Wordle Archive officially shuts down after New York Times request

You might have already read a headline like this in the past, but this time it’s for real. After a few shutdown scares, the Wordle Archive has officially closed the book.

Creator Devang Thakkar released a statement that now occupies the Wordle Archive webpage. “It has been a fun three months since I launched this archive, but all good things must end,” Thakkar writes. “The New York Times has requested that I shut the archive down. To be honest, I was wondering what took them so long.” Thakkar goes on to thank those who participated in the project, which served as a great way for non-New York Times subscribers to continue playing the popular word game. Paywall concerns have been present ever since NYT acquired Wordle at the beginning of the year. Thakkar launched the archive project in response.

Even without Wordle Archive, there are still plenty of Wordle alternatives out there. Most recently, Fortnite launched Fortle, and the classic word game Scrabble returned with a new browser version. Despite the abundance of clones and concerns around the New York Times acquisition, Wordle continues to be extremely popular. It’s the second most-discussed game of the year so far on Twitter, second only to Genshin Impact. If you need a few Wordle pointers yourself, we have plenty of tips for using words with certain letters.