The sale of Wordle (opens in new tab) to the New York Times earlier this year sparked some consternation among devoted fans, who feared the fast, fun, and free wordplay phenomenon would become overloaded with weird features and, worse, monetization. The Times' statement that the game "will remain free initially" did not help that situation. But so far, so good - it's still free, still fun, and still incredibly simple - and today the new owners announced a change that will really make it that much better for many players.
Wordle keeps track of stats, especially streaks: how many games in a row you've played without screwing up. The problem is, those stats are based on the device, rather than the player, so if you're playing Wordle on your PC and your cell phone, for example, your stats and streaks will be different for each one.
But that will soon change as players will soon have the option to link their Wordle stats to an NYT account. That means as long as you're logged in, your stats will follow you no matter what device you're playing on - and most importantly, it works with both free and paid accounts. Think of it as cloud savers, but for crossword puzzles.
The stats linking feature doesn't appear to be live yet - I launched Wordle today for the first time in months and there's no sign of a linking option. The Times has also stopped tweeting about the status of the update, saying only that it is "coming soon".
If you don't see the option to link your account on the device you play Wordle every day, hold on! The feature will be coming to you soon. Once statistics are linked to a New York Times account, this process cannot be reversed. Happy solving!July 12, 2022
As for why this is a big deal, it really all comes down to ego: enjoying your ability to guess words in public is a big deal for many players. Just in case there's any doubt about how strong that urge really is, here's what happened once the topic of Wordle came up in the PC Gamer Slack earlier today:
Some of us have fallen off the Wordle craze, but it's clearly still hugely popular, and other big companies are still trying to get into action: yesterday Spotify bought Heardle (opens in new tab)a Wordle-meets-Name That Tune mashup that challenges players to guess songs based on short audio clips.
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