About the Game
Prepare for the deepest, most intricate simulation of a world that has ever been created.

Not just generated geometry -- a whole simulated world. Generated rise and fall of civilizations, personalities, creatures, cultures, etc. Infinite hours of gameplay.
Now with beautiful pixel graphics!
Learn the basics with in-game tutorials
A lifetime “living” project - created/updated since 2003, with no end in sight
Generate your unique world and manage a bustling colony of dwarves, even as they probably mine towards their eventual demise.
A new endless hobby, just for you!

The legendary Dwarf Fortress is now on Steam! Build a fortress and try to help your dwarves survive, despite threats of starvation, dragons, and madness.

In this complex construction/management/roguelike simulation, every generated world brings a unique challenge, whether it’s dwarves with their own simulated personalities or aquifers. Observe what makes your civilization fall into eventual decline, and learn for next time… until something else inevitably goes wrong.
The combat model includes skills, body parts, material properties, aimed attacks, wrestling, pain, nausea, various poison effects, and much more.
It’s difficult to convey the depth of the generation. Hundreds of animals and monsters, many of which are randomly created for each world, as well as generated poetry, musical forms, instruments, and dances for your dwarves to practice and perform. A dynamic weather model tracks wind, humidity, and air masses to create fronts, clouds, storms, and blizzards. Over two hundred rock and mineral types can appear, in their proper geological environments.
Remember: Losing is fun!

This is still good old Dwarf Fortress, but with graphics support and music provided. A few bells and whistles won’t change its essence.
Classic Dwarf Fortress mod-artist Jacob "Ironhand" Bowman collaborated with artists Carolyn Jong and Neoriceisgood to create an all-new sprite pack for the game, which they continue to add to regularly.
Dwarf Fortress also has hours of music in a two-volume soundtrack by Dabu and Simon Swerwer, including tracks in the Dwarvish language!
It's never been easier to start playing! We've improved the new player experience with the addition of tutorials to guide you through building your first fort and keeping your dwarves happy.

Command your dwarves as they search for wealth in their generated mountain. Your dwarves will need a steady supply of food and beer, but they’ll also need your guidance in surviving attacks from hostile civilizations, the wilderness, or even the dead.
Craft treasures and furnitures from various materials
Establish a barony and support the increasingly demanding nobility
Read your dwarves’ thoughts to keep them happy
Build floodgates to divert water for farming, and/or prevent magma mishaps
Build structures and watch your dwarves discover and build their culture, like taverns, libraries, temples, honey, wax, pottery, animal training, bookbinding, and more.

Go anywhere! Explore any civilization, earn a reputation, and recruit followers to join you
Experience your fortress and the simulation in a new, more embodied way
Explore mythical dungeons to find magical items, artifacts, and fill your quest journal
Hints of mythology and magic as a start of future simulation enrichment to come
An additional hour of music from Dabu and Simon Swerwer, presented as a second volume of the original soundtrack

The original inspiration for RimWorld, Prison Architect, Minecraft and more.
One of the first video games acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York
Updated for over 16 years by two brothers, Tarn “Toady One” and Zach “Threetoe” Adams, and with the support of Kitfox Games since 2020.
Screenshots
18 imagesVersion Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
- This small patch fixes a crash to do with the changes to announcements from last time.
I've also tried to adjust the new material-based dwarf dig speeds to be faster overall - there had to be give somewhere, so legendary miners now aren't as relatively speedy (they are still twice as fast as a novice.) Native metals were also taking way too long to mine. And the lack of drinks effect was coming on a little too strong too early in mining in a noticeable way.
General updates
- Reduced erroneously long deconstruction speeds.
- Fixed broken scrollbar for work detail labor list.
- Changed relationship between mining speed, mining skill, and materials.
- Fixed broken mining speeds for native metals.
- Moderated lack of drink effect on work speed.
General updates
- Fixed crash with animal domestication status sorting.
- Fixed happiness sorting.
Release notes for 53.03:
Here are some more fixes for the Siege Update.
Fixed crash when loading certain historical figures from the disk.
Fixed an occasional crash when doing multi-stage construction.
Fixed issue where battering ram operators could get stuck in ground when the ram turns.
Stopped brewing jobs from searching for improper items.
Stopped babies born in fort from worshipping extra deities.
Release notes for 53.02:
Here's some cleanup for the Siege Update to fix a few issues.
General updates
- Hospital patients and babies don't shut off the brains of people carrying them, again.
- Made siege engine operators leave their engines when not commanded to be there.
- Added practice fire mode for siege engines.
- Fixed a crash if world population is uncapped.
- Corrected minor issues with siege engine target selection and skill use.
- Stopped wagon goods from creating incorrect transparent pixels in wagon.
- Fixed typo with some plurals.
- Fixed hang on Linux when updating an installed mod the first time.
- Removed the temporary geology variables placement layer/freq/parent from lua to prevent crashes.
- Fixed crash when opening the mod menu after deleting the %appdata% folder.
- Fixed a logic issue where any duplicated raws detected will cause further types of duplicated raws to no longer print.
- Init files are loaded from the game folder first so that updates always apply properly.
- The game now checks for prefs/arena.txt and prefs/colors.txt.
- Added more cases of auto-toggling portable mode if something fails to save.
General updates
- Fixed a timing error introduced by ammo loading that caused many actions to be performed in slow motion, leading to all of the dwarves dying over a long period as drinking could not catch up with thirst.
- Adventurer can wait when under attack while nocking or loading.
Patch 51.10
- Fixed up some issues with the pathing overflow changes.
- Readded the only-selected-do-this / everybody-does-this toggle when the first or last dwarf is added/removed from a work detail.
Patch 51.08
Adventure Mode
- Fixed an input issue when discovery popups appeared
- Steam workshop mods should be working again.
- Replaced two audio files causing sound issue
Notes for tomorrow's update:
- Made hero mode select hearthperson by default
- Fixed crash from visiting certain forest retreats
- Fixed some crashes related to local adventurer info not being set immediately after travel
- Fixed crash issue from demanding tribute from mythical sites
- Fixed a crash from unit sheets of certain creatures (e.g. roosters)
- Added more combat music
- Added sounds for items being put into containers
- Updates some confirm sounds
- Fixed some footstep sounds
- Fixed issue causing music to sound as if it's indoors
- Fixed some issues with ambient sound
- Added a keyboard-based look-and-interact cursor ('l')
- Stopped items like weapons and shields from starting in the same hand after character creation
- Stopped mythical sites from appearing on rivers (again)
Older Notes:
- Fixes an audio crash
- Kobs/gobs shouldn't steal mythic artifacts
- Undead shouldn't take over mythic sites near to market towns
- Mythical sites shouldn't be placed over rivers as frequently
- Added some mythical dungeons, materials, and related temple quests
- Added a few magical items
- Added initial god quest for chosen mode
- Added mythical healing substances in mythical sites
- Added messages for healing effects
- Chosen/hero get bonus reputation for the purpose of gaining followers
- Environmental display in top right (weather, light, temp, etc.)
- Quest journal outline on right side of main screen
- Vampire blood sense markers
- Memory map
- Stealth vision cones
- Goblin/kobold glowing eyes in the dark
- Added liquid/ramp arrow toggles to adv mode
- Announced when somebody pushes past you and cancels your action
- Made people stop moving when you talk to them (if they aren't fighting)
- Added shared items to wrestling interface so you can struggle for possession without using inventory screen
- Fixed audio for snow/mud footsteps
- Added buttons so ramps can be used with hatches
- Separated adv/fort volume settings
- Fixed jump tooltip
- Stopped adventurers from starting in pits if other sites are available
- Stopped rbut from quitting out of character creation
- Removed adventure mode feature discovery announcements
- Updated more classic tiles and brought back cursors
- Dye vs profession coloration toggleable in both modes
- Stopped migrant families with negative age younger siblings in young worlds
- Removed case sensitivity from unit filters
- Fixed a crash from subtabbing to certain buildings
- Made help close button act consistently when help is minimized
- Fixed bug where syndrome would target too few tissues
- Fixed issue with occasional infinite loop on population placement
- Fixed bug where many priests would move to different homes after world generation
- Fixed crash involving river audio polling
- Started adding tutorial (camera, movement, menu options, popups for many menus)
- Menu sounds during character creation and the adventure log
- Improved river and campfire audio loops
- Can click on portrait for status
- Hive no longer looks like clothing
- Made string display more compatible with fan translations
- Made threading more stable
- Fixed modding crash involving creature variations
- Audio crash fixed
- Update to bin/barrel container graphics so they show their contents in more detail
- Added tracking symbols (shift + K for now)
- Added classic glyphs (still need to work on screen layout)
- Fixed Linux crash-on-exit
- Better respected caste population ratios
- Added more information to crash logs
- Fixed command line world generation
- Fix for recent audio crash
- Palettized wieldables and wearables for dwarves/humans/elves/goblins/kobolds
- Graphical left/right hand distinction on wieldables
- Child/baby images for humans/elves/goblins/kobolds
- Visible soldiers/groups on world map in adventure mode
- Adventure mode sound indicators in unseen areas
- Ability to assume identity in adventure mode
- Can view wounds in dwarf mode arena without diagnosis
- Your adventurer can ride and push minecarts, use levers, bash down locked doors and hatches, topple statues
- You can now use wells in towns
- Adventure music plays based on context
- Full personality customization available in adventure character creation
- A few Linux audio crashes fixed
- Composing poems, music, dances, and writing things down is back in
- Wrestle button now handles wrestling
- Encumbrance is visible in inventory screen and there are a few alert levels for being over-encumbered
- Speed is visible in the movement options
- Indicators for ongoing movement, attacks, and dodges during player's turn in combat
- Throwing/shooting crash fixed
- Fixed input/display issues in kitchen menu
- Handled several issues with gifting pets
- Certain goblin torsos weren't being displayed
- Butchering and crafting is now in
- Abilities menu! Raise the dead if you learn the secrets, pet animals, spit, breathe fire and use other special powers in mods or as an arena-controlled creature/undead
- Left click to move to distant tiles
- Interaction-given syndrome tracking/timing improved
- NPCs should run and sleep again
- Added the trade/barter/demand conversation menu
- Sites without tables in their stockpile get emergency tables for their shops for now
- Printed tabletop items on tables, and stopped many other building items from printing on top of creatures
- Sound off init option should work in adventure mode now
- Adventurers are no longer unaware of their own name
- Adventurers should no longer be sprinting/walking/etc forever when retired into a fort
- Fixes that linux crash on the trainer menu again
- Makes liquids/powders not spill out of containers on unretire
- Right click menu has option to move more than one tile
- Npc sheets no longer give away their names unless you know them
- Cleaned up an intermittent crash from playing multiple adventure worlds
- Fixed crash from some old adventurers
- Stopped lockpicking menu from popping up until that's ready
- Fixed cave adaptation
- Optimization for loading speed with regards to flow events
- Restricted some actions like bookkeeping from happening outside fort mode
- Centered display of some wide-bodied creatures (some bears, anaconda, python, some animal people
- Fixed region map scrolling crash
- Crash fix related to multithreading
Current Release
Not available
System Requirements
How to Install
setup.exe
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
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