Metro Sudoku: The Complete Guide to Playing Free Sudoku on Metro.co.uk

Metro Sudoku is the free online sudoku game on Metro.co.uk, the website of the UK's free Metro newspaper — a daily sudoku puzzle for commuters and casual solvers alike. It lives in Metro's puzzles section alongside the Quick Crossword, Word Wheel and Cryptic Crossword, and you can play this number puzzle straight from your browser on desktop or mobile with no payment and no subscription required.

What Is Metro Sudoku?

Metro.co.uk is the online home of Metro, the free newspaper read by commuters across the UK. Alongside its news coverage, the site runs a dedicated puzzles section where readers can play a selection of games for free — including sudoku at multiple difficulty levels.

The flagship sudoku page is titled "Easy Sudoku – free online puzzles from Metro.co.uk | Metro UK", which tells you everything you need to know: it's sudoku, it's free, and it's run by Metro UK itself (Metro.co.uk, Easy Sudoku page).

Metro's broader games offering sits on a Free Games page "powered by Arkadium", which offers puzzles such as word searches, sudoku, crosswords and a game similar to Hurdle as "quick mental breaks" — as described in Metro's own February 2025 article on puzzles and brain fog (Metro.co.uk, "Got February brain fog? These puzzles are like a New Year detox for your mind", 7 Feb 2025).

Crucially, don't confuse Metro Sudoku with unrelated apps and games that share the name. This article is about the UK Metro newspaper's free online sudoku — not third-party apps with similar names, such as a Bangladeshi commuter sudoku app or a mobile carrier's Arkadium sudoku offering.

Where to Play Metro Sudoku

You can play Metro Sudoku in Metro's puzzles section at metro.co.uk. The puzzles are free to play online — no subscription to the newspaper is needed, and no fees are involved (Metro.co.uk, Easy Sudoku page).

The section is updated daily, so there is a fresh set of puzzles to try each day. The same puzzles hub also hosts other free games, including:

• Quick Crossword — updated daily
• Cryptic Crossword
• Word Wheel — form as many words as possible from the given letters
• Hangman, Jigsaw and more
• A "Today's Games" collection featuring Mahjongg Solitaire, Bubble Shooter, Daily Crossword, Block Champ and Classic Solitaire

Two optional extras are worth knowing about:

• Puzzles Newsletter: Metro offers a puzzles newsletter that sends your favourite Metro puzzles to you when they are ready to play on the website, and lets you track your daily streak (Metro.co.uk, Easy Sudoku page).
• Metro Puzzles+: For puzzle fans who want more, Puzzles+ offers 30+ extra puzzles every weekend plus competition puzzles you can enter to win prizes (Metro.co.uk, Easy Sudoku page).

The games work on desktop and mobile browsers, so you can solve a grid at your desk or on the train — a fitting home for a newspaper that made its name with commuters. For a free daily word puzzle to pair with it, try Plusword.

Difficulty Levels

Metro Sudoku is offered at several difficulty levels so players can pick a daily sudoku puzzle that suits their skill — from a gentle easy-sudoku warm-up to a hard grid that demands real candidate tracking. The puzzles section lists Sudoku in Easy, Medium and Hard variants (Metro.co.uk, Easy Sudoku page) — the same three-level structure used across the Metro/Newsquest puzzles platforms, where sister sites list "Sudoku (Easy)", "Sudoku (Medium)" and "Sudoku (Hard)" side by side (The Oldham Times, Puzzles page).

Here's what each level means in practice:

• Easy Sudoku: Generous given numbers and straightforward logic. Perfect for beginners, quick coffee-break solves, or warming up before a harder grid.
• Medium Sudoku: Fewer givens and trickier placements. Requires basic candidate tracking and a bit more patience — the right level for regular players.
• Hard Sudoku: Sparse grids where simple scanning won't finish the job. Expect to use pencil marks and intermediate techniques to reach the solution.

If you're new to sudoku, start with Easy and work your way up. Difficulty is about how much logic a puzzle demands, not about any maths skill — sudoku is pure logic.

How to Play

Sudoku is played on a 9×9 grid, subdivided into nine 3×3 boxes. The grid starts with some digits already filled in (the "givens"), and your job is to fill every empty cell. The rules are simple:

1. Each row must contain the digits 1 to 9, with no repeats.
2. Each column must contain the digits 1 to 9, with no repeats.
3. Each of the nine 3×3 boxes must contain the digits 1 to 9, with no repeats.

That's it — no arithmetic, no guessing required. Every proper sudoku has exactly one solution, and every well-made puzzle (including Metro's) can be solved with pure logic, no matter how hard it looks.

Tips and Strategies for Metro Sudoku

Whether you're on Metro's Easy, Medium or Hard puzzle, these tactics will help you solve faster and more reliably:

• Scan rows, columns and boxes first. Look at each digit from 1 to 9 in turn and scan where it can still go in each row, column and 3×3 box. This "full scan" alone will crack most Easy puzzles.
• Hunt for singles. A "naked single" is an empty cell that can only contain one digit because every other digit is blocked by its row, column or box. Fill these in immediately — they unlock further placements.
• Use pencil marks (candidates). For harder grids, write small candidate digits in each empty cell showing which numbers could still go there. Most online sudoku, including Metro's, lets you toggle a notes mode for this. Pencil marks turn Medium and Hard puzzles from guessing games into logic problems.
• Look for hidden singles. If a digit appears as a candidate in only one cell of a row, column or box, it must go there — even if that cell still has other candidates.
• Learn naked pairs. If two cells in the same row, column or box contain exactly the same two candidates, those two digits are locked to those two cells — you can eliminate them from every other cell in that unit. This technique alone has been enough to solve some printed Metro Friday puzzles (EnjoySudoku forum discussion, "Metro Puzzles").
• Try the X-wing for Hard grids. If a digit has only two possible positions in two different rows, and those positions line up in the same two columns, you can eliminate that digit from the rest of those columns. It's the most famous intermediate technique, and a good first "advanced" skill to learn.
• Don't guess — re-scan instead. If you're stuck, look for a unit (row, column or box) with the fewest unsolved cells and focus your candidates there. A fresh pass almost always reveals the missed placement.

Metro Sudoku vs Other Free Sudoku Sites

Metro is a solid free option, but how does it compare with the other big names in free online sudoku?

Metro's advantage is convenience: if you already read the site, the sudoku sits next to your morning crossword with no extra sign-up needed. Dedicated sudoku sites give you more volume and variants, but Metro covers the core daily-solve habit nicely. For more daily puzzles, browse our daily puzzle games list.