
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 →
Prices
Each in the currency that store quoted — not converted: the gap between two rows is the publisher's pricing, not an exchange rate.
Every market we collect.
Discounts
Every price cut of more than 20% we have observed, in each market that quoted one, with this game's chart position on either side of it. These are episodes, not a model: a sale is one event, and one event cannot tell you what the next one will do.
Reviews, worldwide (the counter carries no country): 3.33/day in the week to Aug 4 → 6.29/day in the week after.
For scale, across Steam · Top Sellers · Brazil over the last 30 days: the 26 chart moves that followed a price cut of more than 20% went a median of 7 places towards #1, and the 2,402 moves with no price cut behind them went 2 away. One store, one chart, one country — it is the only place we have enough observations to say even that.
Prices outside the United States have been collected since 6 August 2026 and chart positions since 19 July 2026, so a cut older than that has no market to compare and a market that joined later has no history yet. Nothing here is converted between currencies.
About
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.
Add-ons
Each DLC is estimated with the same model as a game, then summed — a modeled figure, not reported DLC sales.
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
Reviews
Themes across 932 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
[b]Dwarf Fortress is not a game in the traditional sense, and it never communicates that clearly.[/b] A game needs understandable rules, meaningful player agency, and systems you can learn and master. DF doesn’t offer that. Its systems are opaque, inconsistent, and often behave in ways the player cannot predict or influence. You don’t play DF. It plays you and lets you watch. I really tried to love it, but the “work details” system broke my will to keep trying. It was added as a supposed quality‑of‑life improvement, yet instead of simplifying anything, it just layered new menus and toggles on top of the old system. You still can’t set clear rules that determine which dwarves do what, or understand what’s wrong when they don’t behave as expected. Even the most mundane tasks require a trip to the wiki or outside help. At the core of all this is a fundamentally flawed design philosophy. Adding more layers doesn’t streamline a system; it just buries the underlying problems deeper. Real simplification would require removing what doesn’t work and clearly surfacing the remaining rules through the UI. That never happens, and I feel much of the fan base confuses opaqueness and unnecessary complexity with depth. It is not. If you enjoy watching unpredictable stories emerge from a chaotic simulation, DF excels at that. But if you value clarity, agency, coherent rules, transparency, or the ability to set and achieve your own goals, this will feel frustrating and misleading. This is not a strategy game or a sandbox toy like most city or colony builders. It’s a simulation that hides its own rules, leaving the player guessing instead of playing. I regret purchasing this, but I’m already 60 hours in and past the refund window.
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Price dynamics, follower growth, revenue and sales trajectories with interactive tooltips
This and every other Pro feature is free until October 20, 2026. A free account is all it takes.
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English
Hours played at review time, across 937 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
I genuinely feel like the only people who will truly enjoy this are people who played this years ago. It is overpriced, outdated (despite still being updates), clunky, and suffers from poor UI and QoL issues. If you want a monumentally better game than this, I recommend Songs of Syx, with the main downside being that Dwarf Fortress lets you mine on different elevations (up/down), while Songs of Syx doesn't. [hr][/hr] This game has a horrendous UI, some of the worst QoL controls I've ever seen (You can place tons of structures in 1 click, but I couldn't find a way to cancel all of them so I had to manually click on each one and click the cancel button), the units move by tile hopping (no animation to go to next tile, just teleports), random sounds will play even while the game is paused like wolves howling and a sound that sounds like a cave-in, and plenty of more minor issues that just entirely put me off from even trying to build a fortress. I have 1800 games in my Steam library, and I am almost certain that this is the "scammiest" Colony Sim I currently own, considering its price. Its really a shame because I have literally only heard good things about this, but I'm assuming its a cult mentality or 30+ year olds who refuse to try any new games. :/
Game is literally unplayable, and it doesnt matter whether this (steam) or free version. I came back to dwarf fortress after a few years of not playing. Every version from 50.04 upwards causes either CTD or whole OS crashes. I tried every solution - installing C++/MSVC redistributables, running game in windowed/fullscreen mode, turning multithreading, administrador mode, windows DPI optimization on and off, updating drivers, but to no avail. Game crashes after at most 5-10 minutes, whether playing with or without tutorial after starting new world. Its a shame, especially considering i liked mouse support, new graphics and music a lot!
Спасибо двум старым бородатым лысакам eбaным, что добавили весёлую функцию отката прогресса в виде кнопки вылета из игры ♥♥♥♥♥, которая случайным образом появляется на твоей клавиатуре, при вводе в строку поиска создания определённого предмета. 20 лет работы над игрой, а наxyя, гайсы?? 20 лет исправления багов, пидoрacы все никак не могут баги исправить. Гномики не видят броню, расположенную в ящиках, уже год примерно, зато в недавних обновлениях добавили гномикам БОЛЕЕ АГРЕССИНВЫЙ ПОИСК ЕДЫ ВЫСОКОГО КАЧЕСТВА.
Kalemize mutant enfekte bir maymun saldırdı. Eli silah tutabilen hemen herkesi göndererek maymunu def etmeyi başardık. Lakin bu saldırıda maymun liderimizin kolunu pençelemişti. Birkaç gün sonra yüce liderimiz garip hareketler sergilemeye başladı. Bir anda derisini yırtarak bir maymuna dönüştü ve hastanede yanında yatanları, ardından taş yontan ve yemek yapan diğer cüceleri tek tek öldürdü. Ardından geri eski formuna döndü, fakat tüm kale kanla boyanmıştı ve artık her şey için çok geçti... 2200 saat rimworld oynamış birisi olarak, rimworldun ve daha doğrusu türün atası olan bu oyuna bir şans vermek istedim. Gayet güzel fakat UI biraz sorunlu. Detay çorbası, her şeyi öğrenmek imkansız diyebilirim. Savaş ve otomasyon mekaniğini kaparsanız aşırı sarıyor.
Awesome game that I’d recommend to almost anyone. However, it is extremely poorly optimized, and you can run into severe FPS issues almost immediately after embarking. This does not appear to be caused by insufficient hardware, as my CPU, GPU, and RAM usage are frequently below 50% while the game is still struggling.
As someone who's followed dwarf fortress for a long time and played the classic versions prior to Steam, It's disappointing that ASCII mode hasn't been fleshed out. There is so much personality to the ASCII version that is missing from the graphical. Example: Ocean waves/water in general, dancing & music, moods. There is a sizable number of old players IMO that would love to play but prefer using their own tilesets or the classic ASCII graphic (Including me!). The developers need to just bite the bullet and implement a proper ASCII mode with fixed UI scaling. It's just not playable at this point and there doesn't seem to be any intent to fix it!
very steep learning curve, but once you are far enough in, all of a sudden time ceases to exist. It is 1:05am, 30 minutes ago it was 8pm.
*This rather negative review of mine is showing up as "recommended" because I had my fun after all and I just couldn't be cruel enough to click "Not Recommended." People sometimes say their dishes are half-baked. Others argue, "It's not half-baked; it's meant to be served rare, with a couple of side dishes and your choice of seasoning called imagination." Fine. But the side dishes, the Legends Sauté and the Adventure Roast, are still undercooked, and enjoying them requires powerful jaws, an iron stomach, and an "I don't care about anything anymore" attitude to overlook the occasional fairly large bug in your meal. To make matters worse, your side dishes are sometimes delivered to the wrong table, or even the wrong building with hundreds of tenants, and the restaurant expects you to track them down yourself, which is a tedious task in itself, like finding a needle in a haystack. Apparently, their philosophy is that if you want to enjoy a good meal, you should work for it instead of expecting it to fly into your mouth. They do have a good point, sure. I'm not asking them to serve fast food that tastes great anytime and anywhere, but the amount of effort required to enjoy a meal at their restaurant feels like it has gone beyond "challenging" and into the realm of the borderline absurd. I understand that their goal has always been to create masterpiece dishes, using countless parameters as ingredients and simulation as the recipe. But at some point along the way, after deciding to open a place on Steam Street, they could have thought more thoroughly about what it really means to serve a meal that actually "works" for customers. They really do seem to be very selective about who they want enjoying their dishes, and after spending several hundred hours (Steam not tracking it accurately) trying to make sense of it all, I've come to accept that I simply wasn't the kind of customer they had in mind. Well, for now, I think I'll leave this fancy restaurant known for its deep, intricate cuisine and head back to the more casual RimWorld Diner. Thanks, DF. I might have blabbed on about some complaints, but I sure had a unique dining experience at your place. Take care, until my next visit.
Diggy diggy hole!!!
Active players
Estimated daily and monthly active players (DAU/MAU) modeled from peak concurrency.
Players by region
Where this game's players are, estimated from review languages.
Players also reviewed
The games this title's players most often review too — audience affinity.
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