In it, two teams compete by each having a "spymaster" give one-word clues that can point to specific words on the board.

Each turn, back and forth, each spymaster must provide verbal clues that allow their respective field operatives to guess the words of their team color while avoiding squares belonging to opposing agents, innocent bystanders, and the assassin.

However, if a bystander or an opposing agent is revealed, the guess is considered incorrect and the turn ends immediately.

Assuming that the assassin hasn't been revealed, the game ends once all of one team's agents are found, thus achieving victory.

[7] Codenames: Pictures was released in September 2016 and includes 200 two-sided cards that feature images instead of words.

[8] Codenames: Disney Family Edition was released in September 2017, featuring characters and locations from Disney and Pixar films and including rules for an easier gameplay variation with a smaller 4x4 grid (and no assassin square), intended for younger players.

The objective of the game is to reveal all 15 agents within a given number of turns without contacting too many innocent bystanders or the assassin.

Themed around the novel series of the same name, it is played similarly to Codenames: Duet, with two or more players working together to reveal all Order of the Phoenix members before they run out of time while also trying to avoid the Ministry of Magic and the Death Eaters.

The game was commercially acclaimed and has been published in 38 languages: Afrikaans, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Bokmål, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Thai and Turkish, ultimately comprising six different alphabets.

[17] Writing for Kotaku, Alex Walker stated that the game had high replay value and commended its mechanics.