If you’re a daily solver, your morning ritual likely hinges on a few crucial tiles, grids, and letter boards. Right now, four New York Times games remain fully unlocked and ready to solve: Wordle, Connections, Strands, and Pips. Two offer a taste before hitting a hard wall (Spelling Bee and Sudoku), while five require a full Games subscription, including three beloved daily staples that quietly migrated behind the paywall in August 2025.
That shift is precisely why so many online guides get this wrong. Late in August 2025, the Times moved The Mini Crossword, Tiles, and Letter Boxed behind the subscriber wall, while simultaneously tightening the free allowance on Spelling Bee. With no official broadcast, word nerds and casual cruciverbalists alike only realized what happened when they hit the paywall head-on.
Four Unlocked, Two Capped, Five Behind the Paywall
| Game | Status | What free players get |
|---|---|---|
| Wordle | Free | The full daily puzzle |
| Connections | Free | The full daily puzzle |
| Strands | Free | The full daily puzzle |
| Pips | Free | All three daily puzzles, easy, medium and hard |
| Spelling Bee | Limited | Only a few words before the paywall |
| Sudoku | Limited | One difficulty level, chosen once |
| The Mini Crossword | Subscription | Nothing, since August 2025 |
| Letter Boxed | Subscription | Nothing, since August 2025 |
| Tiles | Subscription | Nothing, since August 2025 |
| The Crossword | Subscription | Nothing, and never has |
| The Midi Crossword | Subscription | Nothing, launched paid in February 2026 |
The Mini: Eleven Years as a Free Morning Warm-Up
Launched back in 2014, The Mini was the gateway drug for an entire generation of crossword enthusiasts. A neat 5×5 grid, five bite-sized clues, and a quick fill you could dash off while waiting for your espresso. It offered all the joy of a crossword break without requiring a weekend commitment.
When it went subscriber-only in late August 2025—taking Tiles and Letter Boxed along with it—the puzzle community felt the jolt. As Book Riot observed at the time, the transition landed without warning. Puzzlers took to Hacker News and forum threads in protest, circulating petitions that remain active to this day.
If you’re still on the hunt for a free, unlimited crossword mini, you can check out Crossherd from CleverGoat. It offers a smart and challenging mini. It’s totally free and as an added the bonus, the archive is free and open to play with over 560 games as of writing.
Spelling Bee’s Honey Trap Got Swept Away
If you haven’t played in a while, you might remember the classic Spelling Bee arrangement: non-subscribers could hunt down words until reaching “Good” or “Solid” status—earning roughly 15% of the total points. It was a generous playground that let anagram aficionados test their vocabulary before calling it a day.
That threshold is long gone. Free players now hit a hard stop after finding just a handful of answers. If a strategy site is still promising you 15% of the points for free, it’s relying on a playbook that’s well past its expiration date.
Looking for Past Grids? Sadly the Archive Remains Behind the Wall
It’s a common trap for word lovers assuming a free game includes access to back issues.
The app guidelines are clear: full subscribers can dive into a massive library of over 10,000 archived puzzles spanning Wordle, Connections, Strands, Spelling Bee, the classic Crossword, and The Mini. Free accounts get today’s board and today’s board only.
Meanwhile, Pips, Letter Boxed, and Tiles don’t maintain a back catalog for anyone—subscriber or not.
WordleBot Goes Subscriber-Only
For players who love analyzing their opening guesses, skill ratings, and luck factors, WordleBot was a game-changer when it debuted in April 2022. Because it enjoyed a lengthy free run, legacy blog posts still describe it as accessible to everyone.
In reality, reviewing your analytical breakdown now requires a Games subscription. The same paywall appears to apply to Connections Bot, though official documentation on that feature remains sparse.
What 2026 Brought to the Table
Three major additions arrived this year, though none expanded the free side of the slate.
The Midi Crossword hit the scene in February 2026. Bridging the gap between The Mini and the flagship Crossword, these themed 9×9 to 11×11 grids were subscriber-only from day one. Nieman Lab offered the best breakdown of why the Times added a mid-sized option to its cruciverbal suite.
Crossplay made its U.S. debut on January 21, 2026, launching as a standalone, head-to-head app outside the core Games ecosystem. It offers tile-placement gameplay for Scrabble fans, complete with its own unique point distributions. It is free to play with a New York Times account and has no in-app ads. Cross Bot, its post-game review, gives the full analysis only to Games subscribers.
Connections: Sports Edition introduced a soccer-focused variant in June 2026 to coincide with the World Cup, hosted directly on The Athletic.
Capture, a chess hybrid developed alongside Chess.com, remains in regional beta testing in Canada after soft-launching in December 2025.
Retired Puzzles: Gone but Not Forgotten
If you’ve been hunting for an old favorite that seems to have vanished from your app, it might be in the game graveyard:
- Digits: The numerical puzzle ran a short beta test from April to August 2023 before being retired.
- Vertex: This artful, dot-connecting favorite was retired in August 2024 after a four-year run for subscribers.
- Zorse: A phrase-mashup concept tested exclusively in Canada from October 2024 through January 2025.
Notice a pattern? The Times frequently tests prototype mechanics in international test markets like Canada and New Zealand before deciding whether to roll them out globally.
The Four Truly Free Daily Fixes
If you want a dependable daily solving routine without opening your wallet, Wordle, Connections, Strands, and Pips are your best bets. They offer complete puzzles every day and show no signs of moving behind the paywall.
Need a hand with today’s grid? We publish daily hints, solvers, and answer guides across all major word games. Stop by our NYT Games hub for help, including Connections clues and hints, our dedicated Strands solver, the Pips solver, and complete Spelling Bee answers.
Missing your quick 5×5 fix? Check out our round-up of the top free mini crosswords online, or use our comprehensive crossword solver when you run into tough clues. If you want endless 5-letter guessing without the one-puzzle-a-day limit, Lingle offers unlimited play across multiple word lengths.
This table is accurate on the day it was published and it will go out of date the next time the Times moves a game. We check it quarterly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which NYT games are free in 2026?
Wordle, Connections, Strands, Pips and Crossplay are free to play in full. Spelling Bee and Sudoku are free with limits. The Crossword, the Midi, the Mini, Letter Boxed and Tiles all require a subscription.
Is the NYT Mini Crossword still free?
No. The Mini moved behind the subscription at the end of August 2025, after eleven years as a free puzzle, along with Tiles and Letter Boxed. The Times did not announce the change.
Is Wordle still free?
Yes. The daily Wordle remains free and ad-free. The Wordle archive of past puzzles requires a Games or All Access subscription, as does WordleBot.
Is Spelling Bee free?
Only barely. Free players get a few words before hitting the paywall. The older rule that let free players reach the Good or Solid rank was removed in August 2025, so any guide describing that is out of date.
Are the NYT puzzle archives free?
No. Every archive is subscriber-only, covering more than 10,000 past puzzles across Wordle, Connections, Strands, Spelling Bee, the Crossword and the Mini. Pips, Letter Boxed and Tiles have no archive for anyone
Is WordleBot free?
Not any more. WordleBot now requires a subscription. Articles describing it as free predate the change.
What new NYT games launched in 2026?
The Midi Crossword in February, subscriber-only. Crossplay reached the United States on 21 January as a free standalone two-player app. Connections: Sports Edition added a soccer version in June.
