NetHack 5.0.0

Source: Hacker News

Release Announcement

The NetHack DevTeam is announcing the release of NetHack 5.0.0 on May 2, 2026.

NetHack 5.0 is an enhancement to the dungeon‑exploration game NetHack, a distant descendant of Rogue and Hack, and a direct descendant of NetHack 3.6.

NetHack 5.0.0 is a .0 version, so some bugs may be encountered. Constructive suggestions, GitHub pull requests, and bug reports are welcome and encouraged.

Key Improvements

• Source code is now compliant with the C99 standard.
• Architectural improvements to the game and its build process.

Cross‑Compiling Support

Barriers to building NetHack on one platform/OS for later execution on another have been removed. This capability is known as cross‑compiling. See the file Cross-compiling in the top‑level folder for more information.

Lua‑Based Compilers

The build‑time “yacc and lex”‑based level compiler, dungeon compiler, and quest‑text processing (previously handled by NetHack’s makedefs utility) have been replaced with Lua text alternatives that are loaded and processed by the game during play.

Fixes and Changes

A list of over 3,100 fixes and changes is available in the source tree at doc/fixes5-0-0.txt. The file was written for the development team’s internal use and is provided “as is”. Some entries may contain spoilers, especially in the “new features” section.

Compatibility

Existing saved games and bones files will not work with NetHack 5.0.0.

Verifying Downloads

Checksums (SHA‑256) of binaries downloaded from nethack.org can be verified on Windows platforms using:

certUtil -hashfile nethack-500-win-x64.zip SHA256

or

certUtil -hashfile nethack-500-win-arm64.zip SHA256

Useful Commands

To confirm the locations of various files that NetHack may use, run:

nethack --showpaths

Feedback

As with all releases, we appreciate your feedback. Please submit any bugs using the problem report form and check the “known bugs” list before logging a new issue—someone else may have already reported it.

Happy NetHacking!