Dwarf Fortress Comes To Steam!

Dwarf Fortress Steam Edition Fort Entrance

It’s on its way. The grand-daddy of all open-world builders is finally on its way to Steam. Some say that it was the primary inspiration for games like Minecraft, RimWorld, and Prison Architect, and that if you listen carefully, you can hear

someone shouting “No one tosses a dwarf!” if you try to click and drag one of the dwarven sprites. All we know is that it’s called Dwarf Fortress!


Dwarf Fortress
has been around in various forms for sixteen years now, and has always been free on the Bay 12 Games website. That isn’t going to change. However, the two main developers (Tarn and Zach) have decided to bring the game to Steam (and itch.io) mainly as a way of dealing with the unpredictable structure of Patreon, and also to help provide funds for rising healthcare costs within their families.

Kitfox Games (best known for Shattered PlanetMoon Hunters, and the upcoming Boyfriend Dungeon) will be helping handle the Steam release, mainly because Tarn and Zach are friends with them, and it’s a lot easier to have someone who knows the ropes of Steam approval and has an existing pipeline help deal with marketing and customer support. The big changes to the Steam version of the game are going to be an all new tileset, Steam Workshop support for new mods, graphics which are on by default, and auto-updates.

Dwarf Fortress Steam Edition Goblin Battle

I think there’s an epic goblin battle going on here. Look, just play it, okay?

No existing Dwarf Fortress mods will be required to show up on Steam. The all-new from-scratch tileset, as shown in the teaser trailer and screenshots, is being created by veteran Dwarf Fortress modders Mike “Mayday” Madej and Patrick Martin “Meph” Schroeder. The Steam/itch.io version will also include some new musical tracks composed by Dabu.

Players interested in getting Dwarf Fortress on Steam should check out the official Steam page, and the existing Dwarf Fortress website. Kitfox Games can be found on their Twitter page.

Aaron is proof that while you can take a developer out of the game industry, it's much harder to take the game industry out of a developer. When not at his day job, Aaron enjoys teaching Axis & Allies to his kids, writing sci-fi stories, playing classic space sims on Twitch, and riding around the American Midwest on his Harley.

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