Destiny 2 is ‘struggling right now’ according to Wall Street analyst

Destiny 2 has had a bit of a rough ride since its September 2017 launch according to Doug Creutz, a senior analyst at Wall Street firm Cowen, with players slowly abandoning the shared-world shooter thanks to a number of bungled choices by developer Bungie.

Writing in a piece titled ‘Destiny is Not in a Good Place’ (via CNBC) to clients, Creutz noted that the shoot-‘n-loot sequel didn’t exactly set the world on fire over the holiday season, unlike fellow Activision stablemate Call of Duty: WWII. In fact, players are gradually jumping ship. 

‘While Call of Duty: WWII clearly had a great holiday, which likely sets up strong franchise live services revenue in 2018, Destiny 2 is struggling right now with player engagement appearing to be on the wane,’ said Creutz.

He also outlined a number of key points as to why Destiny 2 has been suffering in comparison to its 2014 predecessor. Chiefly, he believes Bungie’s communication with the community leaves a lot to be desired, with its urgency in responding to fans being ‘disappointing’ and its reluctance in ‘communicating its roadmap going forward’ also a sore point. 

Unsurprisingly, Creutz highlighted microtransactions as a point of contention among the Destiny 2 fan base, albeit not quite to the same extent as Star Wars Battlefront II. He also labelled various decisions as feeling ‘less distinctive’ than the original game, and suggested elements of the endgame ‘feel neutered compared to D1.’ 

‘We do think Bungie still has some opportunity to fix the game’s problems over the next year and recapture engagement, but we’re not sure they have the ability to pull it off at this point,’ he added.

Despite its problems, we thought Destiny 2 was worth the grind and came away pretty impressed. Bungie looks set to offer a number of key changes for the title going forward, as outlined in its recent blog post.