Technologies

Like Word Games Like Wordle? Try These 10 Others

There are plenty of word and puzzle games out there to try.

Wordle is a popular word game that asks players to figure out a five-letter word in six or fewer guesses (we have a two-step strategy to help you solve the puzzle every time). After each guess, the game shows gray blocks for the wrong letters, yellow blocks for the right letters in the wrong spot and green blocks for the right letters in the correct spot. CNET’s Gael Cooper has loads of tips and tricks to tackle each Wordle puzzle, but if you’ve completed today’s game — or just love puzzle games — these alternatives are well worth your time.

You’ve likely already learned some tips, tricks and lessons from the popular word game, so why not apply your newly honed problem-solving skills to other puzzles, too? After all, Wordle isn’t the only game in town. Here are 10 other puzzle games like Wordle you’ll probably enjoy.

Connections

Another New York Times-owned puzzle, Connections is a tricky word game. «Players must select four groups of four words without making more than four mistakes,» the New York Times wrote on X, formerly Twitter. There are also four color-coded difficulty levels for each game; yellow is the easiest, then green, the blue and finally purple. The game is also similar to the BBC quiz show Only Connect, and the show’s host took to X to point out the connection. See what I did there?

You can play Connections on any web browser, but you need a New York Times subscription (which starts at $1 a week) to play.

Strands

Strands is another New York Times-owned puzzle, but this game resembles a word search more so than Wordle and Connections. This game presents a theme every day to help you find words in a grid. In Strands words can appear forwards, backward, top-to-bottom or any number of ways in a traditional word search, and words can also form in the shape of an «L» or have a zigzag in them. When you find a word, tap the first letter and drag your finger to the other letters. Every letter in the puzzle is used, so if you still have letters that aren’t connected to words, you aren’t finished yet.

You can play Strands on any web browser, but you need a New York Times subscription (again, $1 a week) to play.

Quartiles

Quartiles is a new word game Apple News Plus subscribers can access on their iPhone or iPad that’s running iOS 17.5 or later. In this word game, you’re given 20 tiles with letters on them, and you’re trying to put them together to form different words. The longest words are four-tiles long, and these are called Quartiles. The game can be tough, but finding just one of the Quartiles is as satisfying as remembering something that was just on the tip of your tongue.

You can play Quartiles on an iPhone or iPad, but you need an Apple News subscription (which starts at $13 a month) to play.

Multiple Wordle spinoffs: Dordle, Quordle, Octordle and Sedecordle

Are you up for a challenge? If you love Wordle and want puzzle games that take more brain power, you’ll want to check out either Dordle, Quordle, Octordle or Sedecordle. Each of these word games resembles Wordle, but they add more rows, columns and words to solve. Each game requires you to simultaneously solve a different number of words at once: Dordle has you solving two words, Quordle four at once, Octordle eight at once, and Sedecordle a whopping 16. Good luck.

You can play Dordle, Quordle, Octordle or Sedecordle on any web browser.

Lewdle

«Lewdle is a game about rude words,» this game’s content advisory reads. «If you’re likely to be offended by the use of profanity, vulgarity or obscenity, it likely isn’t for you.» Translation: It’s Wordle, but with bad words. The words range from mild — like poopy — to words that would make a sailor blush. Thankfully, despite this game’s content warning, slurs are not included. Like Wordle, gray, yellow and green blocks are used in the same way and there’s only one puzzle per day. So go forth and let the bad words flow!

You can play Lewdle on any web browser. You can also download this game from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play store.

Antiwordle

Tired of seeing those grey, yellow and green blocks plastered all over your social media feed? Give Antiwordle a try. While Wordle wants you to guess a word in as few tries as possible, Antiwordle wants you to avoid the word by guessing as many times as possible. When you guess, letters will turn gray, yellow or red. Gray means the letter isn’t in the word and can’t be used again, yellow means the letter is in the word and must be included in each subsequent guess and red means the letter is in the exact position within the word and is locked in place. If you can use every letter on the keyboard without getting the word correct, you win. Honestly, I’ve found this version of Wordle to be much harder than the original.

You can play Antiwordle on any web browser.

Absurdle

Absurdle bills itself as the «adversarial version» of Wordle. While Wordle nudges you in the right direction with each guess, Absurdle is trying to avoid giving you the correct answer. According to the game’s website, «With each guess, Absurdle reveals as little information as possible, changing the secret word if need be.» Absurdle doesn’t pick a word at the beginning of the game for the player to guess. Instead, it uses the player’s guesses to narrow its list of words down in an effort to make the game go as long as possible. The final word might not even include a yellow letter from one of your earlier guesses either. You can guess as many times as you want, which is helpful, and the best score you can get is four. Have fun!

You can play Absurdle on any web browser.

For more word game fun, check out CNET’s Wordle tips, the best Wordle jokes and everything you need to know about the word game. You can also cehck out what to know about the other New York Times-owned games, Connections and Strands.

Technologies

Google Fiber Partners With Nokia. Here’s What It Could Mean for Your Home Internet

Technologies

War for Westeros, Coming in 2026, Will Let Fans Make Their Own Game of Thrones Ending

The director of the upcoming strategy game chats about how players can forge a different path from the books and show.

For a moment in time, fantasy fans were split between whether Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies or HBO’s Game of Thrones prestige TV show was the best adaptation of a classic book series. But the Oliphaunt in the room is that the last seasons of the latter plummeted so far in quality that it soured opinions on the show as a whole, especially with its divisive ending. But an upcoming GoT video game adaptation due out in 2026 will give players a chance to set the record straight and make their own new ending to the saga of noble houses, loyalty, betrayal and dragons.

Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, from Australian developer and publisher PlaySide Studios, is a real-time strategy game for PC in which players take on their faction of choice and veer away from the storyline of the books and TV show. Back in June at Summer Game Fest, I descended the stairs below the media lounge into a dimly lit interview spot (the most fantasy dungeon-adjacent spot at the event) to chat with Ryan McMahon, the game’s director.

McMahon explained PlaySide’s vision for the game alongside his own deep affection for the Song of Ice and Fire books and Game of Thrones TV show. In the latter years of the show, he’d hold watch parties with other PlaySide developers to see the latest episodes the night they aired.

PlaySide’s history of RTS games, like its own property Age of Darkness: Final Stand, and work on Warcraft 3: Reforged and Civilization 7 VR, made the strategy genre seem appropriate for its adaptation of the franchise.

«Game of Thrones really felt like a natural fit for that because it’s a show about mass conquest and fighting for territory and leading these armies, as well as the political layers within it,» McMahon said. «There’s a lot of complexity to it that really can shine in a strategy genre.»

That includes representing the warring factions in Game of Thrones as different forces in War for Westeros, each with their own distinct units and strategies. The game will have four playable factions at launch: House Stark with all its minor houses representing the North of the continent of Westeros; House Lannister representing those in the southern half; House Targaryen with the forces she’s collected in the Free Cities, along with her dragons; and finally the Night King with his army of the dead and White Walkers.

While War for Westeros primarily references the Game of Thrones world built in the TV show, PlaySide used lore from the books to fill in the gaps, including among the minor houses and the forces of the Night King, McMahon explained. PlaySide didn’t consult directly with series creator George R.R. Martin, but the studio has consulted the author’s team through rights holder Warner Bros. during development when exploring new territory, McMahon said, «especially when it comes to the White Walkers.»

And while War for Westeros focuses on strategy gameplay over character building and world lore, there are still nods to the source material.

«We definitely are trying to sprinkle as many little Easter eggs and lore mentions where we can to really bring that flavor,» McMahon said. «If you’re a book reader, there will definitely be stuff for you.»

A clash of player-kings

PlaySide is designing War for Westeros’ four factions to be balanced but distinct. In the game, cavalry, siege engines, giants and dragons are among the units unique to each faction, though McMahon declined to elaborate further about how each force will differ from the other, saying PlaySide would share additional details when it was ready to reveal more gameplay.

But even the reveal trailer unveiled during SGF hints at the mechanics and asymmetric units fielded by each faction. The accompanying developer diary showed prealpha gameplay footage that includes columns of foot soldiers arranged to march into battle — some of which were completely incinerated by a massive dragon belching flames.

Though the armies will each have their different units, mechanics, heroes and play styles, PlaySide is striving to keep them balanced against each other — and most importantly, make each side interesting to play.

«We want to make dragons feel powerful, but we want to make sure that the Lannisters, the Starks and the White Walkers all have something that feels like a powerful equivalent that can potentially contest the dragons in some way,» McMahon said.

The developer diary also touches on the political aspect of War for Westeros, though this is less like the systems-heavy diplomacy of strategy games like Civilization 7 and more like the jockeying that happens whenever multiple players are gunning for the win in a tabletop game like Risk or Settlers of Catan. Each playthrough of War for Westeros only ends when one player sits the Iron Throne, so McMahon expects them to naturally form and break alliances at strategic moments — just like in Game of Thrones.

«If I know this person over here [controlling] House Stark is pushing in on the Lannisters, and I’m playing as the Targaryens, that could be my opportunity to push in if they’re ahead,» McMahon said.

Single-player mode will have its own specific layers of political interaction, he added, but the game design’s focus is on how players pit themselves against each other. There will be a game mode where players can set custom modifiers to vary their playthrough and set their own rules. The geography has its own conditions: In the developer diary, there’s footage of an overworld map of Westeros featuring famous locations like Winterfell and King’s Landing. Players won’t be fighting within the iconic castles of the show, but they will clash against enemy armies in handcrafted maps tailored to the various biomes of the continent.

A storm of strategy swords

PlaySide has leaned on its previous strategy experience, making its own RTS, Age of Darkness, and strategy games from other IPs to ensure War for Westeros has a satisfying core gameplay loop. With all that experience, the studio can incorporate layers of complexity while also making it approachable, McMahon said. Given Game of Thrones’ popularity, the game is probably going to be a lot of players’ first RTS (or first in a very long time).

As a game in development, things can always change before War for Westeros comes out in 2026, and McMahon couldn’t say a lot about the game. But I had to ask: What’s the faction McMahon himself likes playing most right now? While his favorite character from the books is Tyrion Lannister, and he really enjoys how the Targaryen hero Daenerys functions, and the faction’s dragons, his sympathies lie with the undead Night King and his White Walkers.

«I’m naturally a very aggressive player in video games, wanting to push forward, take territory, put a lot of pressure on my opponent,» McMahon said. «The White Walkers, as they stand right now, lean heavily into that type of play.»

Much of our conversation centered around the state of the game at launch, with the implication that more could be coming later, though that all depends on how the game is received. Still, McMahon emphasized that the team has a lot of ideas.

«Actually, there’s so much you can do with the world of the Song of Ice and Fire — outside of Westeros, within Westeros — that we can tap into,» McMahon said. «But right now, our focus is on the launch itself. And then, [if] things go well there, there’s a lot we’d love to do.»

Technologies

The Best Co-op Games for Every Situation

Whether you’re hitting a couch co-op sesh or logging in with three other people, try picking up one of these co-op titles.

Cooperative play is intrinsic to gaming. Some of my earliest (and best) gaming memories are of hours-long gaming sessions with friends. There’s a reason why Hazelight Studios’ Split Fiction and It Takes Two were so well received — people love playing games with others. Bonus points if you don’t need two copies of the game, or can do so from the same couch.

Whether you’re looking for a couch co-op or logging in with others across the internet, these are the best games to jump into with your friends.

Best co-op games right now

Split Fiction
It Takes Two
Helldivers 2
Elden Ring Nightreign
Baldur’s Gate 3

Best co-op games for two players

These games are best experienced with one other person, so grab a friend and get to work. A few in this section, like Split Fiction, It Takes Two and Cuphead, only require one copy of the game, which makes it even easier to play.

Best co-op games for four players

These games are better experienced with a crew at your back. Squad up with three friends and get ready to squash alien bugs, hunt monsters or battle waves of demons.

Best single-player games with co-op

These games are primarily single-player adventures, but they do support bringing along a friend or three. Whether you’re passing the controller back and forth or dropping in and out, try these games solo or with friends.