Cardio Quest vs Pathbound
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Cardio Quest
This fantasy role-playing game transforms your real-life workouts into epic battles. Track your heart rate to fight monsters, earn loot, and level up your hero. Compete with friends on leaderboards and track your fitness progress.
- Heart rate tracking for combat
- Fantasy role-playing gameplay
- Monster battles during workouts
- Earn loot and level up hero
- Friend tracking and leaderboards
- Workout tracking
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Cardio Quest is a fantasy role-playing video game that challenges players to get active and improve their health. By tracking heart rate during exercise, players do battle while they work out in real life. Watch your Hero slay monsters as you get fit and earn epic loot. Follow friends, rank on leaderboards, track your workouts, and level up as you turn your workouts into gaming marathons. Cardio Quest is currently in Open Beta. Come join the future of connected fitness!
Pathbound
This RPG uses your real-world runs to power your in-game hero. Explore a fantasy world, battle monsters, and collect loot by covering distance. It offers roguelite expeditions and a customizable camp.
- Real runs power in-game stamina
- Explore a fantasy world
- Battle monsters and collect loot
- Roguelite expeditions
- Customizable camp
- Syncs with Apple Health
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Pathbound is an RPG where your real runs power everything. Every mile you cover in the real world becomes stamina for your hero. Spend it to explore a fantasy world, battle monsters, and bring home loot. Your first week of play is free, with the whole game open. If Pathbound makes your runs better, a subscription keeps the adventure going. Pathbound is not a step counter. Record runs right in the app, or sync finished workouts from Apple Health: outdoor runs and treadmill sessions all count. HOW IT WORKS Run anywhere: record right in Pathbound, or use any app or watch that saves to Apple Health. Claim your workout in Pathbound to earn stamina. Spend stamina on expeditions: choose your route node by node, fight monsters, trigger strange events, and decide when to push deeper or retreat with your spoils. WHAT'S WAITING • A world of seven regions, from quiet forests to obsidian peaks. • Hundreds of monsters to hunt, each with its own drops. • Roguelite expeditions with treasure, campfires, merchants, and boss fights. • Loot with rarities and elemental modifiers, plus a Forge to improve your favorites. • A camp to grow: garden, cauldron, workbench. • Daily and weekly quests you clear with real distance. • Towns full of characters who need your help, with shops and services that open as you pitch in. • Leaderboards and guilds full of other runners, with a shared guild goal every week. MADE FOR EVERY RUNNER A twenty-minute jog is real progress. Consistency beats speed, and the game never punishes a rest day. Whether you are on your first couch-to-5K or training for a marathon, your effort moves your hero forward. Pathbound syncs with Apple Health (HealthKit). It reads your finished workouts to power the game. If you record a run in Pathbound, you can choose to save it to Apple Health too. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://pathbound.app/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Pathbound at 4.8 against Cardio Quest's 4.2. Pathbound also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 2 weeks) and review sentiment (74% vs 59%). Cardio Quest's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.1). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Cardio Quest sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Pathbound sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Pathbound holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 59 and 81 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 59% of Cardio Quest's written reviews are positive against 74% of Pathbound's.
Cardio Quest ships an update every 2 weeks, Pathbound every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Cardio Quest | Pathbound |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (59 ratings) | 4.8 (81 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 59.5% of reviews | 73.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 59 | 81 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.2 GB | 97 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Press Forward Games LLC | Pyreal Software Inc |
Customer experience
Cardio Quest
Pathbound
Bugs and requests
Cardio Quest
Reported bugs
18 issues- Cannot connect to Hyperate application
- Bug interface
- Needs separate app for Apple Watch data
- Sync feature has limitations (free version)
- App loses track of heart rate
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- UI is unintuitive
- Cannot figure out how to level up
- Won't connect to Garmin
- Cannot add devices via app
- Calories burned not accurate for stairs
- Duplicate gear not going into inventory
- Sync issues with heart rate
- Game needs to be resynced constantly
- Disconnects during workouts
- Doesn't sync
- Can't sync iWatch
- Doesnt work with device
- Incomplete at the moment
Requested features
12 requests- Simpler UX for new users
- More things to manage
- Less time managing/learning
- Add an idle element (e.g., mining)
- Upgrade system for duplicate gear
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- View pets during battles
- Move around a virtual world like an MMO
- Combat and social aspects
- Compatibility with cheaper smartwatches
- Option to use data from Apple Fitness
- Retroactively correct step count
- Allow app to run in background for quests
Pathbound
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Cardio Quest
- Monthly Premium Features$4.99
- Monthly Battle Pass$9.99
Pathbound
- Monthly$9.991 Month
- Annual$69.991 Year
