New York Times

The home screen for Connections, New York Times’ newest game. Recently, Connections has been incredibly popular and even rivaling Wordle as to the website’s most successful challenge.

In an unprecedented rise, Wordle quickly became one of America’s favorite games in just a few months of being released in Oct. 2021.

Despite its meteoric rise to success and purchase by the New York Times, after just one year on the open market, Wordle’s popularity dipped to just 43% of its peak popularity. 

What was once a fun daily puzzle soon became tedious, and people simply stopped playing. 

“Wordle is repetitive, it gets boring,” explained senior Griffin Erney.

Plenty of enthusiasts continued trying their luck at the game (with millions continuing to play each day) but the appeal diminished. Throughout late 2022 and into early 2024, its search frequency on Google Trends consistently dipped. 

All of that would soon change as a new puzzle—Connections was released. Though first launched in June 2023, the game rose to popularity in Feb. 2024 on TikTok as a fun new alternative to Wordle and something that sparked a lot of conversation. 

“Connections has more variety which makes it more interesting. We talk about it everyday in math class,” Erney remarked.

Senior Maddie Foreman added that, “Connections is different from other classic ‘newspaper’ games. It’s unique every day and makes you think in different ways than usual.”

In the blink of an eye, NYT’s website had traction once more, and with it brought life back to Wordle. Google’s data shows that in Apr. 2024, for the first time since Oct. 2022, Wordle’s popularity will hit over 40% of its highest peak.

For a seven-figure investment, the Times are absolutely thrilled. Not only did the game they spent heavy on finally find an audience again, but an entirely different game has even more excitement around it. 

Wordle continued to fall and appeared to be a distant memory, but with NYT’s Connections to thank, found itself revived before it was too late.