Wordle Archive taken down at New York Times' request

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Wordle Archive was forced to pack its bags.

Wordle being played on a phone
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)

Daily word puzzler Wordle seemed to barrel into the spotlight out of nowhere. Tiny coloured squares popped up all over social media and creator Josh Wardle found himself with a tidy payday after selling the game to the New York Times. People were worried that the game would become littered with ads or paywalled, but for the most part, NYT seems to have largely left the game as-is. Unfortunately though, it now also seems to be targeting Wordle-adjacent third party sites.

The aptly named Wordle Archive has been keeping track of old Wordle puzzles, keeping them organised for free if players ever missed a day or wanted to go back and play old puzzles (thanks, NME). With Wordle reaching its 270th day on March 16, there was a wealth of guessable words for people to return to. But this week, NYT took the page down for unknown reasons.

Now, attempting to visit the website will throw up the message: "Thank you for playing the Wordle Archive, and for all your nice comments and feedback that helped make the site better. Sadly, the New York Times has requested that the Wordle Archive be taken down."

It's the first third-party site around Wordle to be taken down by the New York Times. Whether it'll start going after the various Wordle spin-offs like Heardle and Lewdle remains to be seen. Some players remain unhappy about the NYT's ownership of the game, and have gone as far as to already save the remaining library of words in the original Wordle in case the paper ever decides to paywall it.

Mollie Taylor
Mollie Taylor
Features Producer

Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.