It's probably more of a case of, "what's old is new again." While implementation undoubtedly has something to do with it, Wordle probably caught on this time around due to it's digital packaging, the popularity of things seems to go in cycles.

Also the combination of the unique timing of the launch (late 2021) and the mass psychological/social effect of hundreds of millions of people worldwide working on the same daily challange, since they only published one per day, during Covid when lots of people needed a pleasant distraction.