
Build a fortress and try to help your dwarves survive against a deeply generated world. Keep your dwarves happy, grow their community and beware of digging too deeply. The deepest, most intricate simulation of a world that's ever been created.
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
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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.
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English
Updates
Build ids and update times come straight from Steam's PICS — the same source SteamDB reads. Patch history grows as we record new builds.
Engagement
Hours played at review time, across 612 reviews with recorded playtime.
Reviews
Themes across 609 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Reviews
My manager Dwarf slipped on his crutch while inspecting the work around a huge pit I discovered a few weeks back. His screams on the way down awakened an ancient demon army which slaughtered my fortress that was just settling down from a goblin siege. I am immediately starting another fort.
Cada vez que leo algo sobre El señor de los Anillos o similar, me acuerdo de este juego y pienso "Debería jugarlo" Luego me acuerdo de lo complejo que es y me da pereza. Ahora, tras abandonarlo varias veces de frustración, me lo estoy tomando con más calma. Aceptar que van a morir todos me permite jugar sin sentirme culpable por mi mala gestión. Y eso es liberador. Este juego no trata de ver cómo de bueno eres diseñando fortalezas. Aunque si se te da bien, mejores experiencias vivirán tus enanos. Va de ver cómo los enanos afrontan las dificultades. y van creando sus experiencias. Pero mirad tutoriales. Son importantes si quieres mantener una fortaleza por varios años.
GOAT finally on Steam
DWARFS TOGETHER STRONG! DWARFS DIG HOLE! DWARFS RUN OUT DRINK AND DIE!
the longer i play the more fun it is
I am terrible at this game
70 hours in, and my first fortress is somehow still standing. A few highlights from the chaos: 1. Cats breed like rabbits. So. Many. Cats. Drastic measures were required. 2. A yak killed two of my dwarves. I have declared unconditional war on all yak-kind. 3. Water is the true final boss of this game. Flooding will humble you fast. 4. Waterfalls, though? Gorgeous. Especially crashing over statues in a fine mist. Chef's kiss. 5. Ghosts do not share the waterfalls' vibe. Not fans. 6. Goblins showed up wanting to parley. Gave them an axe to the face instead. 7. Turns out goblins are smarter than expected and started building over my moat and defenses. Lost good dwarves to that. 8. Revenge is good. Their Fort is now a smoking crater. 9. One dwarf went stark raving mad because he couldn't locate any glass. Priorities. 10. My fortress got promoted to capital, and now I have a queen. She is a royal ♥♥♥♥♥ who demands only the finest of everything. 11. Giant cave bats. Why. Can. They. Fly. 12. A tree fell over on the surface and killed three dwarves. A tree. 13. Revenge is good, part two: I clear-cut every tree on the map. 14. Dwarves have an overwhelming need to be near family. Great, wonderful, SO GO TO THEM, THEN?! 15. Three dwarves spiraled into depression. Solution: spray mist directly in their faces. Somehow, this works. 16. A tamed elk-bird solo'd a forgotten beast. Absolute legend. He is the one. And that's barely scratching the surface. This game has an unbelievable amount to offer. The UI, to be fair, is not intuitive in the slightest. But push past that initial frustration and you find something genuinely special, a game where the stories that emerge organically make most AAA writers look like they're phoning it in. You get total freedom: do what you want, however you want. Then sit back and watch beautiful tragedies, absurd catastrophes, and everything in between unfold on their own. I'll be playing a lot more. And for the love of the Mountain, use DFHack. It will save your sanity.
One of the most detailed and creative experiences I've ever had.
[h1][b] TLDR: An incredible colony-builder with crazy depth and a vast underground world. Most modern games do what this does better, but still an addicting experience. [/b] [/h1] [h1]PROS: [/h1] ➕Workshop support ➕Music ➕World feels vast and alive ➕Building down levels into the ground feels unique [h1]NEUTRALS: [/h1] 🔹No achievements 🔹Insane depth, but also insane complexity [h1]CONS: [/h1] ➖Graphics ➖Cumbersome UI ➖Tutorial is over in 10 minutes and explains almost nothing ➖Bugs - couldn’t do things I’ve already done with no reason why [h1] [b] Content (Game world/Narrative) – [7/10] [/b] [/h1] The game world is the star of the show and something truly special. I loved how vast the world is and how you can build your fortress underground, multilevel. It not only adds in lore accuracy for dwarves, but it’s (to my knowledge) one of the big things that successors, like Rimworld, lack. There is no set narrative here. Instead, you create your own stories through your colony. [h1][b] Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) – [7/10] [/b] [/h1] The mechanics are….vast, but unrefined. You’ll find depth intertwined within the lives of your colony. There actions, everything, can be micromanaged to an insane degree. The complexity is as intriguing here as it is a negative - I can understand how first-time players like myself might feel overwhelmed at best, and lost without a wiki page at worst. The game doesn’t explain much outside of its 20-minute tutorial. It basically teaches you how to designate zones, construct a bed, and….. good luck! The difficulty, at least with only 10 hours of gameplay, felt forgiving. You won’t be raided or shown combat at the start for the same reason the narrative is played on a macro level - the world doesn’t know about your existence. Instead, the primary difficulty of the game comes from its uninviting UI and the complexity that requires a wiki to understand. [h1] [b] Graphics (Quality/Technical) – [2/10] [/b] [/h1] Probably the worst part of the game. The graphics are simply terrible. It looks graphically like a PS1 game with the UI from the same era. I can’t describe how much of a turn-off this is. I understand that the game was originally ASCII and that the Steam graphics are an “Improvement”, but it’s bad. Like I can overlook the graphics if the UI was good, but it just puts a bow on the crap package. The technical side…ehh, it’s okay. It seems like the game’s speed is bound to FPS(?) so I have to manually increase and decrease the FPS to change the speed of my dwarves. While my Steam FPS counter was showing around a 50-60 FPS, the in-game FPS counter tied to speed was in the 150’s. So this just seems like poor from a technical side. I did also notice many bugs, or at least what I thought were bugs. Things that I did in the tutorial, like placing stairs up and down a level, suddenly didn’t work anymore. And of course the game isn’t going to tell you anything, so I’m stuck googling and reading message boards to figure out my issues. Not a great time. 1440p @ 240hz | installed on SSD [h1] [b] Audio – [6/10] [/b] [/h1] Fairly good. The music seems okay and enjoyable, but there wasn’t much else with sound. I didn’t really notice any sound effects. I guess you could say….I dig it :) Needless to say, no voice acting. [h1] [b] Replay Factor (Longevity) – [7/10] [/b] [/h1] The potential here is huge to invest hundreds of hours creating a civilization of dwarves. I can see the allure/potential of having the “Just one more game” feeling while doing simple things like crafting my cavernous fortress. Still, I do wish there were any sort of modern elements, like online components. [h1] [b] Final Verdict – [7/10] [/b] [/h1] Dwarf Fortress (DF) is a historied game. This thing has been a working project since sometime in the early 2000s. I’m sad that it took me this long to play it because what it has created is absolutely incredible, and unfortunately also overshadowed by more modern offerings like Rimworld. My favorite part would have to be the worldbuilding in general. I like the depth (pun intended) involved with your colony, their wants/needs, making them happy, building a multi-level living and working area, all of these things offer great and addictive gameplay. What I don’t like is the UI and (to a lesser extent) the graphics. DF looks and feels ancient. It’s cumbersome and uninviting and does nothing to alleviate the already high complexity of the game. You’ll often find yourself googling simple things like how to delete walls or place doors, and these are the easy things to figure out. DF badly needs some sort of direction or UI shift to make it more user-friendly. Overall, I do recommend DF, with the caveat to know what you're getting into - modern experiences, like Rimworld, do most of what DF already does, but better. It can be very hard playing this when modern quality of life exists elsewhere. [h1] [b] Recommend? (Price) [Y/N] [/b] [/h1] [h1]Yes[/h1] $30 is steep for the age of the game. Even the sale price of ~$24 is a bit much, but also the replay value can justify the price. Due to the age of the game and the numerous UI issues/bugs, I would say $15 and less is a good price point. You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR
dwarf fartress
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Trends
Modeled estimate over time, reconstructed from Steam's monthly review histogram.
Engagement
DAU/MAU are modeled from peak concurrent players (≈×8 and ×28) — Steam publishes no active-user counts, so treat these as rough estimates, not reported figures.
Audience
Audience
Games most often reviewed by the same players — an audience-affinity signal from our review sample, not full ownership data.
Estimated from the language of this game's reviews — a proxy for where players are, not official Steam demographics.
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