Dwarf Fortress Surpasses Impressive Sales Milestone

Summary
- Dwarf Fortress has sold over a million copies on Steam since December 2022, proving its enduring popularity.
- The game, originally launched in 2006, has received constant updates and is often praised for its emergent gameplay.
- The new Adventure Mode released in 2025 added to the game’s appeal, helping ensure continued success.
Dwarf Fortress has sold over a million copies on Steam since its launch in December 2022. These are astonishing numbers for an indie game originally released as a free-to-play title almost two decades ago, and it showcases just how popular Dwarf Fortress is.
Released in its alpha version in 2006, Dwarf Fortress has been progressing constantly over the years. The game was developed by Bay 12 Games, which originally consisted of only two creators, Tarn and Zach Adams. Over time, the game has polished and improved its highly complex simulation systems. Dwarf Fortress has often been praised for its complex, emergent gameplay and is widely considered one of the best simulation games available on PC.

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Now, Kiftox Games, which published Dwarf Fortress on Steam, has confirmed that the title has sold over a million units on the platform. The premium Steam version was essentially the one that took the simulation game into the mainstream, as Dwarf Fortress finally received updated graphics and a substantially improved user interface, reaching a wider audience.
Dwarf Fortress Sells Over 1,000,000 Copies on Steam
We’ve reached an exciting milestone: Dwarf Fortress has surpassed 1,000,000 sales on Steam! Each copy brings countless dwarves, fortresses, and unique worlds to life. Thank you to everyone who’s supported us! Keep sharing your tales with us and STRIKE THE EARTH! 💪
— Kitfox Games 🦊 (@kitfoxgames.com) 2025-04-15T15:54:46.672Z
Dwarf Fortress became a hit quite quickly after its Steam release, with almost 500,000 gamers purchasing copies of the popular simulation game in its first month. This ensured that the developers gained enough money to be able to continue supporting Dwarf Fortress for the foreseeable future, even hiring two more team members to work alongside Tarn and Zach soon after the premium launch.
One of the main recent improvements received by the game was a new mode, which is likely part of the reason why Dwarf Fortress continued to sell well over two years after the original Steam release. Adventure Mode was released for Dwarf Fortress back in January 2025, and it is available for the Steam and Itch.io versions of the game. This new roguelike mode offers a different experience for players, as they can play as a single character in a procedurally generated world instead of controlling a whole group of dwarves. So, players can focus on questing and exploring around, reaching distant places on the map and trying to survive as long as possible in a highly reactive world, which gives this mode a more RPG-focused approach.
It’s likely that the success of Dwarf Fortress will allow the game to have even more interesting changes and content updates in the future. However, time will tell how Bay 12 Games will continue polishing the popular construction and management simulation game.

Dwarf Fortress

- Released
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August 8, 2006
- ESRB
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t
- Engine
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Simple DirectMedia Layer, OpenGL