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Dwarf Fortress News

Dwarf Fortress Update 51.11: Quality of Ice Updates

Hey everyone!

Alexandra here with a bit of community news and patch 51.11. In the patch, we fixed some lost information when people leave and when they arrive. We also turned off the broken underground invasions until we fix them with the siege update and a bunch of ice related bugs that have been around for years. There’s also some new graphics going in for divine/artifact weapon tiles and the leather/metal caps in the portraits which you can see here:



[h2]Happy Birthday Tarn![/h2]

We wanted to wish Tarn a belated Happy Birthday, which was on April 17th. We got together at Kitfox and made a card for him with our artistic interpretation of “Toady One” in honour of the day. You also might have noticed the preview of animal people clothing in portraits! The art is now done but it’s going to take a while to get every single portrait into the game. We are pretty busy with siege-related stuff right now but you’ll see the new art in a future update.



[h2]1,000,000 Copies Sold![/h2]

And more good news: Last week we officially surpassed 1 million copies sold on Steam. This number represents countless dwarves, trials and tribulations from your generated worlds. Dwarf Fortress wouldn’t be the game it is today without the stories you bring to life in these worlds. So thank you from the entire team for supporting us throughout the years. If you haven’t already, consider sharing your story in a Steam review.



[h2]Dwarf Fortress Documentary[/h2]

Over the past three years, the video game documentarians at NoClip have been working on a Dwarf Fortress series. It covers everything from Tarn and Zach’s early days all the way to post-Adventure Mode launch on Steam. We think they did a great job of sharing such an incredible dev story. All four parts of the documentary are now available on Youtube:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Patch Notes for 51.11[/h2]

Fortress Mode
  • People that leave the map no longer lose their room ownership associations
  • Stopped immigrants from losing their religions and some other affiliations
  • Added settings to customize keyboard scroll amounts
  • Turned off underground humanoid invasions until they are fixed
  • Add grazer text to creatures in unit selectors
  • Setting somebody to a work detail now properly disables others not in the detail
  • Removed ramp spaces above non-ramp constructions if the constructions are placed on ramps


New Graphics
  • Differentiated metal caps from wood/bone/leather/shell/woven caps in portraits
  • Images for weapon items that are artifacts / special materials


General updates
  • Stopped certain interaction of ice and constructions from creating void tiles
  • Made cave-ins happen more reliably with constructions vs frozen liquids
  • Stopped frozen squares revealed under removed constructions from lingering
  • Shrubs covered with frozen water no longer lose their species when they unthaw


See you in the next patch,

- Alexandra

Dwarf Fortress hit a huge new milestone on Steam, Noclip documentary now completed

Dwarf Fortress publisher Kitfox Games recently revealed that the game has managed to hit a huge milestone on Steam, plus the final episode of the Noclip documentary is out now.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/04/dwarf-fortress-hit-a-huge-new-milestone-on-steam-noclip-documentary-now-completed/

Dwarf Fortress sells 1 million copies on Steam, so now Bay 12 Games can afford that 'little party' it planned




It's finally happened. Dwarf Fortress, the dazzlingly complex colony sim that was free for almost 20 years before becoming a massive hit on Steam, has sold 1 million copies since it tunnelled onto the platform...
Read more.

Hotfix: Patch 51.10

[h2]Patch 51.10[/h2]

  • Fixed up some issues with the pathing overflow changes.
  • Readded the only-selected-do-this / everybody-does-this toggle when the first or last dwarf is added/removed from a work detail.

Update 51.09: Forbidden Coffins now unusable

Hey Urists!

We are back from GDC with an update for Fortress and Adventure Mode. Next we'll be starting work on sieges, while also keeping a pace of regular fixes and improvements.

[h3]Tarn Time Spring 2025 Edition[/h3]

In case you missed it, we also have a seasonal update video from Tarn. He goes over the last few months of updates as well as lua, the upcoming siege and site building updates. Watch on Youtube:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Patch Notes for 51.09[/h3]

Fortress Mode
  • Stopped dwarves from using forbidden and uncompleted coffins for burial
  • Stopped greyed out "everybody does this" for mining/hunting/chopping labors from being pressable
  • Stopped Mining, Woodcutting, Hunting from being able to be assigned to the same dwarf
  • Stopped reclaimed/unretired forts with magma features from having magma overflows
  • Stopped unretired forts from being marked as capitals
  • Reordering manager work orders no longer causes display issues in workshop view sheet
  • Can now set pressure plates to include zero depth for water/magma
  • Made squad scrollbar responsive to clicks
  • Fixed custom difficulty settings for irritation in the embark screen
  • Random improvements are no longer applied instantly to fort-made crafts
  • Fixed typo on squad equipment assignment screen


Adventure Mode
  • Made adventure mode respect manual disabling of sound in init file


General Updates
  • Fixed pathing overflow errors in very large and/or twisty forts


-Alexandra