Last updated on November 27th, 2025 at 03:53 pm
Pathos: Nethack Codex – Adventure Game Review
Pathos: Nethack Codex is a Adventure/Roleplaying game from Callan Hodgskin, first launched in 13th October 2015.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 349+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Pathos: Nethack Codex Stand Out
Pathos is a roguelike adventure game inspired by the rule set from Nethack. Choose from 13 classes and journey deep into the dungeon. Descend to hell to defeat your nemesis before escaping the dungeon with all the loot you can carry!
Email
mailto:[email protected]
Twitter
https://twitter.com/callan_hodgskin
Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathos_nethack
Discord
https://discord.gg/TRhRZhX
Made with Invention
https://gitlab.com/hodgskin-callan/Invention
This Adventure game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Pathos: Nethack Codex is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 10th January 2025
Recent improvements include:
- see the full change log in help > updates
- swipe from the left edge to save & quit
- designed for tablets & phones; landscape & portrait
- autosave
- resurrect and continue
- custom characters
- dungeon adventure & overland quest
- ride your steed into battle
- choose from absurd, classic, geoduck & sonyvanda tiles
- 200+ monsters from Slash'em
- comprehensive help
- hall of fame (top 20)
- turn-based & real-time modes
- French, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Polish, Hungarian, Japanese, Vietnamese & Italian translations
Download & Availability
Pathos: Nethack Codex is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Pathos: Nethack Codex on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
You create your character, choose pets, optionally add companions/co-player characters and set out across several different scenarios. Play the classic Nethack dungeon – enter on level one, get to the bottom, e.g. Level 40+ and then try to get back out again with all the loot – or choose from some different formats. Be as casual or as committed as you want. This game HAS THE BEST IN-GAME help of any mobile game around, with a totally comprehensive guide and index. Ive already spent several hours on a playthrough and Im HOOKED. NO ADS and NO PAY-TO-WIN, so if you like it, so give the developer some love.
Pretty competent procedurally generated RPG with the Nethack Codex base. Good variety of race/class options with a huge variety of fun magical items. Not every game has a mechanic where there's traps that grease you so you drop your sword. One of the funniest ways we've died in any RPG. Brief request to the devs, if you're reading this: please add more custom character slots. Can we overwrite the characters we have if we want to make a new one? Yes, but we don't really want to, if the option is there to avoid it.
Its a great game with enough randomness and variant arts for you to dive in to this rogue-like world for years, we love it, and we hope to see more updates, and Im happy to provide ideal for the creator! Amazing job for making this game.
When will it be available on Steam or other platforms.
Im addicted to this game and it requires more update!!! More weapons, more enemys, more maps and our more.
Pathos is a must-have game for anyone who likes classic high-fantasy dungeon crawling gameplay. As its subtitle suggests, its fundamentally a remixed version of NetHack, a legend in the Roguelike genre of RPG dungeon-crawlers, though its 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 arent 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, Id 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). Theres 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 Legacys early game in particular is incredibly rough, and most of the Kaloi Opus boss fights are pretty intense too. Our one complaint is that its sometimes a bit harsh on battery life. Keep your charger handy.
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.
We love this game to bits, been playing for a while now, each run is always unique and fun. Theres 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? Its really unique and fun! Would recommend this game highly if youre looking for an ACTUALLY fun time waster.
We like the game its pretty harsh in some aspects like beams bouncing off walls and killing u but its a very fun game we wasnt a fan of the graphics but it grew on us.
A great game and we've been playing for 4 years.If u like roguelike,don't miss it.
Amazing Nethack variant for mobile with hours and hours worth of replay value. Great time killer and just fun game overall. We find ourselves getting really immersed in the game and not being able to stop. Our only question to the devs is if you guys plan to keep updating it, because this has been a favorite of ours for a long time.
This game has unlimited replay value, and its clearly an effort of love for the game. Its super hard to master and you will die often, but thats what rogue likes are all about.
This game is a simplified nethack on the iPhone. Simplified controls for touch play is perfect and does not take away from the complexity of this game.
Only roguelike on the App Store that is true to the genre without any weird gimmicks or paywalls, just a genuinely good game.
It felt like a good game when we 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 we dont go down, teleport traps that quickly drop us six levels down the dungeon when all we want is to get back up a level or two, and workbenches that enjoy blowing up in our face at every opportunity… Pretty much anything we do seems to have a negative consequence. Good points: no ads and free to play! Bad points: auto save is very slow and we 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.
We really wanted to like this game. But its unplayable on our 12 pro. Lag, poor optimization and camera positioning is just bad.
This game is exceptional. The care that the developer and contributors put into the quality and polish on this remake is truly outstanding. We started playing Nethack about 28 years ago, and we've played a dozen other mobile roguelikes (and we mean actual Rogue-likes) of varying quality and effort, but Pathos stands clear above them all. The user interface is thoughtful and modern, the mechanics are spot-on, and the game is constantly being updated… All out of a love for the original game and its players. This is clearly a passion project, and it shows. Bravo.
Not sure if its just us but whenever we tap an item/food the UI to use it doesnt show up. Even tho it does that the game is still fun, hoping for a patch. This is us editing and fun fact just restart your device and it fixes itself XD.
Hey we love this game, but something is wrong recently with iPhone controls. We cant equip things, interact with objects properly, open chests, etc. We used to be able to some months ago. Any idea what is going on? Update: Im glad we left our review 5 star. Just closing and opening the app fixes the issue, and the issue is gone the whole session of playing. Thanks.
Fantastic game but does have its down sides the way the camera follows the character can be alittle frustrating when it cant keep it and we cant see half our screen plus our sound is completely broken Ive relaunch muted unmuted and it doesnt change the fact there is no sound coming from our phone.
We love this game, however it is insanely slow ever since we updated to iOS 15 last week. When we pull up inventory it gets ultra laggy. Very sad.
Really great game! We love the character creation aspect to it but unfortunately it runs at like 3 frames per second on the Ipad so we wrote this review to hopefully get it fixed. Really love the game though.
Great class/race/special selection. Rather difficult. Various graphic modes. Many different types of enemies(most of which are playable via Polymorphing, with the exclusion of Unique entities.), Many types of gear(you may get the same item twice and one version can be far superior), also, you can choose specials which are often good at first but also have disadvantages Though we have a suggestion: add the option to play as non-unique entities as a race and possibly class if they have a kit.
This game seems incredibly fun and well made but we have been having some problems getting started. If you could make a tutorial or a video of some sort we would really appreciate it. Thank you.
Seems like some main functions have been taken out of the game. We havent played in a few months, started up a new game. Tried to tap on our horse to mount, and no options came up. Long pressed our character and no options came up. Whats going on.
If you like dungeon crawlers/roguelikes, youve hit the jackpot. Pathos is a Nethack clone, but one that refines the original in all the best ways to bring it up to date. Other iOS nethack ports treat the keyboard-input interface like its some kind of sacred and essential part of the experience, awkwardly forcing you to bind keys to touch buttons, rather than just scrapping and replacing it like the dated and obsolete remnant if the past that it is. Here we have a full touch interface. You want to move somewhere? Touch there. Want to pick up a thing? Touch it. Want to check it for traps, open it, kick it, lick it, meet its parents? Just touch it. No q for Quaff, w for wield, period for inspect, comma for take its all touch menus now, like it should have been since 1990.
As of 30 March 2021: tldr: Be Nethack or dont, but address the GUIs widgets and add an in-game accessible manual for the game mechanics since they differ enough from Nethacks to make it unwise to assume similarity. Only leaving this review after we ragequit this game (after our first 5 sessions) because the only 2 problems this game has are EASILY corrected, and we really hope that happens because we would be playing this, and only this, if that happens. What seems like a minor problem, is in fact, a major one for a 20yr+ Nethack player like we are – namely, that the Nethack Codex thing implies a familiarity for the Nethack player beyond just object labels – and yet the mechanics are massively different without ANY way to even interpret results of actions (let alone the info to judge whether or not to take the action in the first place). That, and having GUI widgets be fixed in size and position is just rage-inducing when one or more of the widgets needs to be open constantly but cant be left open without impeding gameplay. Having to open and close the tile widget so often is the same level of irritating as games with player inventory governed by ridiculously few bag slots. These widgets should be customizable in position, size, and opaqueness – and it would be a nice bonus if we could reorder them in the widget bar. The GUI widget issue plus the lack of a tutorial, in-game manual, or context for what little info there is, was just too much annoyance in too short a time for us to keep playing.
By far our favorite game on iOS right now! No annoying ads and removed a lot of the tedious bits of Nethack, which make it play much smoother on a touchscreen. We do recommend playing on an iPad if possible, as it makes navigating various menus so much easier. Polymorphed our pet into a dragon and rode him around last game until we underestimated the Elf King and ultimately got eaten by a Vampire Lord.
Absolutely love the game because its so hard. Most games are to easy and offer no challenge. If you want to get far in the game you will have to grind to lvl your magic and skills. You will also die ALOT until you get to learn the game and enemies. So prepare yourself.
This game is one of the few that hasnt been abandoned by its developer. We get consistent updates and new content. Its a lot of fun and anyone who enjoys classic rogue-likes would love this game.
Ive been playing Nethack for 25 years and have played Pathos quite a bit. Recently started playing Pathos again and it seems to us that changes have been made to the game that have made it too difficult and frustrating for us. Or maybe we are just extremely unlucky. We cant seem to find or do anything that is beneficial for our character. Everything we try to do has negative consequences. Its too bad because we really enjoyed playing Pathos before but we have played probably 50 games and havent gotten past level 5. Also, part of the fun for us in the past was trying to do different things but now every time we try something it has a negative effect so we dont even waste our time. We just kill monsters and try to keep from starving… Boring. Maybe Ill try it again in another year.
Ive been playing this one for months, but only now reviewing. Ill add more specific opinions later, but this was exactly what we were looking for and didnt know how to find it.
Pathos is a must-have game for anyone who likes classic high-fantasy dungeon crawling gameplay. As its subtitle suggests, its fundamentally a remixed version of NetHack, a legend in the Roguelike genre of RPG dungeon-crawlers, though its become a very distinct experience from its kin. Like most of the genre, this game is skewed towards the hardcore side, and even experienced RL players can expect to die early and often until they familiarize themselves with its quirks. Overall, Id 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 (minus most of the OHK or delayed OHK cheap shots). 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 (hint: try regicide). Theres 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, it also has an alternate mode to explore a huge hard-coded overworld map. Be prepared to die a lot on that one too, of course, starting with the Tuckers Kobold gauntlet right outside your campsite, the mimic infested mall, the trolls across the river…. (And forget about your pet, except possibly a mounted characters pony. Unless you seriously micromanage, they have about a 50/50 chance of not even reaching the mall.) our one complaint is that its sometimes a bit harsh on battery life. Keep your charger handy.
Cant say enough good things about this game. All of the wonderful weirdness of Nethack is here, with great additions and quality of life changes and lots of features that make it work on a touchscreen, which is a very tricky thing to finesse indeed.
We love this game. Im always on the look out for a good RPG thats similar to tabletops and this is it. Ive been playing for a few weeks and Im still sucked into the game. It does have a steep learning curve but as long as you are prepared to die a lot in the beginning it becomes easier. We do have a couple suggestions about pets/companions… 1.There should be experience sharing for party members and pets. Right now experience is only gained by the specific character/pet that kills an enemy. Im doing the most killing so our pets and mounts are quickly outclassed by monsters and end up dying very quickly. The way it works now it also makes some character almost useless. Necromancers and Druids for example are supposed to summon minions to do the actual fighting but then they dont get any experience if their minions do the killing. 2. We would also like to see a way to improve pets more and resurrect them easier? Maybe a higher riding skill could let them share your resistances? Maybe pets could give you different talents to make them more useful? For example, having a dog companion could give your character searching or see invisible. We realize the game was not designed as a party system but improving pets and mounts would make certain classes and races more playable. As it is, pets/mounts die at almost every boss level and dont survive beyond 5 lvls making them almost worthless.
Ok started playing in 2018 love it so much the best part is all the classes and races our favs are demon and angel could you please tell us how long it takes a dragon egg to hatch.
Fell down a trap hole with no way out and stairs down went nowhere else. Then next run we couldnt eat food rations. Honestly this seems like a good game but we would like to make it past 3 floors And its not like we no-life this game we only played 4 runs and 2 times major bugs ruined our game. Game needs a bit more polish, probably a few more updates. Although everything we said above we would still recommend if this game continues to get support.
No time to explain but you WILL NOT find anything better. Its fast (or slow, depending on how you play), its brutal, and its procedurally generated goodness. 10/5 stars Ive put nearly a hundred hours into it.
Fantastic job. The user interface clearly shows how much you have played and polished this game. We have been looking for a good nethack like game for iPad for literally years. Finding this was like finding water in the desert. Thank you! Im easily 50 hours in already and loving it. We also really enjoy the increased approachability youve added.
Honestly we love this game. We hope that you realize there is a fan base for this game and that we love to see updates. Each time we play it, its like a new puzzle to solve and we just love it so much. We hope to see new things come to life in this great game.
Without the ability to delete characters, or reuse names if one dies. This is of little interest to us. The devs could put a time on a slot previously belonging to a now deleted character if they feel the need to be that prickly, but as it stand, in a game like this… Why use this limitation.
We think first and foremost to new players the most important thing about this game is to be patient. It can be very frustrating at first and downright confusing. The game doesnt hold your hand and it can be very punishing if you dont know what to do, but that is a large part of its charm to us. Figuring out a proper way to play the game is rewarding. We love seeing our spell book fill up, or our skillset and stats growing as we progress further we to the dungeons. Plus there is a surprising amount of depth to the game. There are many rules or mechanics to remember but we dont find it tedious. Overall we think Pathos does an excellent job at making you feel satisfied with the time youve put into the game. For new players we would recommend checking out the subreddit for the game. We know a common complaint is that the in game help menu can be hard to understand, and that some might say you shouldnt need outside help. However, to us we find it more fun to ask questions and browse other posts. The community and the developer are active and ready to give hints and advice. We feel like we always learn something new and it we think the community aspect makes the game feel more lively. We could say more, but the main point we want to get across is be patient, ask questions, and keep playing. It is well worth the effort.
This is a wonderful NetHack type game on iOS! The game is outstanding…thank you thank you thank you.
The interface is so simple, you wonder why youve never seen it before. Ive played through the game at least 20 times and always trying something new. We can play while watching TV or on our breaks at work. Ive played it for half the night and also for literally 45 seconds. We always come back to Pathos.
All what it needs is constant updates please.
Its seriously so good, lots of great nethack stuff plus some cool original ideas. Ive spent many hours on this game and will probably spend hours more.
Ive been playing nethack in some form or another since we were a kid, but this version eliminates many of the tedious aspects of the game and packages it up as a intuitive streamlined version for mobile. It is one of those things that you didnt realize how bad you wanted this exact thing until you have it in your hands.
This game is amazing. Its very approachable, and has an easy to use ui. A ton of depth, class/race combinations, and rng makes this game super easy to sink a ton of time into on any platform (you may have to pay attention if you wanna go deep). If you enjoy playing rogue-likes definitely give this one a shot. Its free.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 7.3
- Size: 138.69 MB
- iOS: 11.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR, DE, HE, HU, IT, JA, KO, PL, PT, RU, ZH, ES, TH, ZH, TR, UK
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: [Callan Hodgskin]()
Last updated: 10th January 2025 | Genre: Adventure, Roleplaying | Developer: Callan Hodgskin