Beating Wordle too quickly? How to switch to hard mode

By now, you should know that the Wordle online game has taken the internet by storm. Millions of people are daily trying to guess what the five-letter word is. If you don’t want it spoiled for you, here is how to avoid social media bots from ruining it.

On the surface, the game is relatively straightforward. However, you only get six tries to guess what the word of the day is. Letters are colored according to the correctness of your guess: green if correct, yellow for present but in the wrong place, and grey if not in the word.

If you have been acing it for several days in a row, it might be time to pump up the difficulty. Read on to see how you can make Wordle more challenging.

Here’s the backstory

An enticing aspect of Wordle is sharing your statistics on social media. It can earn you some serious bragging rights if your win percentage is higher than your friends. But being the best on the standard level doesn’t require too much brainpower.

For a real challenge, why not increase the difficulty? Most Wordle players might not know this, but there is a Hard Mode. Here’s how to try it:

  • Go to the official Wordle webpage
  • Click the gear next to the stats icon
  • Toggle the slider next to Hard Mode to the right to enable it

But what does Hard Mode do? Well, as the description reads, “any revealed hints must be used in subsequent guesses.” Simply put, the game forces you to use all the yellow letters that you have uncovered so far.

You can’t use different letters to build up clues slowly. It sounds easier than it is, as you’ll quickly realize. Typically, you would use the letters you have to formulate an answer. However, some like to try different vowels or consonants and then combine the clues for a last crack at the solution.

With Hard Mode, you can’t do that. Instead, you have to use the letters in yellow, and you’ll be surprised to find out just how many words use the same letters but in a different order.

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