[1][2][3] In Connections, the goal is to divide a grid of sixteen words into four groups of four such that the words in each group belong to a specific category (e.g., "dog", "cat", "fish", and "parrot" for the category "Household Pets").

[5] When a player successfully identifies a group, its category is revealed along with a color-coded difficulty level: categories are rated yellow, green, blue, or purple, with yellow being the most straightforward and purple being the most difficult.

[10][11][12] On September 24, 2024, The Athletic, in partnership with The New York Times Games, launched a sports edition of Connections in beta.

[15] Cooper said that unlike the original version, which he called a word game, the sports edition relied more on a trivia component to solve, with Cooper trying to include one category each game that is trivia based.

With the game's official launch, an optional timer for completing the puzzle was added.