[Update]
It seems like that there was a miscommunication and while the numbers have definitely increased, they are not matching the launch numbers.
[Original Story]
Surprisingly, large numbers of The Division players are returning to the game, bringing the newest Tom Clancy game back up to the number of players that it had at launch, despite a perceived dearth of content and various bugs and hacking issues that drove away players to begin with.
See Also: The Division Level Rewards Will Give New Gear, XP has Finally Some Meaning
The Division has come out with a number of different downloadable content packs in the time between its launch and now, but that has failed to keep optimal numbers of players in the game, though the lack of content isn’t the only reason: the game included a large variety of glitches and problems on launch, and a large number of hackers and players abusing the game’s files that killed enthusiasm for a large number of other people.
The reason for the increase of The Division players back to launch levels is likely because people have become impressed with how much the game has improved, much like how Bungie’s own shared-world shooter Destiny began to improve in quality and get players back after The Dark Below, House of Wolves, The Taken King, and Rise of Iron have added more areas, new weapons, new missions, and more plot to the game.
The Division players also responded positively to how Ubisoft changed up the game’s method of postponing more DLC plans in order for a variety of patches to come out and fix most of the game’s problems, rather than hoping to attract more players through more and more DLC packs. With many players having left since launch, Ubisoft was forced to make a difficult decision in regards to what to pack into the game.
Now, however, with so many players returning to the game, Ubisoft may finally start making more paid content for the game for players to spend their money on in order to keep their success train rolling.
