The New York Times’ new word game Connections rolls out on mobile

By Andrew Webster, an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

The New York Times’ push into gaming continues as the company is widely launching its next big release: Connections. The game, which has been available in beta since June, is now rolling out basically everywhere the Times games are available. That includes the web, the NYT Games app on both iOS and Android, and “soon,” it will also be available in the “play” tab of the main Times app alongside Wordle, sudoku, and the crossword puzzle.

Connections is essentially a word-matching game. Here’s the official description:

How do you play? You’re presented with 16 words. Your mission? Identify the hidden relationship and organize them into four distinct groups of four. The four category colors are yellow (the most straightforward), green, blue and purple (the trickiest). But be careful — players only have four chances to solve the puzzle before it’s all over.

Of course, Connections is just the latest release in the paper’s attempt to expand its gaming ambitions, which really kicked off with the acquisition of the viral hit word game Wordle. Since then, the paper has not only worked to keep Wordle going but also broadened its crosswords app into a larger game-focused app. It hasn’t been an entirely smooth process: last month the Times shut down the math game Digits.

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