A Short History of NYT Connections — From Beta to Daily Phenomenon

The NYT Games team launched Connections in June 2023 as a soft beta. By early 2024 it was the second most-played NYT game after Wordle. Here's the timeline.

The pre-launch (early 2023)

Editor Wyna Liu had been pitching grouping puzzles for years. The format borrows from older puzzles in the print Connections-style format, but Liu's innovation was the four-color difficulty system that makes the meta-challenge legible to new players.

Launch (June 2023)

Beta launched on NYT Games subscribers only. Player feedback was overwhelmingly positive — the difficulty curve was novel and the daily structure created share-ability.

Going public (late 2023)

Free for all NYT registered users (no paid sub needed). Daily DAU climbed fast.

The viral moment (early 2024)

Reddit and Twitter discovered the "share grid" format — copy your color-coded result, paste in DMs. Wordle had done this in 2022; Connections rode the same mechanic.

Current state (2026)

Connections is NYT's second-most-played game (after Wordle). It has spawned dozens of solver sites, hint aggregators, and even a thriving subreddit (r/NYTConnections). The puzzle's success has driven NYT to launch Strands (2024) and other adjacent formats.