It’s time to strike the earth because Dwarf Fortress Steam Edition is out now!

This new version brings a brand new pixel art tileset, a new helpful tutorial to onboard unfamiliar players, new soundtrack and sound effects, new user interface and navigable menus, and other quality of life additions to the legendary civilization management and construction game.



The game will launch with the Fortress and Legends game modes that longtime players are familiar with. We plan to add the Adventure and Arena modes to these versions of Dwarf Fortress very soon.

You can learn more and see Dwarf Fortress’ development roadmap here.

Steam Workshop integration is also available making it easier for mod developers to create creative additions to the game. You can read our evolving mod guide here.

If you're a longtime player and want to know what's different in this version, the (incomplete) changelog might be interesting!

The brand new soundtrack for this version of *Dwarf Fortress*, with tracks even made in the Dwarvish language, composed by Dabu, Simon Swerwer and Águeda Macias is also available now for purchase separately on Steam.

The classic version of *Dwarf Fortress* will remain available for download at no cost, and will continue to be supported in the future on Bay 12’s website. This future support includes mouse functionality and other improvements seen in the Steam release.

Thank you to everyone in the Dwarf Fortress community for being so supportive and patient over the years. We hope that you’ll enjoy the game with it’s improvements and be be able to introduce your friends and family a lot easier.

This is just the beginning.

Kitfox Games + Bay 12 Games

Hello Urists!

It's Alexandra from Kitfox Games the last regular news update before launch (ahhhhhh)!

We are excited to announce that the Official Dwarf Fortress Soundtrack for the Steam Edition is out RIGHT NOW! This legendary song collection is of the highest quality featuring tracks by Dabu, Simon Swerwer and Águeda Macias (The Gamba Geek).



Youtube (includes 1 hour ambience track):
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp1Y6qRhEmZyEeE3O1xz-qb62htJbPqIF

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1IzWFdH2pfCbho7naePC9o?si=2xe8kZIsQn-k_uhCRzgXWQ

Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/dwarf-fortress-original-game-soundtrack/1656317303

Bandcamp OST:
https://dabuaudio.bandcamp.com/album/dwarf-fortress-official-steam-soundtrack

Dwarf Fortress Steam Edition uses a system of musical cards that play throughout Fortress Mode.These snippets are available separately from the OST:

Bandcamp In-Game Cards:
https://dabuaudio.bandcamp.com/album/dwarf-fortress-in-game-cards


Thank you to all the modders who contacted me to discuss their work! I've been working with Tarn to develop a modding guide that will help you get your mods onto Steam Workshop. It should let you convert existing object mods, but it doesn't have any information for tileset mods since that's a lot more information and some folks will do that best by mimicking what they find in the actual folders. Much like the Roadmap, this will be an evolving document which we be updating as we go but it will be quite a big task.

Modding guide: https://bay12games.com/dwarves/modding_guide.html

Send your Well Wishes to Bay12

With less than 5 days till launch, its never been a better time to join the Kitfox Discord aka the Official Dwarf Fortress Discord! We are an active friendly community always ready and willing to help with any dwarfy questions you might have. Don't miss out on chatting with the devs, joining community events and getting all the dwarf news right away! Also make sure to send your well wishes to Tarn and Zach ahead of launch!




That's all I have for now, but you'll be hearing from me again on Dec 6th for launch!

-Alexandra

Hello Urists!

It's Alexandra from Kitfox Games with another community update!

It's less than two weeks until launch and we are all busy and excitedly preparing for the big day. Tomorrow (November 24th at 2pm ET) will be our third and final beginner-friendly stream on the Kitfox Twitch channel. Streamer and Youtuber SalfordSal will be joining us this week to see if we can keep our fort going (despite the chaos). You can find the VODs of all the streams on our Youtube channel in this playlist.




If you've been following our Update Roadmap, you'll know that Tarn has been busy prioritizing Steam Workshop integration. We are happy to announce that indeed Steam Workshop will be available at launch. This means that you'll be able to find and install Dwarf Fortress mods with ease. If you are a mod developer please feel free to contact me at alexandra@kitfoxgames.com or on Discord at Alexandra#0007 to discuss getting your mod on Workshop!

This also means that we won't have enough time to get Classic or Arena ready for launch but they will soon follow. To be clear, this means the free classic update will be a bit late coming to Bay 12's website as well. But it will be available as soon as humanly possible. We will continue to provide regular updates on the progress of these modes.




Official Dwarf Fortress merch is coming to Fangamer! There is a pin, a metal band-style t-shirt and a pint glass with drawings of inside a fort. You can sign up here to get notified as soon as the merch becomes available. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality.

-Alexandra

Hello Urists!

It's Alexandra from Kitfox Games with a community update. In case you were hiding in a fort, last week we announced the release date for the Steam version of Dwarf Fortress!

📢 Watch the release date trailer on Youtube

We are just under a month away from launch, can you believe it? If you're reading the news and thinking, "This is great but I still have no idea how to play Dwarf Fortress" then you're in luck! I will be hosting beginner friendly streams of Dwarf Fortress Steam edition every Thursday for the month of November at 2pm ET starting tomorrow November 10th!



Join me on the Kitfox Twitch channel as I learn Dwarf Fortress and show you exactly what the new player experience looks like for the Steam version. Am I an expert? Absolutely not! I have intentionally avoided learning Classic in hopes to show you all exactly what it will be like to start from scratch! I don't know exactly what will happen, but traditional Dwarf Fortress chaos will ensue. Maybe some special guests will join me on stream too...

I'm looking forward to seeing you in chat!

-Alexandra

After years of hard work, we are thrilled to announce that the highly anticipated, and newly inviting Steam and Itch.io PC release of the fabled Dwarf Fortress will release on December 6 2022 for $29.99 USD! Watch the release date trailer on Youtube:



We are so excited to share the news, we know it was not easy waiting. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding!   

We will still want be as transparent as possible about the game's development and wanted to provide an updated roadmap. 

As we suspected back in February, we won't be able to squeeze in everything we'd have liked without the potential of a major delay. So here's a bit more information about where we are and where we're going:


We're implementing a few last creature and building graphics and fixing more bugs. We already know for sure that launch will include Legends mode.

We're not totally sure whether we'll have Arena mode or Steam Workshop integration or Classic mode at launch, but we do know all are very very close and already partially working. So those three things might end up in the launch or they might end up being patched in in the weeks after.


For the months following launch, we have more graphics we want to add. We'd like specific graphics for more plants (evergreens, real world plants, etc), for example, and we'd also love to put in images for baby animals instead of just scaling down the adult versions. Kittens and red panda cubs and giant eaglets!

We're also not able to approach Mac and Linux by ourselves, since we've never notarized a Mac build or managed Linux libraries, and will need to get help with that to do it properly. But obviously we'd love to get that whole pipeline working so people can play on non-Windows computers.

And of course we'll do whatever necessary work there is to stabilize the release post-launch.


It will take a lot of effort and tons of special menus and interface, but Adventure mode is the biggest thing on the horizon that's missing from launch.

Around the same time as Adventure mode, maybe a bit before or after, we'll probably also put in Steam Achievements. We'll complete the work on villain systems and armies and sieges we were pondering before premium DF work began.

After that, we'll probably enter a lengthier development cycle, designing and coordinating work around the next big improvements to the map system, preparing the game for the addition of procedurally generated myths and magic systems. Some of these additions will take months by themselves, or longer, but we'll see how all that is shaping up when we get there.

Thanks for your enduring patience! We're hoping for a smooth and cheerful launch, thanks to the help of everybody keeping things running: the mods, volunteers, Kitfox, Valve, and our players and supporters. Not too much longer before you too can Strike the Earth!

-Tarn & Zach + Kitfox

Dwarf Fortress has the well-earned title of being one of the most torturous games to learn. There is a lot going on, even after we changed all the ridiculous keyboard commands and replaced the Matrix-like interface with some understandable, and awesome, pixel art. It still needs something. Something to ease the need to head straight to a wiki just to understand what's going on. The answer is the tutorial of course.





To make the tutorial all it can be, we found the ultimate play tester: my wife Annie. There are a lot of base-building games out there now, enough to make Dwarf Fortress easier to get into. She doesn't play any of them. The closest she gets to DF is Overcooked 2. After one failed attempt with the original, the latest version of the tutorial allowed her to get good enough at the game to tunnel under a bog and drown her fortress.









Our aim is to make this level of play achievable by anyone. We want the world to be able to lose this game and have fun doing it.

- Zach

P.S.
A note from Kitfox, our publisher: Very soon, Alexandra will be starting a streaming video series on learning this new version of Dwarf Fortress! Follow along and get ready to stock up on knowledge at our Twitch or YouTube channels.

Hello!

We're continuing along with the art. The last bit we need to update is the buildings. Jacob has put together some amazing workshops. Their color reflects the material they are made from. Here are twelve different workshops made from three different woods:



These workshops were built in a volcano, sadly. Watch the destructive power of lava here:



- Tarn

Hello!

My brother Tarn and I recently returned from PAX West, an entire 30 minute ferry ride across the Puget Sound in Seattle. There we met with the Kitfox community manager, Alexandra, who introduced us to the crowd waiting to see the first ever live demonstration of the new Steam version of Dwarf Fortress! The link to the show can be found here (https://youtu.be/uE-FCtGdwMI), where you can listen and watch as we take a ponderous tour through the new controls and give away the Easter eggs - spoilers!



I would like to thank Alexandra and the many fans who showed up in person to visit with us. Extensive Influencer BlindIRL also came out to meet us. His many Fortresses online are an inspiration, including one that aims to span a thousand years! He and the many other streamers have kept our project afloat for almost 20 years and it soon will be accessible to all.

- Zach


Hi everyone!

It's Alexandra, just wanted to thank everyone who talked to us at PAX and everyone online who watched online. We did not have a booth this year so it might have been hard to find us but hopefully we will be back with one for next con! Now that the game is in a more showable state, we can start making more video updates and hopefully working a lot more with any Dwarf Fortress content creators so stay tuned!



-Alexandra

Hey there!

It's Alexandra from Kitfox Games with some very exciting news about the new Dwarf Fortress soundtrack. Watch the announcement video from Tarn and Zach on Youtube:



Dwarf Fortress Steam edition will have a 15 track soundtrack by Dabu and Simon Swerwer including tracks in the Dwarvish language! You might be familiar with Simon from his work on the SoundSense utility for the original Dwarf Fortress. We are so excited to be able to work with both Dabu and Simon to bring you this new soundtrack that will be available on Steam, Spotify, Bandcamp and more!




Tarn, Zach and I will be at PAX West in Seattle, Washington hosting a demo for Dwarf Fortress Steam edition. It will be taking place this Friday September 2nd at 4:00pm Pacific Time from the Horse Theatre.

This will be the first time you'll be able to see the game in action on stage! If you'll be at PAX West you won't want to miss this! If you can't make it to PAX, the panel will also be streamed live on https://www.twitch.tv/pax3 with a VOD available shortly after.

Looking forward to meeting some of you soon!

- Alexandra + Bay 12 Games

Hello!

Here's a quick update on some new artwork. There are lots of biomes you can embark on in Dwarf Fortress, and we have some new plants and terrain made by Carolyn to make the drier places come alive.



Here you can see the baby toe succulents and pebble plants in flower (and Neoriceisgood's leopard gecko people). These flowers only show up briefly once during the year.



We also have sandy deserts of various colors! This is a sure place to find material for glass making, though you'll have to work a little harder to put some fire in the glass furnace without trees for charcoal.



Now we'll take a look at some more environmental art, but we'll have to create it by giving these dwarven soldiers some friends to play with.



I've placed five trolls in the room!



Our trolls have cyan blood! There's also a touch of dwarven blood spatter here in red, but all the soldiers survived, along with some helpful citizens that jumped in with the dogs.



Here's a combat report, which you can get to by clicking on an alert over on the left side. We only have one troll corpse picture, even though the headlessness lines up in this case, ha ha.

- Tarn