Last updated on January 3rd, 2026 at 05:35 pm
NYT Games: Wordle & Crossword – Entertainment Game Review
NYT Games: Wordle & Crossword is a Entertainment/Word/Puzzle game from The New York Times Company, first launched in 27th March 2009.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 261,782+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes NYT Games: Wordle & Crossword Stand Out
New York Times Games is the essential app for anyone who loves word, logic and number games. Free to download, the app offers new puzzles daily for every skill level.
App Features and Games:
NEW: PIPS
- Find the right spot for each domino.
- Play three puzzles daily: Easy, medium and hard.
THE CROSSWORD
- The classic daily New York Times puzzle you love.
- Crack clues and fill the grid with answers.
- Crosswords increase in difficulty throughout the week.
WORDLE
- The official Wordle, a word-guessing game created by Josh Wardle.
- Can you guess the 5-letter word in 6 tries or less?
- Analyze your guesses and improve your skills with Wordle Bot.
CONNECTIONS
- Group words that share a common thread.
- Train your brain and organize 16 terms into four categories using word associations and strategy.
- Analyze your guesses and see how you stack up with Connections Bot.
SPELLING BEE
- Is spelling your strong suit?
- See how many words you can create with 7 letters.
- Build more words to earn more points.
SUDOKU
- Looking for a numbers game, minus the math?
- Fill each 3×3 set of boxes with numbers 1 to 9.
- Play a new puzzle every day in easy, medium or hard mode.
STRANDS
- Try this classic word search, with a twist.
- Find hidden words and uncover the day’s theme.
THE MINI CROSSWORD
- All the fun of the Crossword, but you can solve it in seconds.
- A spin on our original word game, with simpler clues.
- Puzzles don’t increase in difficulty throughout the week.
TILES
- Unwind with a pattern-matching game.
- The key is to match elements consecutively.
- Can you keep your chain going?
LETTER BOXED
- Create words using letters around the square.
- Test your word-making skills with daily puzzles.
BADGES
- Earn badges for Spelling Bee, Wordle and Connections.
- Celebrate your streaks and wins.
STATS
- Looking for your longest solving streak?
- Wondering how many puzzles you’ve solved?
- Track your progress with stats for the Crossword, Spelling Bee, Wordle, Connections and Strands.
- Plus, monitor your average solve times.
LEADERBOARD
- Add friends and follow daily scores across Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee and the Mini.
- Plus, explore your score history to see how your word game scores stack up over time.
PUZZLE ARCHIVE
- Subscribers can solve over 10,000 past puzzles from New York Times Games.
- Explore puzzle archives for Wordle, Connections, Strands, Spelling Bee, the Crossword and the Mini.
HINTS
- Find tips and strategize with fellow solvers in the forums. Just tap the light bulb while playing.
- Available for Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee and Strands.
BY DOWNLOADING THE NEW YORK TIMES GAMES APP, you agree to:
• The New York Times Privacy Policy: https://www.nytimes.com/privacy/privacy-policy
• The New York Times Cookie Policy: https://www.nytimes.com/privacy/cookie-policy
• The New York Times California Privacy Notices: https://www.nytimes.com/privacy/california-notice
• The New York Times Terms of Service: https://www.nytimes.com/content/help/rights/terms/terms-of-service.html
• Apple Terms of Sale: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/us/terms.html
This Entertainment game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, NYT Games: Wordle & Crossword is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 16th December 2025
Recent improvements include:
This version contains Year in Games. Look back on 2025 and celebrate every solve.
Have feedback? Email us. [email protected]
Download & Availability
NYT Games: Wordle & Crossword is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get NYT Games: Wordle & Crossword on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
This is part of our daily routine now. We really like how theyve translated the venerable NYT crossword into digital format. It even unlocks clever possibilities that are harder to do in print. PLUS all the other games like Connections and Wordle that we love.
The online puzzles are perfect for our morning crossword fix. And, on days when we want to do more than one the archives beckon.
We do at least two crosswords from the archive each day! So happy they are available.
We are glad that we found this app. We love the various puzzles and have increased our word usage and brain power. We find it to be a decent way to open our day and not just a time waster. Thank you.
..without the NYT games & puzzles.
Wouldnt want to ever be without this app! Greatest games that actually challenge our mind.
We love the New York Times games! The connections and strands puzzles are super fun and challenging, and each day comes with a completely different set of puzzles! They have helped us learn different vocabulary words and all sorts of random trivia pieces. The comments community on Strands and Connections is very supportive and helpful, and the app overall is great! We just wish there was a way to share a subscription with family accounts.
Cant start the day without playing! Love them all.
We have enjoyed all of the New York Times crossword puzzles to date. We've been doing them for several years. We like to start our day with them as it gets our brain working in both a critical and creative way. The Times needs to expand their Tiles selections. There are maybe a dozen Tiles constructions, and even though they don't repeat, if you know how to solve them/what to look for, they are no longer challenging.
Great weekly connection with our family.
Good variety of fun and challenging games.
This app contains endless entertainment. We come to this site every night before going to sleep. Its so absolutely satisfying.
The puzzles are hard, Im hard, life is hard, thats why its fun.
Wife and we start our morning together doing puzzles. Great way to start the day. We have a few things we would like to see. Strands: give a count of how many words found in puzzle. Wordle: allowed ability to tap spaces to change letters. Tiles: offer new puzzles Dont penalize if absent and havent accessed puzzles during day.
Since the most recent update, the puzzles do not sync between our iPhone and our iPad.
If youre already connected to a keyboard on the iPad, it would be nice to do the crossword full screen without seeing another extraneous keyboard that you cant remove. This is our only complaint.
Enjoy these games every morning. But for the love of Pete, FIX PIPS!!!! The game is incredibly buggy! Its extremely frustrating.
We were playing the spelling bee and it locked us out. It said that we have made it to good we dont know if this is how it always has been, but the tiles game that used to be free and the mini used to be free but now you have to pay to play it and we get that its only 1.49 per month but still we wish it was free. Just please make the tile game free we really liked it. We dont mind paying the 1.49 but we feel like it should be free, and not everyone has a dollar two to spare yes they have a phone but still. Please fix this.
There are lots of good games but there is a subscription for a lot of things including all the crosswords.
Love it, but the us page doesnt work. Went to support for help, but they couldnt fix it. Annoying.
Finding a way to go to the main page after finishing a game without closing down the app and restarting is a challenge.
The UI could be a bit better. Dont make us click 4 times to get out of a game when Ive completed it.
Getting a year-end review seemed cool and seeing the highlights of the past year but the first thing we see when we click that button is AN AD?! We even pay for the yearly subscription and maybe it wouldve been OK if it was further into the summary, but thats the FIRST thing?! Seriously not cool. We usually dont complain about that much but this one felt particularly annoying and low,.
Love the games but its hard to keep justifying the cost.
The news ads feature (frustrating, since we pay a lot for a monthly subscription to the New York Times, but we understand that you have to make money) causes the app not to function. Freezes connections bot.
The constant reminders to upgrade have gotten tiresome. We have an old phone and cant Update Now, but every time we come back to the app we have to close that reminder window. Trust us, we have not forgotten. We are not buying a new phone so that we can update our app. Please add a Never option below Update Later.
So upset that the mini crossword is now pay only.
It used to be a solid app but they decided to paywall several of the formerly F2P games along with installing constant Ads. The ads really arent that intrusive but the amount of them is ridiculous considering they removed content like the Mini Crossword, Tiles, and Letterboxed. We really only use it for Sudoku now but since finding Netflix Puzzled, we have no use for the app.
The games are fun. They get you hooked and then slowly start taking away the ones that you dont need a subscription to play. Eventually all the ones you like are no longer free.
Cannot open spelling bee on iPad mini gen7. The play button is below the screen. This is when screen is in landscape view.
We just updated our app and the free mini is gone Im so sad.
We actually love the games and Im a subscriber. But the latest update is horrible. Just stupid stuff to click through when all we want to do is play the game.
We love the variety of NYT Games, but the recent update to the Pips timer is a huge step backward. The timer no longer pauses when you leave the app, and it even counts time spent on the ad screen toward your puzzle. Today we finished the easy puzzle in about 30 seconds, yet our recorded time was nearly 3 minutes because we watched the ad and briefly switched apps. As a parent who gets interrupted constantly, it was far more convenient to swipe out than to remember to hit pause. This change adds no benefit and makes the experience worse. Please revert to the previous design.
Much more difficult to navigate since yesterday and no help readily available.
Slowly everything moves behind a paywall, even the dang mini. We did it every night and now they want $5.99/month for us to play our 2 min per day game.
We downloaded and used the app and was setting it up when we were prompted to supply billing information, which appeared to be for future purchases. The next day we were charged $49.99 by Relax Mantra which we had never heard of before. That charge has now been contested. And yes, it was due to this app.
Our family loves doing the puzzles and especially the crossword but the party mode has been on the fritz for months now and it makes it so much harder to enjoy. Please fix this.
Watch a few ads to have access to the games that we liked. But you went and locked them up and tried to get us hooked so that we would pay more. But you want $60-$72 a year to play your games. Frankly thats too much. So we will be deleting the app and recommending our friends avoid this particular game set. Happy new year.
Please allow us to use our native iPhone keyboard, instead of the one that doesnt detect our inputs and has different key spacing than the one we exclusively use on our phone. This is transparently a bad design decision idk how it hasnt been fixed in 5+ years.
When we make dirty jokes as answers our wife laughs hysterically and its ruining our time averages. Please have editors provide clues that have less possibility to turn into suggestive answers. Please and thank you.
We updated and now 3/4 of games are now locked. The cost was $20 but now $50. Way too expensive. We dont want to subsidize the news org.
Most of the games used to be free, but they keep moving more to be only available under the subscription. When people complain they move them back, but may require subscription for all games if it continues.
Why did you guys stop making the mini crossword free? And now theres ads. Just disappointing.
Id rather play these games in the regular nyt app. We subscribe to the nyt and the game experience there is better. The only reason we downloaded the nyt games app was to see better statistics and badges. Wellthe see badges only shows one badge and a badges page doesnt show up when we tap on View Badges and theyre difficult to find if you dont know where to find them.
The forward and back keys are cut off in portrait mode on this app with an iPad Mini 7 for crossword so they are smaller. Also it seems like a strain to reach it in all the way in the lower corner as opposed to the position of those keys in the iPhone app. We just got this tablet and we find that Im using it less. We like the app on our phone though.
Big wigs always find a way to take the fun out of everything. We used to love playing these games and now you can barely play them without a paid subscription. So over it.
We like playing the mini crossword, but now you have to pay to play it. We can't afford the cost and the free games were fun to play so disappointed.
We got a pop up to write a review and we found that annoying.
This is our favorite word game! We play this every morning before we start our day. We do all the puzzles (except the big crossword). Our favorite is Wordle. We like reading the analysis and whether we beat the bot. We wish all the game had an archive and analysis. Great app.
We got subscription on sale and now we can't stop playing tiles. Hong kong tileset is goated.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 6.7.0
- Size: 91.14 MB
- iOS: 18.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: The New York Times Company
Last updated: 16th December 2025 | Genre: Entertainment, Word | Developer: The New York Times Company