Wordle, The New York Times’ globally popular daily word game has announced it will implement a fundamental change that players have been expecting for a long time.
Wordle is a word game guessing game where players have six attempts to guess a hidden five-letter word. Letters they guess correctly in the right position are coloured green, while letters that are in the word but in the wrong position are coloured yellow.
The solution to Wordle is the same for everyone every day, and it refreshes daily at midnight on the player’s local time.
In a recent New York Times’ Gameplay email newsletter, the Times announced a fundamental change to the way it runs the game.
It has now told players that from Monday 2 February, it will begin to re-use words for the first time since it began running the game in early 2022.
“Hey, Wordlers! We have some exciting news to share,” the New York Times told subscribers to its Gameplay newsletter on Wednesday 28 January.
“Starting on Monday, we will begin adding previously run words back into play.”
“There are still many first-time answers to debut, but also more chances for Wordle in ones and those magical, serendipitous moments when Wordle overlaps with real life. Happy solving!”
Up until now, previous Wordle solutions have never repeated, although the approved list of five-letter words has been steadily consumed and players have always expected that eventually, the game would need to re-use previous solutions.
When Wordle was acquired by the New York Times, there was a list of 2,309 approved words it could use as solutions.
At its current rate, Wordle would have run out of new words in around two years, meaning it would always have to have started to re-use solutions.
Importantly, new words will still appear as solutions even as old words are mixed into the pool of possible answers, keeping the gameplay experience fresh while ensuring its longevity.
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