The Games Wiki

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The Games Wiki is a video game wiki network that acts as the parent organization for multiple gaming wikis, including Destiny Game Wiki. The network launched in 2025 to consolidate independently run wikis under shared technical infrastructure while preserving each wiki's editorial independence.

It operates on two levels: a directory of game wikis so readers can find the right community quickly, and a coordination layer for shared infrastructure and conventions so editors are not rebuilding the same templates, naming rules, and maintenance workflows on every wiki.

Contents

Overview

TheGamesWiki is a network, not a single wiki. Member wikis share servers, software maintenance, spam protection, and user account systems. Each wiki keeps its own domain, content, and community. TheGamesWiki itself is a portal linking to all member wikis rather than a content destination.

Destiny Game Wiki joined the network in 2025. The wiki continues operating at destinygamewiki.com with the same articles, the same editorial focus on the original Destiny (2014), and the same administrative team. The network handles backend infrastructure so the wiki's volunteers can focus on content preservation.

The core assumption is that specialized communities do better work when they stay specialized. A hub connects those communities and reduces repeated effort. It does not replace them.

Why this wiki exists (and why the network matters)

To put it plainly: the "standalone wiki" model has gotten harder to sustain.

When Destiny launched in 2014, running a dedicated fan site was viable. Traffic was huge. Thousands of people refreshed the Xûr page every Friday morning. But the internet changed. Most players now pull quick answers from Discord bots, YouTube build videos, or specialized tools like DIM and Light.gg.

A traditional wiki is still the best format for static reference information, like looking up what a perk actually does in numbers, or reading lore tabs for gear you dismantled three years ago. But that kind of traffic does not pay server bills the way it used to.

For a wiki about a game that has been shut down, the math gets worse. The content is finished because the game is finished, but the servers still need to run. MediaWiki still releases security updates. Spam bots do not care whether a game is active. Someone has to keep the lights on even when the content is complete.

TheGamesWiki network addresses this. By sharing a server cluster with other communities, hosting costs drop significantly. It means the wiki does not need to run invasive ads or rely on a single volunteer to keep paying for independent hosting indefinitely. The alternative was the site eventually going dark and losing a decade of documentation.

Why Destiny Game Wiki matters now

This wiki documents Destiny (2014), the original game in the franchise. Not Destiny 2, but the first one. This distinction matters because the original Destiny is gone in a way most games are not.

The shutdown

Bungie shut down Destiny servers on February 12, 2024. After that date, the game could no longer be played online. Since Destiny required an internet connection for nearly all content (even the "single-player" story missions), this effectively killed the game. You can still insert the disc or launch the download, but you cannot get past the title screen.

This makes Destiny Game Wiki different from most game wikis. A wiki about Skyrim or Breath of the Wild documents games people are actively playing. This wiki documents a game that no longer exists in playable form. The wiki has become an archive: a record of what Destiny was before Bungie turned off the lights.

What we preserve

The wiki contains documentation of:

  • Every story mission, strike, and raid
  • All weapons, armor, and exotic gear
  • Subclass abilities and skill trees
  • Crucible maps and game modes
  • Every expansion from The Dark Below to Rise of Iron
  • Lore entries, grimoire cards, and story analysis
  • Strategies, cheese spots, and community discoveries
  • Patch notes and balance changes over the game's lifespan

None of this information is accessible in-game anymore. YouTube videos show what gameplay looked like. Twitch archives capture specific moments. But a systematic reference of how the game actually worked (what perks did, what enemies spawned where, how the economy functioned) lives primarily in wikis like this one.

The lifeboat problem

We have watched what happens when independent sites for older games go offline. The information just vanishes. Hosting contracts expire, domains lapse, and years of community documentation disappear. TheGamesWiki is designed in part to prevent this: a low-cost, shared-infrastructure archive where game wikis can persist even after their communities move on.

Destiny Game Wiki is the network's first member documenting a game that has been completely shut down. That makes it something of a test case for whether this model works for long-term game preservation.

Relationship to TheGamesWiki network

What joining the network means

Destiny Game Wiki became a TheGamesWiki member in 2025. In practical terms:

  • The wiki runs on shared network servers instead of independent hosting
  • MediaWiki software updates are handled at the network level
  • Spam and bot protection are managed centrally
  • User accounts can be linked across all network wikis
  • Technical improvements from other wikis can be deployed here

What did not change

A network membership can be misunderstood as a takeover. It is worth stating what is not happening:

  • The destinygamewiki.com URL stays the same
  • All existing articles, images, and edit histories are unchanged
  • The wiki's exclusive focus on Destiny (2014), not Destiny 2, is unchanged
  • Administrative structure and user permissions remain local
  • Community policies are set by this wiki's editors, not the network
  • TheGamesWiki does not become an "official Bungie resource," and membership does not imply official status
  • Listing does not change content licensing. If something is shared between wikis, it needs compatible licensing and clear attribution

The network provides infrastructure. The wiki's community provides editorial direction. TheGamesWiki network cannot change Destiny Game Wiki's articles or policies.

Why this matters for an archived game

A wiki about an active game needs constant editing. New patches change mechanics, new content needs documentation, and reader questions reveal gaps in coverage. The editorial workload justifies ongoing volunteer effort.

A wiki about a dead game is different. The content is frozen because the game is frozen. No new patches will change how weapons work. No new raids will need strategies. The documentation work is finished in a way it never is for live games.

But the servers still need to run. In an independent hosting model, declining traffic eventually makes the wiki uneconomical. In a network model, costs are shared across wikis at different lifecycle stages. Destiny Game Wiki's editors do not need to worry about server administration, software patches, or infrastructure costs. If they want to improve an article, they can. If they do not have time, the wiki stays online anyway.

Why a hub is especially useful for franchise games

Destiny is one of those franchises where terminology repeats, systems change, and content gets vaulted or reworked. Players bounce between game versions, expansions, seasonal systems, and community tools, then end up with half-answers stitched together from search results.

If you have ever searched "Destiny exotic catalyst drop rate" and ended up on an old answer for the wrong game, the hub problem makes immediate sense.

Search engines do not handle version context well

A search result might rank highly because it is old, linked often, or written clearly, not because it is correct for the version the reader is playing. Destiny makes this worse because systems evolve. Even when the underlying concept stays the same, the details can drift.

A hub cannot solve version drift directly, but it can do something useful: route the reader toward the most actively maintained wiki for the relevant game or version, and mark older resources honestly as archived or patch-era specific.

Destiny knowledge lives outside wikis too

A lot of Destiny information ends up in patch notes, community spreadsheets, build planners, loadout tools, and seasonal guides that disappear when the season does.

A good wiki pulls that knowledge into stable pages and links to primary sources and durable tools. A hub supports that by making it easier to find the wiki that does this well, and by encouraging consistent citation and update practices across member wikis.

Network structure

Member wikis

Wiki Topic Status
Destiny Game Wiki Destiny (2014) Archive (game offline)
FF15 Wiki Final Fantasy XV Active
FFXIV Wiki Final Fantasy XIV Active (live game)
SimCity 2013 Wiki SimCity (2013) Maintenance mode
Pkmn Go Trading Wiki Pokémon GO trading Active
Console Games Wiki Multiple games Active
AI Wiki Artificial intelligence Active
VR/AR Wiki Virtual/augmented reality Active

The network includes wikis at different lifecycle stages. Some cover active, updating games. Some cover completed games in maintenance mode. Destiny Game Wiki is the first member documenting a game that has been completely shut down.

How the directory lists wikis

The directory part of TheGamesWiki works only if listings are structured and honest. For Destiny, that means listings that make version boundaries obvious:

  • Wiki name and URL
  • Scope: which game, with franchise boundaries clarified
  • Language(s)
  • Activity status: active, low activity, or archived (with clear criteria for each)
  • Content license (if publicly stated)
  • Coverage notes (exotics, raids, story, PvP, patches, expansions, etc.)
  • Version notes (if the wiki is patch-era focused or covers "classic Destiny" specifically)

The hub should not pretend everything is current. It should help readers understand what they are about to click.

Governance

TheGamesWiki operates on two levels:

Network level: Technical decisions including servers, software, shared tools, and unified accounts. Managed by network administrators.

Wiki level: Content decisions including what articles exist, what they say, and who can edit what. Managed by each wiki's own admins and community.

Hub projects tend to succeed or fail on governance. These are questions TheGamesWiki is working through as it matures:

  • Who decides what gets listed, and what criteria define "active"?
  • How are disputes handled when multiple wikis claim to be the primary resource for a franchise?
  • How are archived or abandoned wikis treated so readers are not misled?
  • How are licensing conflicts handled for shared templates and modules?
  • Is there a process for corrections and appeals when a listing is wrong?

Clear criteria and logged decisions build trust faster than promises. These governance details will be documented publicly as the network formalizes them.

Funding

The network is privately owned, not venture-funded or publicly traded. Revenue comes from minimal advertising and donations. Member wikis share server costs, which is more sustainable than each wiki paying for independent hosting.

Destiny Game Wiki specifically benefits because a wiki about a dead game has limited ability to generate ad revenue on its own. Traffic declines after a game shuts down. Sharing costs across wikis at different lifecycle stages makes long-term preservation feasible.

Organization: how Destiny fits inside a multi-game hub

A hub that handles Destiny well needs clean organization, because the franchise overlaps and player intent varies.

Franchise structure

  • Franchise: Destiny
  • Title listings: Destiny, Destiny 2 (and other relevant sub-products if applicable)
  • Expansions as sub-entries or tags (useful for routing without treating every expansion like a separate game)
  • Genre tags: looter shooter, MMO-like, FPS
  • Developer/publisher tags: Bungie

The point is not to flatten everything into one blob. It is to make discovery predictable.

Naming and disambiguation conventions

Destiny has repeated terms that become traps:

  • The same item name appearing in multiple contexts
  • Concepts that change meaning across expansions or seasons
  • Abbreviations that communities use differently

The hub reduces confusion by publishing conventions like:

  • Page titles that include game context where needed (Destiny vs. Destiny 2)
  • Disambiguation pages for reused terms
  • Version markers on pages where mechanics differ by patch era

This is unsexy work. It is also the work that makes a wiki feel trustworthy to a reader who just wants to know which Gjallarhorn they are looking at.

History of Destiny Game Wiki

2014: Launch

Destiny launched on September 9, 2014 for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The game was Bungie's first major release after handing Halo to 343 Industries.

Destiny Game Wiki launched around the same time. Early articles covered the basics: class overviews, weapon types, story missions, and the original Vault of Glass raid. The wiki grew alongside the game's playerbase.

2014-2015: Year One

The first year of Destiny was rough. The base game's story was notoriously thin. The Speaker's line "I could tell you" about the game's lore became a meme because the game itself did not actually tell you. Players pieced together story from grimoire cards that could only be read on Bungie's website, not in-game.

The wiki documented all of this: the actual story such as it was, the grimoire lore, player theories about what was really going on. When The Dark Below (December 2014) and House of Wolves (May 2015) released, the wiki expanded to cover new strikes, raids, and gear.

Content during this period:

2015-2016: The Taken King era

The Taken King (September 2015) was the expansion that fixed Destiny. Bungie overhauled the story presentation, added actual cutscenes, gave the player character a voice (briefly), and introduced one of the best raid experiences in the franchise with King's Fall.

The wiki's coverage expanded significantly:

This was the wiki's most active period. The Taken King brought players back, and those players needed information.

2016-2017: Rise of Iron and the end

Rise of Iron (September 2016) was Destiny's final expansion. It added the Wrath of the Machine raid, the SIVA enemy faction, and the Plaguelands patrol zone. It also dropped support for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The wiki documented Rise of Iron thoroughly, knowing this would likely be the game's final major content:

After Rise of Iron, Bungie's focus shifted to Destiny 2. Live events continued in Destiny (including The Dawning and Age of Triumph), but no new substantial content was added.

2017-2024: The long tail

Destiny 2 launched in September 2017. Many players migrated. Some stayed with the original, either because they preferred it or because they did not want to start over.

During this period, Destiny Game Wiki shifted from active documentation to maintenance. New discoveries were rare. Edits focused on corrections, clarifications, and preserving information as external sources (Bungie.net, forums, third-party tools) went offline or changed.

The wiki also became a reference for players who had left and returned. The "what changed while I was gone" questions that forums could not answer systematically, the wiki could.

2024: Shutdown

Bungie announced Destiny server shutdown in July 2023, with the final day set for February 12, 2024. The announcement was not surprising (the game was nearly a decade old and had been superseded by its sequel), but it still marked a definitive end.

Community members organized final play sessions. Streamers ran last raids. And then the servers went offline.

For the wiki, this changed the mission. It was no longer documenting an active game. It was preserving the memory of a game that could no longer be experienced firsthand.

2025: Joining TheGamesWiki

With Destiny offline, the wiki faced a sustainability question. The content was complete (there was nothing left to document) but hosting costs continued. Volunteer motivation naturally declines when there is nothing new to write about.

Joining TheGamesWiki network addressed this. The wiki continues to exist, the archive remains accessible, and the infrastructure is maintained at the network level. If volunteers want to improve articles, they can. If not, the wiki persists anyway.

Content overview

Story and lore

  • Story missions - All campaign missions from vanilla through Rise of Iron
  • Grimoire - Complete grimoire card archive and analysis
  • Lore - Story explanations and timeline
  • Characters - NPCs, allies, and enemies
  • Locations - Planets, social spaces, and patrol zones

Player guides

  • Classes - Hunter, Titan, Warlock overviews
  • Subclasses - All nine subclasses with skill trees
  • Weapons - Weapon types, archetypes, and notable guns
  • Armor - Armor stats and notable sets
  • Exotic weapons - Every exotic and how to obtain it
  • Exotic armor - Every exotic armor piece by class

Endgame content

Crucible

Economy and progression

  • Light level - How Light worked across different eras
  • Currencies - Glimmer, Legendary Marks, Strange Coins, etc.
  • Vendors - All NPC vendors and their inventories
  • Factions - Dead Orbit, New Monarchy, Future War Cult
  • Xûr - Weekly exotic vendor (historical inventory archive)

Content standards

A Destiny wiki gains trust when it clearly separates "this is a game mechanic" from "this is a community observation," and when it admits when something is patch-dependent.

Patch and era labeling

For a game that changed with every update, pages need visible context:

  • Last updated or last verified information where relevant
  • Patch-era notes when mechanics changed between updates
  • Clear separation between historical content and final-state behavior

The network encourages this by making "version context present" an expectation for wikis that claim their content is current or accurate.

Separate mechanics from strategy

Mechanics pages explain what the game does. Strategy pages explain what players do with it.

That separation prevents pages from turning into arguments about "the right way to play" and keeps updates manageable when balance changes alter the meta. For an archived game, it also helps readers distinguish between objective facts about the game and subjective community advice.

Specific claims, fewer myths

Destiny communities generated a lot of confident statements over the years. Some were right. Some were "it feels like the drop rate goes up on Tuesdays."

Good wiki writing does a few things:

  • Makes specific claims ("perk X increases Y by Z%") rather than vague statements ("this perk is really good")
  • Cites patch notes, developer posts, or reproducible community testing where possible
  • Labels uncertain areas honestly rather than presenting guesses as facts

This matters more now that nobody can verify claims against the actual game. The archive needs to be honest about what was confirmed and what was community lore.

Archival citation practices

Because Destiny can no longer be verified through play, the wiki has adopted stricter citation practices for disputed information. Claims about hidden mechanics or drop rates should cite original sources: Reddit posts with documented research, YouTube videos showing evidence, Wayback Machine archives of developer statements.

The goal is to ensure the archive remains accurate even when no one can check claims against the actual game.

Comparison to other Destiny resources

Destiny 2 wikis

Several wikis cover Destiny 2. Destiny Game Wiki does not. This wiki is exclusively about the original Destiny (2014-2024). If you want Destiny 2 information, look elsewhere.

This narrow scope is intentional. Destiny and Destiny 2 share a universe and some mechanics, but they are different games with different content. Combining them in one wiki would create constant confusion about which game an article describes. A hub helps here: it can route readers to the correct wiki for the correct game without forcing any single site to cover everything.

Destinypedia

Destinypedia covers the entire Destiny franchise, including both games and associated media. It has more lore coverage and broader scope than this wiki.

Destiny Game Wiki focuses on practical game documentation (how things worked, where to find items, how to complete activities) rather than comprehensive lore analysis. The two resources complement each other.

Ishtar Collective

Ishtar Collective is a lore archive that preserves grimoire cards, item descriptions, and story text. It is excellent for reading Destiny lore but does not provide gameplay documentation.

Bungie.net

Bungie's official site had companion features for Destiny: grimoire card viewing, stat tracking, item databases. Much of this functionality was removed or deprecated after the shutdown. Information that used to live on Bungie.net now exists primarily in community resources like this wiki.

YouTube and Twitch

Video archives preserve what Destiny looked like and sounded like. They capture specific moments and playthroughs. What they cannot provide is systematic reference information: what specific perks did, what loot tables contained, how mechanics interacted. That is what wikis do.

Specialized tools

Tools like DIM (Destiny Item Manager) and Light.gg provided real-time data for Destiny 2 and, in some cases, the original game. These tools relied on Bungie's API. With Destiny servers offline, the API no longer returns data for the original game, making the wiki's stored information one of the few remaining queryable references for game data.

Technical specifications

MediaWiki version

Destiny Game Wiki runs MediaWiki 1.44 through TheGamesWiki network. The network completed a major upgrade cycle in late 2024.

If you encounter broken templates or display issues, report them on the technical issues page.

Platform compatibility

The network runs on MediaWiki, which means member wikis share template patterns, maintenance tools, interwiki linking, and editor skill transferability. Editors who know how to work on one network wiki can contribute to another without learning a new system.

Extensions

Extension Function Wiki use
Semantic MediaWiki Structured data queries Weapon stat comparisons, armor databases
Cargo Alternative data storage Legacy data tables
VisualEditor WYSIWYG editing Edit without learning wikitext
Echo Notifications Talk page alerts
CirrusSearch Improved search Better search results
CentralAuth Unified accounts Same login across network wikis
TimedMediaHandler Video embedding Gameplay clips in articles

Data preservation

The wiki uses structured data to organize weapon and armor statistics. This allows queries like "show all Year One hand cannons sorted by impact" or "list all armor with increased reload speed."

This structured approach proved especially important after the shutdown. When the game was live, players could check stats in-game or through third-party apps connected to Bungie's API. With the game offline, the wiki's database is one of the few places this information still exists in queryable form.

Shared templates and modules

The network offers shared template patterns that member wikis can adopt or ignore. For Destiny, potentially useful shared patterns include:

  • Infobox schemas for weapons and armor (with version context fields)
  • Activity pages (raids, strikes) with structured fields
  • Patch note boxes and "last verified" fields
  • Source citation patterns for stats and perk behavior

The approach is to keep shared templates small and stable, version and document changes, allow local overrides, and treat large schema changes like migrations rather than surprise updates. The hub does not dictate page layout. It offers reusable pieces.

Cross-wiki link hygiene

The network tracks domain moves and rebrands, keeps canonical URLs for wiki listings, records "this wiki is archived" status rather than letting readers guess, and maintains redirects when listings change.

Destiny communities have lived through multiple waves of tools and sites. Some are still running. Some are ghosts. The network's job is to map that reality honestly.

How TheGamesWiki becomes the default starting point

"Future hub for gaming wikis" can turn into empty hype fast. The practical version is: what would make people use it instead of just searching Google?

A dependable index of active communities

If thegameswiki.com becomes a default starting point, it will be because it answers basic questions quickly:

  • Where is the best-maintained wiki for this game?
  • Is it active right now?
  • Which wiki covers Destiny vs. Destiny 2 vs. expansion-era detail?
  • Did this site move or get archived?

Search engines are inconsistent at this. A hub can be boring and reliable, and that is enough.

A map between specialized resources

Destiny is large enough that specialization makes sense. There are wikis focused on lore and story, wikis focused on gear stats and perk behavior, wikis focused on activities and rotations, and wikis focused on older-era content. A hub helps readers move between those without forcing any one wiki to become a mega-wiki that tries to do everything poorly.

Shared boring infrastructure

Editors care about anti-spam patterns, template schemas, page naming conventions, citation habits, and link maintenance. These are not exciting features. They are the plumbing that keeps wikis functional. TheGamesWiki becomes valuable by coordinating and documenting these basics and making them reusable across member wikis.

A lifeboat for game documentation

The longer-term value is preservation. As games shut down, as hosting contracts expire, as individual wiki owners lose interest or funds, the network provides a place where documentation can survive. Destiny Game Wiki is a proof of concept. If it works here (a wiki about a game nobody can play anymore, running sustainably on shared infrastructure), it can work for the next game that goes offline.

Integration with destinygamewiki.com

This section covers practical integration that does not require a site redesign.

Reader-facing

  • A small "Related wikis" link box on high-level pages (franchise overview, core systems) pointing to TheGamesWiki listings for related Destiny resources
  • TheGamesWiki listing pages used as stable outbound link targets, so domain changes elsewhere do not force manual cleanup on this wiki

Editor-facing

  • Shared template patterns for patch-era notes and "last verified" markers
  • Shared maintenance categories for outdated pages, especially strategy content tied to old balance states
  • Shared anti-spam guidance and filters where appropriate, with local review before adoption

The boundary

A healthy relationship keeps this clear:

  • The hub suggests and links
  • destinygamewiki.com decides and edits

If that remains true, the hub feels like support instead of overhead.

Frequently asked questions

Can I still play Destiny?

No. Bungie shut down Destiny servers on February 12, 2024. The game required an online connection for all activities, so it is no longer playable.

Why maintain a wiki for a dead game?

Because the information matters to people. Former players return to remember. Researchers study game design. Content creators reference mechanics. Lore enthusiasts explore the universe. The game being offline does not eliminate interest in it.

Is this wiki about Destiny 2?

No. This wiki covers Destiny (2014) only. For Destiny 2 information, use Destinypedia, the Fandom wiki, or other resources.

Is the wiki still being edited?

Occasionally. Most content is complete because the game is complete. Edits focus on corrections, improved explanations, and preserving information from sources that may go offline.

Do I need a new account?

No. Existing accounts work normally. You can optionally link your account to the network system to use the same login on other TheGamesWiki wikis.

Who owns this wiki?

Destiny Game Wiki is part of TheGamesWiki network, which is privately owned. It is not affiliated with Bungie or owned by a larger media company.

Will there be a Destiny remaster?

Unknown. Bungie has not announced plans to bring back the original Destiny. If that changes, this wiki would be well-positioned to support returning players, since the documentation is already here.

Does joining the network change the site's look and feel?

The network provides backend infrastructure, not frontend design. Destiny Game Wiki retains its own visual theme and layout. Shared network skins are available but optional; each wiki decides its own look.

Contributing

Why contribute to an archived wiki?

  • Correct errors before misinformation becomes permanent
  • Add context that helps future readers understand mechanics
  • Preserve information from sources that may disappear (forums, Reddit threads, defunct tools)
  • Improve article organization and readability
  • Ensure the historical record is complete and honest

Current priorities

  • needing expansion
  • (especially important since the game cannot be re-captured)
  • Verifying claims against archived sources
  • Adding context about what changed across patches
  • Marking pages with "last verified" dates and patch-era context

How to edit

Click "Edit" on any article. See Help:Editing for wikitext basics or enable VisualEditor for a graphical interface. Editor skills transfer across all TheGamesWiki network wikis.

Reporting issues

  • Content errors: Use the article's talk page
  • Technical problems: Technical issues page
  • Spam or vandalism: Contact an administrator
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