Destiny 2 stopped getting new content on June 9, 2026, yet its Steam population still towers over Marathon, the newer Bungie shooter that is actively being developed. Even in what amounts to a permanent maintenance state, the older looter shooter keeps drawing a bigger crowd than the studio’s current live-service bet.
Quick answer: Right now Destiny 2 holds roughly five times more concurrent Steam players than Marathon. Destiny 2 sits around 15,000 players with daily peaks near 19,000 to 22,000, while Marathon struggles to hold more than 3,000 concurrent players on Steam.
Current Steam player counts for Destiny 2 and Marathon
Destiny 2 remains fully playable after its final update, and its core audience has not walked away. In-game numbers hover around 14,000 to 15,000 at any given moment, with the last-day peak sitting near 19,000. Peaks in the 19,000 to 22,000 range have been routine for a long stretch now.
Marathon sits far below that. Despite ongoing seasonal content, it has trouble staying above 3,000 concurrent players on Steam. That gap is what produces the roughly five-to-one difference, and it holds even though Marathon is the newer release still receiving updates.
| Metric (Steam) | Destiny 2 | Marathon |
|---|---|---|
| Current concurrent players | ~15,000 | Under 3,000 |
| Typical daily peak | 19,000–22,000 | ~3,000 |
| Highest peak of 2026 | 167,867 (June 9) | 88,337 (March 6) |
Why Destiny 2 spiked for its final update
The send-off patch, Monument of Triumph, drove Destiny 2 to a 24-hour peak of 167,867 concurrent players on Steam on June 9, 2026. That was the game’s highest figure since Episode: Echoes and The Final Shape in June 2024, which set the all-time peak of 314,634.
The update was large enough to explain the return. It added a Legendary Marks progression system earned through Triumphs, made Pantheon and Sparrow Racing League permanent, brought back some vaulted content, and restored the Director along with a batch of quality-of-life changes. It launched alongside Destiny 2: The Collection, a bundle folding in the game’s expansions, which briefly pushed the game up Steam’s global top sellers.
Bungie confirmed on May 21, 2026 that it was ending active development, with Monument of Triumph as the last live-service content update. The company has said Destiny 2 will stay playable indefinitely, much like the original Destiny.
Where Marathon’s numbers stand
Marathon, an extraction shooter and the first new entry in that series since 1996, launched in early March 2026. Its all-time Steam peak of 88,337 came shortly after release, then the count fell steadily. Even a Season 2 launch on June 2 and a following free-play window only produced a short-lived bump before the numbers slid again.
For context, Destiny 2’s final-update peak nearly doubled Marathon’s best-ever day. That is a stark split for two games from the same studio, even accounting for different genres and business models.
What the Steam figures do and don’t show
These counts cover Steam only. Both games are also on consoles, so the full audience for each is larger than the Steam charts suggest. Destiny 2 has a long history on PlayStation, where a big share of its players live, while Marathon’s sales skew more toward Steam. That platform mix means the on-PC comparison likely understates Destiny 2’s overall lead rather than overstating it.
Note: Steam trends usually track roughly with activity on other platforms, so the direction of each game’s momentum is a reasonable signal even without hard console figures.
What comes next for Marathon
Marathon’s third season is expected in September 2026, and no exact date has been officially confirmed here. It arrives with the game near its lowest sustained player levels since launch, so a new season is the clearest near-term chance to move the number back up.
Destiny 2, meanwhile, is not getting anything new. What it has instead is a large accumulated library of activities and a base that keeps logging in months after the updates stopped. For now, the game that Bungie stopped supporting is still the one pulling the bigger crowd.
