You may have heard of Wordle; quite possibly the biggest game of the last year. Sorry, Elden Ring.
You may also have heard of one of the many Wordle derivatives. There is the music-based one, Heardle; the expletive Sweardle; the eight-in-one Octordle; airport solver Airportle; country outline guessing Worldle; maths equation Nerdle and literally thousands more.
Wordbreaker by POWGI is another Wordle clone, at least in terms of foundations. But like many of the others it isn’t an exact clone. It has a few tweaks to the formula that I would argue make it a little better.
In Wordbreaker by POWGI you must guess the mystery five letter word. Firstly, guess a word. The feedback will help you decide where to go next; a correct letter will be outlined. A correct letter in the right place will be highlighted in full. Using this new knowledge will help you decide what your next five letter word will be as you close in on the correct answer.
So far, so Wordle. But Wordbreaker fits the Wordle formula into the POWGI mould. There are of course, the puns based off the word you have just found. And the team at Lightwood Games have excelled themselves this time. Each of the 120 words have a unique pun associated with them as a reward for completing the puzzle, and they are some of the best yet. A particular favourite was when the answer was ‘Crypt’. That is one of the answers, but I would 100% not recommend using that as your starting word.
There are also the more subtle changes. Wordle is a one-a-day prospect designed to challenge, Wordbreaker allows you to complete all 120 in one sitting should you choose. There doesn’t appear to be a limit on the number of tries either; as it wants you to solve the word, there is no benefit to telling you that you have failed only for you to then immediately start it again with the knowledge gained from your last attempt.
Then there is the best improvement, as fellow Wordle players will admit to having been caught out with this before: there are no duplicate letters in Wordbreaker. Each of the 120 words only feature singular letters. A godsend not having to worry about that niggling feeling in the back of your head that there could be a duplicate letter in there somewhere.
Unlike other POWGI games, there is no hint button this time around. Wordbreaker gives you all the hints you need by highlighting the letters. Any additional help would just ruin the fun.
If you have ever played a POWGI game before – or read one of our many reviews – you will know the music is the same across them all. Until now. Wordbreaker by POWGI has the same tunes, but they have been updated and it makes for a nice change.
The UI is still the same as previous games. That is, the main menu showing thirty puzzles at a time. Scroll through them or work through them sequentially; you will know if you have already completed one as it becomes coloured in.
One other thing guaranteed with POWGI games is easy Xbox achievements, and once again Wordbreaker is no exception. As expected now with a word game, there are the achievements for successfully finding the right space for each letter of the alphabet. However, the letters Q and Z only appear in one word each, but if you are going for the achievement for completing all puzzles then this will come naturally. Other noticeable achievements include a callback to previous POWGI games and the use of rude words, finding a five-letter word with no vowels *cough* crypt *cough* and a cryptic one. I’m not giving you any more hints.
Wordbreaker by POWGI is another Wordle clone, but it is also one of the better ones. Firstly, it’s on Xbox therefore you can unlock achievements. Secondly, it isn’t just a one-a-day puzzle; there are 120 here and you can take them on whenever you like. Thirdly, no repeated letters!
Wordbreaker by POWGI isn’t just a solid Wordle clone, it is also one of the best POWGI games out on Xbox. The revamped music is welcome as is the simplicity; all it takes is a decent grasp of the English language – and a penchant for puns – for another easy 1000G.
