‘Wordle’ assistant bot recommends a new best starting word

The New York Times‘ Wordle assistant bot has recommended a brand new best starting word for players.

As reported by The Verge, the NYT‘s WordleBot – which was introduced back in April as a way to help players analyse their progress and assess skill in the viral word-guessing game – has been updated to provide users with a new recommended starting word.

With WordleBot 2.0, the bot now has its own dictionary of around 4,500 words that are likely to be used by players and now lists “Slate” as the optimal starting word.

The recommended starting word was previously “Crane” on regular mode, while hard mode’s “Dealt” has been changed to “Least.” The updated bot now suggests these words for players as the best starters if playing without possible solutions to help.

However, the NYT still thinks that “Crane” is a strong starting word and players can still think about using it as a starting solution if they want, despite the new recommendations.

When the publication launched the official bot, it said: “We hope the bot’s advice will help you think about Wordle more analytically, which will help you get better at solving the puzzles in the long run.”

The NYT purchased Wordle back in February for a price “in the low seven figures.” At the time it was reported that it would “initially” remain free for new and existing players. However, the creator of Wordle, Josh Wardle, soon shared a statement after the fact, saying that “when the game moves to the NYT site, it will be free to play for everyone.”

In other news, the newest Cult Of The Lamb update rolls back the game to the 1.0.10 patch as the developer looks for a fix for the soft lock issue in the game’s settings menu.