I actually have long dreamed of a greater world: one where I’d unlock my phone to seek out a notification that my grandma has challenged me to a game of Scrabble. I’d play my word. She would play hers. We’d play forwards and backwards over a couple of days, and your entire time, neither of us would need to see any overwhelming technicolor ads with deceptive skip buttons that blast us with much more pop-ups. It’s a straightforward life.
You’ll think such an app already existed. You could be incorrect. Until now. (Zynga, I won’t ever forgive you for what you’ve done to Words With Friends).
Eventually, The Latest York Times Games has brought my humble dreams to life with a Scrabble-like multiplayer app called Crossplay, available now on iOS and Android.
Crossplay will not be a Scrabble clone exactly, but unless you’re the sort of Scrabble lover that goes to tournaments or memorizes the Scrabble dictionary, it’s mainly Scrabble. The sport board and tile distribution are a bit different, and there’s a slight rule change around what happens once the bag runs out of tiles. Those differences can have been done for legal reasons. As an off-the-cuff player, I barely noticed them.
Like other social word games, Crossplay permits you to invite friends to play, or you may get matched with strangers near your skill level. For Latest York Times Games subscribers, the sport can have no ads in any respect, but free users might see some banner ads. Still, it beats paying $10 a month to remove ads from Words With Friends, yet still need to cope with a cartoon-like interface, amongst other features that annoy me.
While Scrabble purists may quibble concerning the slight rule changes, they could find enjoyment of a feature of the sport called CrossBot. Just like the WordleBot and ConnectionsBot, CrossBot analyzes each move of your game to find out where you will have made a greater move. It ranks your gameplay by way of each luck and strategy, then highlights each your best moves, and people where you faltered.
The Latest York Times has been publishing its Crossword puzzle since 1942, but its digital gaming business kicked into high gear in 2022 when it bought Wordle after it went viral. In line with data from ValueAct Capital, a hedge fund that invests within the Times, users spent more time within the Games app than the actual News app by the tip of 2023.
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I’m not the just one who was craving a multi-player word game without egregious distractions — Jonathan Knight, head of Games at The Latest York Times, thinks that is what makes its Games vertical so successful.
“Games like Spelling Bee and Wordle found a method to take the magical ‘solve a puzzle’ feeling and create a really mainstream, quick, snackable version of that that works well in your phone, that’s very sharable with family and friends, and that I feel could be very respectful of your time,” Knight told TechCrunch. “You may just resolve to do it within the morning, or at night before you go to bed, after which go to bed.”
In line with The Latest York Times, Wordle was played 4.2 billion times in 2025. Connections was played 1.6 billion times.
When TechCrunch spoke to Wordle creator Josh Wardle shortly before he sold his game, he shared a mindset much like Knight’s. He told us, “people have an appetite for things that transparently don’t want anything from you.”
Sure, a publicly traded company like The Latest York Times isn’t as pure of heart as an indie developer making a game for his partner, however the spirit of the sport has endured. At the same time as Wordle’s viral moment passed, people kept up with their each day habit, in keeping with Knight.
“The share rate on Wordle — the share of users that share every single day — has not modified since we acquired the sport,” he said. “It’s a extremely cool method to bring people together. You recognize, we see the Pope talking about his Wordle, sharing together with his brother.”
Now, Knight’s team wants to increase the quiet simplicity of its games philosophy to Crossplay.
“We wanted people to have the ability to simply get in and play the sport with family and friends, after which get on along with your day,” he said.