Pathos: Nethack Codex

Pathos is a must-have game for anyone who likes classic high-fantasy dungeon crawling gameplay. As its subtitle suggests, it’s fundamentally a remixed version of NetHack, a legend in the “Roguelike” genre of RPG dungeon-crawlers, though it’s become a very distinct experience from its kin. Like most of the genre, this game is skewed towards the hardcore side (though it tries to be a bit more FAIR with its difficulty than many, especially early game), and even experienced RL players can expect to die early and often until they familiarize themselves with its quirks (example: NEVER trust a mercenary you aren’t paying!). The late game is probably a little easier than mainstream Hacks, since you can eventually get every property, skill, or resistance you want on one character (most Hacks make you pick and choose), but good luck getting there! Overall, I’d describe Pathos as a Hack rebuilt from the ground up to take full advantage of GUIs and touch controls, and generally be more streamlined, intuitive, and user-friendly, while maintaining the borderline-sadistic difficulty level (albeit with less OTKs and similar cheap shots… though a few of the classics were only downgraded from “you have X turns to live” to “major issue, but can be survived if lucky or prepared”). Many mechanics have been removed or consolidated: wishing is gone, as are a number of mostly insignificant mechanics (shutting down certain shenanigans in the process), while most of the religion and alignment stuff was rolled into the karma score (which has the side effect of prayer being a more reliable panic button). The crafting system replaces most of the strategic functions of wishing, but artifacts may prove a bit more difficult to acquire (try regicide; most bosses own one). There’s more symmetry between players and foes, which can dramatically alter optimal choices for certain strategy archetypes (especially beast-masters or shapeshifters). And even better, if you get tired of trudging through ruins and caves only to get eaten by a dragon yet again, there are (as of 2024) three alternate campaigns: a huge hard-coded overworld, a shorter and more chaotic dungeon with three brutal boss fights, or a procedurally generated overworld with a bunch of mini-dungeons. Of course, none of them pull their punches either; Dhak Legacy’s early game in particular is incredibly rough, and most of the Kaloi Opus boss fights are pretty intense too. My one complaint is that it’s sometimes a bit harsh on batter

If you were playing nethack in the 80s, this is the top tier. No pay to play. Game is constantly developed and updated. Tile based, turn based, dungeon crawl. Easy to pick up, easy to put down, easy to get addicted

the update classic nethack rouge like needed. Tough, fun, challenging, a truly free ace-tier rogue like. Great work Callan!

So much customization and variety for every play-through. Excellent!

I love this game to bits, been playing for a while now, each run is always unique and fun. There’s so many character options for race and class, and then you have the chance to run into your old dead characters while playing and loot them? It’s really unique and fun! Would recommend this game highly if you’re looking for an ACTUALLY fun time waster.

I like the game it’s pretty harsh in some aspects like beams bouncing off walls and killing u but it’s a very fun game I wasn’t a fan of the graphics but it grew on me

A great game and I've been playing for 4 years.If u like roguelike,don't miss it.

I really wanted to like this game. But it’s unplayable on my 12 pro. Lag, poor optimization and camera positioning is just bad.

Good Game! Best Game!

It felt like a good game when I first started out. But after more than a hundred games things have gotten very boring with next to nothing to show for game progression. Mugged every time go down a stair, levels not creating new creatures for food if i don’t go down, teleport traps that quickly drop me six levels down the dungeon when all I want is to get back up a level or two, and workbenches that enjoy blowing up in my face at every opportunity... pretty much anything I do seems to have a negative consequence. Good points: no ads and free to play! Bad points: auto save is very slow and I have had a few crashes after marathon playing with the auto save turned off. Becomes monotonous, more time is spent dying than exploring. Unfortunately after enough deaths one just stops learning anything useful, except that the game is no longer fun to play.