Destiny 3 is at least 3 years away, following Bungie's recent announcement of 3 upcoming major expansions for Destiny 2: Beyond Light this November, The Witch Queen in Fall 2021, and Lightfall in Fall 2022. Following their split from Activision in 2018, Bungie shifted their focus away from making Destiny a trilogy and toward making a long-lasting, evolving world.
Whether Destiny 3 comes in the form of a proper sequel or only as a massive overhaul of Destiny 2 (with the latter looking increasingly likely), there are many quality-of-life changes and story developments fans would like to see in the next iteration of Destiny.
10 Strike Playlist Improvements
Players have been asking Bungie to improve the strike playlist for all of Destiny 2's lifecycle. As it stands now, strike-specific loot is scarce and difficult to obtain. Reimplementing the skeleton key system from the original Destiny would give players more incentive to run the strike playlist, along with adding more strike-specific cosmetics like ships and shaders. Bungie could even add a progression system similar to the Crucible and Gambit playlists that reward random powerful gear at different levels.
9 Focused Engram System
"Season of Arrival's" Umbral Engrams have been one of Bungie's best additions to Destiny 2 in year 3 thanks to the ability to focus them into specific loot pools. Being able to focus all legendary or even exotic engrams toward weapon or armor pools would be a welcome quality-of-life change that would make finding good rolls less of a grind. Cosmetic Engrams could also be focused to give players better chances at getting specific shaders, ships, sparrows, or emotes from the Eververse or world loot pool.
8 Xivu Arath
Xivu Arath, the Hive God of War, is the forgotten sister in the Hive god trio consisting of herself, Oryx, the Taken King, and Savathun, the Witch-Queen.
Savathun is all but confirmed to be the titular enemy of the planned 2021 expansion The Witch Queen, and Destiny players already slew Oryx on his throne world upon his Dreadnaught in Destiny's The Taken King in 2015. That leaves Xivu Arath as the last, mysterious Hive god. Not much lore is currently out there about Xivu Arath, but with a title like "God of War," she is sure to make herself well-known to players in years to come.
7 More Scorn
Hyped up as the main enemy race in 2018's Forsaken expansion, the Scorn ended up taking a backseat to the Taken thanks to a plot twist that revealed the Hive Witch-Queen Savathun as the puppet master behind Uldren Sov's and the Scorn's actions. The leader of the Scorned Barons, the Fanatic, has the power of resurrection, leading players to speculate that he may return (outside of canonically being killed over and over again in The Hollowed Lair strike) along with his fellow barons.
6 Return of Factions
Timed Faction Rallies weren't very successful, so it's time that Bungie brings back the Dead Orbit, New Monarchy, and Future War Cult factions in a more permanent fashion like they were in the original Destiny. Bungie could also introduce the Osiris and Seven Seraphs factions, originally planned to be in the game early in Destiny's development. This is a strong possibility, considering Season of Dawn had a storyline focused on the return of Saint-14, who has strong ties to Osiris, and Season of the Worthy was focused on Rasputin, a Warmind linked to the Seven Seraphs.
5 Revamped Armor System
Armor 2.0 has been moderately successful since its introduction in 2019's Shadowkeep expansion, but armor still needs many improvements. The way armor mods are implemented needs to be streamlined (i.e., armor mods related to specific weapon-types shouldn't be tied to elemental affinity), and the grind for armor cosmetics shouldn't be tied to the grind for better stats. Players should be able to redistribute stats, perhaps with a system similar to the original Destiny's glass needles for rerolling perks, to make the search for useful high stat armor less time-consuming.
4 More PvP Modes
"Momentum Control" was the latest Crucible mode introduced in Destiny 2 when it released with Shadowkeep. Players are overdue for new PvP options.
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The return of vehicle-based combat from the original Destiny would be a welcome addition, along with Rift, which is Destiny's version of capture the flag. Bungie could also experiment with weapon-restricted modes, similar to Shotty Snipers from Bungie's Halo series.
3 Revamped Shader System
Much to players' dismay, shaders were made into one-time-use consumables in Destiny 2 instead of standard unlockables as they were in the original Destiny. In addition, players can only have up to 50 different shaders in their inventory at a time, making it a hassle just to preview and compare how shaders look on various weapons and armor pieces. Bungie should revert shaders back to unlockables to streamline the process and make Destiny fashion more accessible.
2 Sparrow Racing League
The last time Destiny players got the chance to race around in their sparrows in official competitions was during the original game's Rise of Iron expansion in 2016. Since then, players have been chomping at the bit for the SRL's return. Despite players' pleas, Bungie hasn't announced plans to introduce the SRL into Destiny 2, but they also haven't officially ruled it out in later expansions or Destiny 3. Bungie could get even more ambitious and introduce ship racing, but this is less likely considering ships have only ever been used for cosmetic purposes.
1 Exotic Armor Catalysts
Catalysts were introduced in the Warmind expansion to enhance Exotic weapons by masterworking them, which gives them the ability to generate orbs of light and improving their stats and perks. Despite being able to masterwork both weapons and armor, Bungie hasn't given catalysts to Exotic armor. Introducing Exotic armor catalysts would encourage players to experiment with lesser-used Exotic armor pieces and improve the overall utility of Exotic armor, especially since they currently don't accept any seasonal mods.