Who cares if it's dark or happy? How about a story that's actually good? Taken king was mediocre Forsaken was mediocre Shadowkeep (according to those I've spoken to) was less than mediocre And every dlc in between has had a mediocre or bland story. Tone is irrelevant if there's no direction

I'd be happy with a story.

Be nice if they'd finish one story and it actually had an in-game effect. And no, not reskinning a boss and have us kill it in the same instance, then removing content and calling it an 'evolving world.' Let's have real story development and in-game consequences. And no, saving a hero and having him pass out bounties at a hanger is not story development either.

Personally, I would enjoy a story more like the Red Rising series’s, by Pierce Brown. Note: this contains some minor and not so minor spoilers. The author of this series does an amazing job of writing happy moments and funny ones, but sprinkles them in with the heavy reality of the universe it takes place in. Like, it’s a seriously dark series. For example, while everyone’s celebrating a victory, one of the primary antagonists sends a video of him shooting the main character’s uncle in the head. He’s also very good at writing flawed characters. For example, one character is an amazing ship commander. However, when the main character fails to save his girlfriend, he gets mad enough to put someone’s head in a box and murder children. In destiny, when has our guardian ever faced anger issues? Once, when Cayde died. Not even when our god was taken over by the cabal. In conclusion, I don’t necessarily want a darker story. I want a believable story. And in a universe like destiny’s, a darker story is much more believable.

Let's go full grim-dark on this. I want theocratic fascism, thousands being culled every day to support out 'traveler.'

<Dark, much darker than D2 vanilla and Warmind would have you believe this universe really is. It only makes sense. You see, the Fallen are desperate scavengers that are tearing each other apart over their differences. One group wants to ally with humanity and give the Eliksni race a chance at redemption for a conflict started over years of turmoil and one BIG misunderstanding. Another group wants to return to the days long before the depression and piracy, a time where their species was noble. The last group would rather stay in piracy rather than devolve into gangs, which is where things are currently going. They are broken. The Cabal are the only race that seem to be doing pretty well for themselves, a methodology that'll likely continue even when we're on the verge of Collapse, especially since the Hive will be our next BIG target once more. A race hell-bent on conquering the galaxy and subjugating its races. Their stuff doesn't really get dark, but it has the chance to be depending on where things go. The Vex are the last true remnant of the flower game played eons before time was time and space was space. They are confused cyborgs wandering around a universe where law doesn't suit the needs of the pattern that wins out. Their status as the former winning pattern even puts them above admirers of the Deep such as the Hive, but their lack of understanding in this universe's new rules pits them as another speck of dust in a swarm of millions. They simply want to understand. Another race not really dark in nature, but once more leans towards that concept. The Hive are the worst. Space crabs who ingest worms in order to gain physics-defying powers and kill billions in order to appease their adoptive God. They murder, maim, and torture with no moral compass tethering them down into the loose constructs of society that those ideas come from. The Darkness is where things can get interesting. While Destiny's lore is truly dark, and the game never really reflects that, the Deep is a chance to do some... course correction, so to say. We know next to nothing about the Pyramid Armada, but quite a bit can be inferred. The things Cayde saw in his vision of the Collapse, the gooey shadow entities the Drifter found, and possibly even the Aphelion the Awoken are afraid of. All of those point towards strange beings made of pure Darkness, a creation built for destruction. The statue in the Lunar Pyramid suggests that something else is going on. The hallways are so structurally sound, the statue is as old as the Pyramid itself, said Pyramid either crashing billions of years ago or only a thousand, the time making a huge difference as to what that statue means. Is the Armada human? Are we the product of their tampering with our evolution from ooze to what we are now? Are we the shape of death? Are we made in their image? Is the God that is the Deep that is the Darkness who leads the Armada OUR deity, and what many of our mythological creatures or stories are based off of? What about the concept art the statue was taken from? That particular artwork had another set of statues, two humanoid faces wearing headdresses, which implies that the Armada is more than familiar with humanity... whether as a shape or as a species is unknown. Their power matches and possibly doubles that of the Traveler, capable of leveling worlds and causing mass extinction. The entire Cabal fleet, consisting of every legion, could not hope to scratch the Pyramid Armada. Rasputin when he still had his full arsenal couldn't dent it either, his only solution being to hide away. We've spent all of D2 with the idea of hope and recovery from disaster. We've broken time (presumably) to save a Titan, we've reconnected many of our Golden Age colonies, we've beaten back the Red Legion and Oryx's forces. We're about to beat back Savathun and Xivu Arath's combined army, undoubtedly sending the Hive crawling into the caves in desperation. It's about time we have something kick our ass, and not in the way the Legion did. They came here with the intent to take the Traveler's Light, and so they left most of the City and it intact. The Darkness? We are nothing to it. Eris detects no fear in them, they are ready. I'm ready to have everything taken from us, and not just a couple buildings and our Light. I expect to still have the Light by the end of the first battle and STILL lose. They don't need to take our Light to beat us, they've already won.>

I just want a serious story like D1 had. TTK was good for me. Oryx was a proper bad guy. Gaul was a joke. The Barons were ridiculously trivial. That worm "god" was demoted to a strike boss, and Panoptes was a Disney cartoon villain. Don't even ask me what the "Darkness" is. All I saw was my character with a stupid grin.

Dark, caydes death was a good start. Now kill zavala

I would like them to finish a story.

It’s a universe in which their is literally an embodiment of evil actively trying to kill you, I’m leaning towards a dark universe