I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but there are an awful lot of Pokémon games out there. If we include spin-offs, there have been well over 100 Pokémon games released in the last 30 years. We’ve had pinball, racing, cozy life sims, dungeon crawlers, arena brawlers, real-time strategy, and whatever the hell Hey You, Pikachu! was supposed to be. Still not sure about that one.
Now, a more recent Pokémon game has officially confirmed it will be shutting down for good on October 3. And while this one might not be entirely approved of by The Pokémon Company (by which I mean it’s an unofficial fan project) it’s still a hugely popular game, and its loss will come as a blow to the Pokémon community.
Pokémon Wordle is a Japanese puzzle game that was released back in January 2022, and is one of the many, many variants on the successful Wordle formula. In Pokémon Wordle, you have to guess a Pokémon’s name within a set number of turns. To be clear, this is not the same as Pokedle, which is an entirely different free-to-play fan game that is loosely based on Wordle without being a direct clone.
Twitter user giga_yadoran, who created Pokémon Wordle, confirmed that the game will be shutting down as of tomorrow (October 3). While one might assume this request came via the typically litigious Pokémon Company, it was actually Wordle rights holder The New York Times who got in touch to ask the game be removed.
“We received contact from the New York Times regarding Wordle rights, so Pokémon Wordle will end its public release on 10/3 (Sat),” giga wrote. “Thank you to everyone who played it until now!”
“Over the years, you’ve entertained me greatly,” replied one fan. “Thank you so very, very much.”
Another fan took aim at The New York Times, writing: “Wordle itself is just an analog game turned into a digital one, and all that happened was the New York Times acquired it. It doesn’t have any novelty, nor does it have any patents, and in the first place, given that Wordle itself is a rip-off game, I think the New York Times claiming copyright infringement against games similar to Wordle is way too thuggish…”
Certainly, there are loads of versions of Wordle still out there. My personal favorite is Poople, in which you have to make the word poop in the shortest possible path from a starting word while only changing one letter at a time.
As far as official Pokémon game releases, the next big one is Winds & Waves for the Nintendo Switch 2 in 2027. Sadly, despite many leaks since the game’s one and only official trailer, it’s unlikely we see more of the upcoming Gen 10 game until early next year. If only we had some kind of Wordle clone to help pass the time.
- Release Date
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1997 – 2023-00-00
- Network
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TV Tokyo, TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TVh, TVQ, TSC
- Directors
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Shigeru Omachi, Koji Ogawa, Fumihiro Ueno, Hideki Hiroshima, Maki Kodaira, Makoto Ooga, Ayumi Moriyama, Keitaro Motonaga, Shigeru Ueda, Fumihiro Yoshimura, Minoru Ohara, Yoshitaka Makino, Kiyoshi Egami, Makoto Sokuza, Bjarne Heuser, Naoki Murata, Kenichi Nishida, Tomoe Makino, Masahiko Watanabe, Hiroaki Takagi, Tazumi Mukaiyama, Ryohei Horiuchi, Yoshihiro Oda, Hiromichi Matano
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Rica Matsumoto
Satoshi (voice)
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Ikue Otani
Pikachu (voice)
