“riddle”, the second track on wxst’s better luck next time., was first teased with an image on an Instagram story on January 9, 2022, showing three tracks; “riddle” being one of them.

The song was then next teased in a series of Instagram posts, with the first being on January 26, 2022, which showed a video message. It started with “Pay attention, I have something for you,” before cutting to a Morse Code message reading “PAY ATTENTION E3EREAL,” as well as a plain text message stating “ri?dle.” Fans were left speculating on what would come next until the second post followed on January 27, 2022, which began with the message:

Loading… Loading… I have a ri?dle for you, with a prize. Check ur DMs

This third message was posted to his Instagram story with more Morse Code, which read “PAY ATTENTION @E3EREAL3,” and lead to a Twitter account with a link to his website. Once there, fans then had to solve three riddles, titled “Track 5,” “Name,” and “Home,” respectively, before being brought to a page with a pre-save link for the song, as well as one-minute long chopped and screwed snippet of it. A couple hours later, midwxst also posted a hint to his Instagram story in an attempt to help fans solve the riddle quicker to gain more hype.

The song was teased once again on January 31, 2022, before eventually releasing as the second track on better luck next time.