CodyCross is the relaxed cousin of the crossword family — and we mean that as a compliment.

Every so often a phone game proves something the App Store seems determined to forget: that you can build a wildly successful product without manipulative streak-shame, intrusive ads, or a paywall that locks the actual game behind a subscription. CodyCross, the themed crossword from Brazilian developer Fanatee, has been that quiet proof for almost a decade now. The 2026 update doesn’t reinvent it. It just polishes the parts that needed it and leaves the rest gloriously, stubbornly, alone.

I’ve been playing it daily for the last 30 days, working through the new fall packs (Plant World, Behind the Curtain, Time Travel) and revisiting some old favorites. The verdict, in one sentence: this is still the best phone-first crossword on the market, and the best gateway puzzle for anyone who finds the NYT Crossword too intimidating to start.

What it actually is

CodyCross is a themed crossword. Each puzzle is a small grid — typically five rows, five to seven columns — with around 20 horizontal clues. Solve them all and the highlighted vertical column reveals a hidden “password” word tied to that puzzle’s theme. Five puzzles make a group. Twenty groups (sometimes more, depending on the pack) make a pack. There are now over 200 themed packs, ranging from the obvious (“Medieval Times,” “Paris”) to the gleefully strange (“Farm,” “Inventions,” “Amusement Park”).

The conceit is wrapped in a charming science-fiction frame: you’re helping a small alien named CodyCross — yes, the game is named after him — explore Earth’s civilizations and gather data. It’s fluff, but the kind of fluff that adds up. By the time you’ve solved your way through Ancient Egypt, you have actually learned a respectable amount about Ancient Egypt.

What’s new in 2026

The fall update brings three new packs, a redesigned password-reveal animation, and — most importantly — a substantially improved hint economy. Hints in CodyCross have always been the soft underbelly of the game; you earn them by completing puzzles, and you spend them on letter reveals when you’re stuck. In the old version it was easy to run out, easier still to feel pressured into watching a 30-second video ad to top up.

The new version doubles the rate at which you earn hints from puzzle completion and adds a small daily login bonus. The result is that I never once felt the pressure to watch an ad in 30 days of play. I also never felt the pressure to spend any money. Both of these are small miracles in a 2026 mobile game.

Three things the 2026 version does well

1. The themes feel curated, not generated. CodyCross has gotten progressively more sophisticated about its puzzle themes. The new “Behind the Curtain” pack — ostensibly about theater — includes clues that meander through stage history, lighting jargon, and Broadway gossip in a way that feels written by someone who has actually been to a play. The “Time Travel” pack is a small masterpiece of sequence design, with each group landing in a different era and the clue voice adapting accordingly.

2. The phone-first UI remains best in class. CodyCross is the only major crossword app I’ve found that genuinely understands the difference between a tablet and a phone. The grid sizes are right. The clue UI is right. The on-screen keyboard doesn’t cover the row you’re working on. These all sound trivial. They are why I’ve never been able to stick with a daily crossword on my phone before this one.

3. The progression is generous. You will never be “stuck” in CodyCross in the way you can get stuck in a hard NYT Saturday. The game is engineered, gently and deliberately, to let you progress. If you’re truly lost, hints are cheap. If hints don’t help, the design of the pack lets you skip a puzzle and come back. This is the gentleness that earns it the “relaxed cousin” label.

Three things that still annoy us

1. The translated-from-Portuguese clue voice still slips through occasionally. Fanatee is a Brazilian company, and CodyCross’ English database is huge — hundreds of thousands of clues at this point. Most of it reads naturally. But every once in a while you hit a clue with a slightly off rhythm or an unidiomatic preposition (“To make over of a building”) and the spell breaks for half a second.

2. The reward animation when you finish a pack is too long. A 12-second sequence of swooshing stars and CodyCross flying his ship to the next planet. By the time you’ve seen it twenty times, you’d trade the whole thing for a one-second “done” sound and a return to the menu.

3. The ads are gone in the paid tier, but the prompt to upgrade is constant. Even after a year of playing the free version every day, the upgrade pop-up still appears at slightly-too-frequent intervals. The game would be more elegant with a once-a-week reminder.

Who CodyCross is for (and who it isn’t)

CodyCross is, ironically, almost a perfect onboarding tool for the rest of the crossword universe. It teaches you to read a clue. It teaches you to lean on cross-letters. It teaches you that themes matter and the daily puzzle is rewarding. After three months of CodyCross, my partner — who had never solved a crossword in her life — picked up the NYT Mini and finished it in 4 minutes 40 seconds. The hand-off works.

It is not, however, a serious crossword for serious crossword people. The clues are easier than a Monday Times. The themes are friendlier than a Sunday Times. The grid sizes are smaller than a WSJ. If you’ve been solving themed puzzles for ten years, CodyCross will feel like an extended Tuesday — perfectly enjoyable, but not where you sharpen your skills.

For that, we’d steer you toward our Thursday survival guide or our cryptic-clues primer. CodyCross is the on-ramp. The Times Saturday is the destination.

The verdict

After 30 days with the 2026 update, my opinion of CodyCross has gotten warmer, not colder. This is unusual for a phone game I’ve already played for years. What’s changed is the polish: the new packs are stronger, the hint economy is fairer, and the small UI annoyances have mostly been smoothed out.

If you’re a daily-puzzle person who has somehow never tried it, install it tonight and burn through the free intro pack in 25 minutes. If you’re a long-time player who drifted away during one of the iffier 2024 updates, this is a good moment to come back. And if you’re a serious crossword obsessive who finds the NYT Saturday a soft warm-up, well — you’re not the audience. You knew that already.

CodyCross continues to do something most apps in 2026 have forgotten how to do: it lets you finish, and then it leaves you alone until tomorrow.