Nethack, a roguelike from 1987, just had its first update in 12 years

Includes a tribute to Sir Terry Pratchet

While Rogue is commonly seen as where the roguelike genre got its start, there’s another game that is arguably just as influential to its formation: Nethack. Originally released way back in 1987, Nethack helped pave the way for the modern popularity of roguelikes, roguelites, rogue-like-likes, faux-likes, and whatever else you want to call them. 

Now 28 years after release, and 12 years since its last major update, . Unfortunately, this new update doesn’t add much in the way of major gameplay changes. However, it makes a few necessary changes to allow the developers to expand the game further in the future, pav༺ing the way for bi🀅gger and hopefully more frequent updates.

The update also includes a nice tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett, who sadly passed away earlier this year and was a big fan of Nethack. His Discworld books inspired the creation of the in-game Tourist class, so the more substantial tribute full of Discworld quotes is just lovely.

It looks like we’re going to be hearing a lot more about Nethack going forward. Considering how much of a role the game played in shaping one of the most popular genres today, that’s pretty dang exciting!