle against the cheat-selling portal AimJunkies. The company had been in a back-and-forth with the service for almost two years with multiple lawsuits being filed and dismissed between the two.
• Creative lead Tom Farnsworth revealed on Twitter that the studio was working alongside Sony on "several unannounced projects." One of the projects could be "Matter," a rumored multiplayer title with a lighter tone than any of the developers’ previous franchises.
• Bungie and Among Us have collaborated to bring Destiny 2-inspired cosmetics to the social deduction game. The cosmetics were released as part of a free update with minor bug fixes on February 28.