Pathos is a roguelike dungeon crawler game inspired by Nethack’s classic rule set. Players can select from 13 unique classes and embark on a challenging journey deep into haunted dungeons. Descend through levels to hell itself, defeat your nemesis, and escape with valuable loot. The game captures the spirit of Nethack with modern gameplay and community engagement.
Join the Pathos community on Reddit and Discord for tips, updates, and discussions. Developed using Invention, Pathos blends classic roguelike mechanics with fresh adventure elements for a captivating gaming experience.
Pathos: Nethack Codex is praised for its deep, authentic roguelike experience on mobile with vast replayability and a free, ad-free model. However, reviewers frequently report performance and stability issues on lower-end hardware (lag, stuttering, crashes) and note the game still feels unfinished (missing sandbox/editor tools). Overall, it’s a beloved, challenging roguelike that shines for NetHack fans, but carries bugs and incomplete content on some devices.
Pros
Deep roguelike with high replayability and multiple playstyles.
Free to play with no ads and is powered by evident passion from the developers.
Authentic old-school NetHack-like roguelike feel on mobile.
Cons
Performance issues on low-end devices: lag, slow movement, and stuttering.
Stability problems: crashes/forced closes and progress not reliably saved.
Unfinished state: missing sandbox/editor features and other planned content.
Recent reviews
Mechanically deep, extremely profound and highly difficult. Set in a infinite dungeon, Pathos marks as one of the tiny list of GOOD mobile games that rely on the player skills and tactics. You will die a lot, learn how to move in the caves, hidden lairs, transform randomly into nightmarish creatures, befriend cosmic horrors and grab all the loot you can carry into your pockets. The only thing that drag it down is the UI and how dated the menu looks. This game could use some "wiki" navigation use
bySi*****
This game is really good. It's not just a port of the original Nethack, but a proper variant that adds in tilesets, audio, UI and controls that work with not only a touch screen but also keyboard/mouse and more. Its availability on multiple platforms (even open-source code and web browser playable) and design makes it convenient; adding in custom characters is simple, and there are more custom tools too. The dev has actively added much new content and bugfixes to Pathos over the years.
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Si***** 
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