A whole new way to play an old favorite
Ah, Scrabble. How many boards have been overturned, how many friendships and game nights have been ruined in your name? Plenty, but it’s still one of the most well-loved board games of all time, with countless different editions, tournaments, and even a few game shows over the years. Turns out there’s even a holiday themed around the word game, aptly named Scrabble Day, which is today, April 13. As part of the festivities, Scopely, Hasbro, and Mattel announced the newest Scrabble project — a new version of the game that you can play right in your web browser, simply called Scrabble.com.
Scrabble.com launches with PvP (either with a friend or online) and PvE modes, as well as other features like Word Tools, which includes access to the official Scrabble Dictionary and an anagram solver (having a built-in way to cheat feels a bit weird, but hey, it’s their website, they can do what they want). An official Scrabble Blog and Scrabble Forum will also be available on the website. Additional modes and features will be added in the future, such as a competitive “Tournament” mode. Scrabble.com is free-to-play in your browser, and players can keep up with the latest news on Scrabble’s official social media @ScrabbleGO on most platforms, and they’re even on Twitch.
With Wordle being as successful as it is, I am honestly not surprised in the slightest that Scrabble is coming for the browser game space. It was a smart move to lean into Scrabble‘s unique brand, though, rather than going for another Wordle copy.
While browser games used to be where a huge portion of gamers played online, most of that went away after Flash was shut down at the end of 2020. It’s cool to see a resurgence of this kind of online play, especially because it makes games so much more accessible. Scrabble has had massive success as a mobile game, as after launch it became the #1 mobile word game in the world, which honestly isn’t surprising to me at all considering how well-loved the brand is.
Here’s to hoping that this new website version is a step in a similar direction, because this has the potential to help usher in a whole new era of browser gaming.
