$18.99hackmud Trust no one, hack everything
hackmud is a retro cyberpunk RPG played entirely through a terminal. You are a digital persona in an abandoned internet full of scams, secrets and sabotage, where other players run the corporations, the markets and the wars. Learn the system, then subvert it: hack, build, con, or write your own scripts and leave a legend behind.
Is hackmud worth it?
hackmud is worth it if…
- you loved Uplink or Hacknet and wished they went on forever
- you want to learn programming and would rather do it inside a game
- you enjoy reading, deduction and puzzles more than fast reflexes
- you like worlds where other players, not quests, drive what happens
Screenshots
The 90s hacker fantasy, one command at a time
Everything in hackmud is text. You type commands at a prompt, read the responses, and piece together what the system is telling you. It sounds dry until it clicks: you are inside a 90s hacker movie, complete with scripts, scams and sabotage, and the interface is the fantasy. The soundtrack by Lena Raine (Celeste, Minecraft) and Ryan Ike (West of Loathing, Gunpoint) hums underneath, making the abandoned net feel alive and dangerous. You start in a guided offline section, trapped in a small network, learning to call functions and solve lock puzzles with no programming knowledge needed. A few hours later the wider world opens up, and it does not hold your hand from there.
A world where the players are the content
hackmud is a persistent multiplayer world, and what happens in it is made by the people in it. Player-run corporations, underground economies and shifting alliances are the actual game. Bank heists where fortunes go missing, market manipulation, bounty hunters, news networks, casinos, wars fought in the shadows: all of it happens between real personas with real stakes. Your actions leave lasting marks, from wrecking a market to solving lore puzzles that have sat unsolved for a decade. There is no quest log pointing the way. You read, you ask, you dig, and the mystery unfolds at whatever pace your curiosity can manage.
Your reputation is your character sheet
There are no levels to grind. What matters in hackmud is influence: whether the net knows you as a trustworthy system builder, a feared data thief, or an untraceable ghost. Every interaction feeds the legend, and every legend can be undone. You can master subterfuge, forge alliances, betray rivals, or spend your time as a Weaver building games, tools and cryptic puzzles that other players seek out. What you become is entirely up to you.
Playing together in a den of hackers
For all its cutthroat fiction, hackmud is a genuinely social game, and the community is part of why people stay. Players plan heists together, defend each other from attackers, host exclusive social hubs, and build things nobody asked for because they could: competing chat clients, an in-game email system, even whole interpreted languages written inside the game. If you want a multiplayer game where coordinating with other people is the point, this is it.
What should you know before starting?
Do you need to know how to code?
No. The tutorial assumes zero programming experience and teaches you the basics step by step, and you can play a lot by running scripts other players wrote. That said, the game opens up most for people who write their own JavaScript tools, and it has a track record of turning players who never coded before into people who do. Curiosity is the real prerequisite.
Can you play it solo?
The first hours are a single-player tutorial, but after that hackmud is a shared world, and much of what makes it special comes from other players: their scripts, their scams, their puzzles and their alliances. You can play quietly, scavenging NPC accounts and following quests, but treating it as purely single player misses the point.
How hard is the start?
The tutorial is thorough, but the moment you reach the multiplayer world it can feel impenetrable: hundreds of servers, scripts of unknown safety, no directions. The good news is that the community actively helps newcomers, and the marks system exists precisely to give you a foothold before you have to fend for yourself. Expect a steep first evening, then things click.
