NYT Games: Play the Crossword

The New York Times Company

In-app purchases

About this game

Keep your mind sharp with word, number and logic puzzles from New York Times Games. Free to download, the app offers new puzzles daily for every skill level.

App Features and Games:

NEW AD-FREE PUZZLES DAILY
There are never any ads to disrupt the fun in the New York Times Games app, so you can play without distraction.

THE CROSSWORD
Looking for a classic word game? Subscribers can play the same daily puzzle that’s printed in The New York Times in our app. Crosswords increase in difficulty from Monday to Saturday, so there’s something for everyone.

WORDLE
Want a word game that starts with a blank slate? Play the original Wordle — created by Josh Wardle — in our app. See if you can guess the 5-letter word in 6 tries or less.

SPELLING BEE
Is scrambling your strong suit? Play Spelling Bee and see how many words you can make with 7 letters. Play at your own pace with new daily puzzles.

SUDOKU
Looking for a numbers game, minus the math? Play Sudoku and fill each 3x3 set of boxes with numbers 1–9. Numbers in sets, rows or columns can not repeat. Play a new puzzle every day in easy, medium or hard mode.

THE MINI CROSSWORD
The Mini is all the fun of The Crossword, but you can solve it in seconds. These word games don’t increase in difficulty throughout the week and feature simpler clues.

STATS
Track your progress for The Crossword, Wordle and Spelling Bee. For The Crossword, monitor your average solve times, see how many puzzles you can solve in a row or improve your solve rate. Plus follow your streak and more on Wordle, and track how often you reach each level in Spelling Bee.

LEADERBOARDS
Start a friendly competition with The Mini leaderboards. Add up to 25 friends to see who can solve today’s Mini puzzle the fastest.

PUZZLE ARCHIVE
Sharpen your skills with thousands of crosswords. Subscribers get access to our archive of over 10,000 Crossword and over 2,000 Mini Crossword puzzles.

DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS:
Download our app to be automatically enrolled in a no obligation 7-day free trial with all subscriber benefits. After the trial ends, you can purchase a monthly or annual New York Times Games subscription.

Enjoy unlimited gameplay, The Crossword archive and more with a monthly or annual subscription. See our subscription offers for further details.

BY DOWNLOADING THE NEW YORK TIMES GAMES APP, you agree to:
• The automatic renewal terms stated above.
• 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

Please note: A subscription to New York Times Games does not include access to any other New York Times products, including but not limited to nytimes.com, New York Times Cooking, Wirecutter, mobile news content and other apps on non-iOS devices.

Ratings and reviews

Beware. Any advantages there may be to using the app (versus just playing online) are mitigated by the insane number of tracking attempts made by 3rd parties (e.g., Google MS, Roku, Datadog). Yes, it's the world we live in. That doesn't mean it's right or good. Also the Wordle bot recently added to the app crashes every single time you open it.

The app mostly works well. It functions like an app of apps. For example, some games have archives that are accessible from the app, and some do not. Some games have "dark mode," and some do not. Some games adjust to your device's orientation, and some do not. The games are intended for solitary play, which is not how my wife and I play. We usually solve them together, whether we are together or we are talking on the phone while each logged in. This is sometimes frustrating.

I play a few of the games regularly. The 1 thing that truly irritates me though is Spelling Bee. I mostly enjoy it but... So many standard, in the dictionary, regularly used words are "not in the word list." It's absurd. Furthermore, there seems to be no logic behind what is included and what isn't. More technical words are often excluded, not always. If I, N, G are among the letters, some gerunds are accepted and others not. It falls short of my expectations for NYT. Please fix it

What's new

This version contains improvements to keep you solving smoothly!

Have feedback? Email us at [e-mail].