There’s Now an Official Wordle Archive
The NYT will soon include an archive and WordleBot in its subscribers-only Games app.
Ever since the New York Times bought Wordle, they’ve stuck with its simplicity—one word per day, five letters, that’s it. It occupies one tile in the NYT Games app, unlike the Crossword and Spelling Bee where users can scroll sideways to play previous days’ games. But now, that’s changing: subscribers will soon be able to access an archive—plus WordleBot is coming to the Games app as well.
There are free archives, but NYT keeps killing them off
If you wanted to play past Wordles, you used to be able to go to this unofficial Wordle archive—but the NYT asked the creator to shut it down, and they did. Discussions on forums like Reddit mention that other archives have been shut down in the past.
So far, the unofficial free archive Wordle Replay is still up, and appears to be fully functional. Another free archive, Wordle Archive, works but doesn’t accept the full range of legal guesses—it told me my trusty starter, ARISE, was not a legal word.
Where you can find the official Wordle archive
The NYT says that they are “rolling out” the archive on mobile and desktop, starting May 7. I don’t see it on the NYT Games website, even though I’m a subscriber. Maybe you will be more lucky.
The archive is supposed to roll out to the NYT Games app in “coming weeks.” Once again, I don’t see it on mine, but I’ll keep looking.
WordleBot is coming to the NYT Games app
The other big announcement from the NYT this week was that WordleBot will now be available from the Games app. Currently, when you solve a Wordle puzzle on the web, there’s a link to compare your performance with WordleBot’s. (As I’ve written before, this is a bot that solves the puzzle with computer precision, and then grades you on skill, luck, and how many guesses you took to find the answer.)
Until now, the WordleBot link has been missing from the Games app, which means I never bother to go and look it up. If the link were right there, I might take a look after finishing each day’s puzzle—which might ultimately make me a better Wordle solver. Again, I don’t see the bot in my app yet, but the NYT has promised that it’s on the way.