Wordle snags a place inside the New York Times Crossword app

Wordle is now available in The New York Times Crossword app for both iOS and Android users. The addictive guessing game joins both The New York Times Crossword variants, Spelling Bee, and more. Users can also continue to play the game on their desktop and through the mobile website.

The word-guessing game became an immediate phenomenon after it was released in October 2021. The Times then acquired Wordle from its creator Josh Wardle in January. That decision was not without complaints, as users began speculating that the game had become harder and some of their streaks were ruined. Despite complaints after its acquisition, The Times said that the game allowed The Times to see a jump in new subscribers at its earnings meeting in May and now says that as of July, about 10 percent of “active” players have played more than 145 games of Wordle.

Other than tackling the complaints, The Times has been tweaking the game during the year. It introduced the WordleBot in April for web Wordle players to help analyze each puzzle to best come up with the best starting word for the game. The company eventually tweaked the WordleBot to begin recommending a new start word, changing its identity to WordleBot 2.0. As cool as it is, WordleBot was only available to specific subscribers. Recently, The New York Times announced that it’s partnering with Hasbro to release Wordle as a physical board game in October.

Integrating the game into the Crossword app seems like an easy way to keep the game in front of interested players, although some are still wary that eventually Wordle or some of its features could end up paywalled, requiring a subscription with The Times. The game continues to be available for free on both the mobile app and desktop website.