Today, Bay 12 Games and Kitfox Games revealed that their hit roguelike colony and mining simulator, Dwarf Fortress, would be launching its Adventure Mode on January 23, 2025.
Adventure Mode has been a part of Dwarf Fortress’ beta since April of last year, allowing the developers to receive plenty of feedback from fans that let them fine-tune and tweak important gameplay elements. The main difference between this and Fortress Mode is that you’re able to control a single character that can explore the procedurally generated worlds and complete quests similar to that of an RPG.
You can see the official release date trailer and some important general changes for Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode for yourself down below:
- Added mythical animal populations to mythical sites
- Added more protection against unintended infighting at mythical sites, though goblins can still argue
- Compass for retrieve artifact quest
- Improved adventure shopkeeper placement and table handling
- Added handling of player that has been knocked out or unable to act for a long time
- Made reputation visible for people and groups in adv log in chosen/hero modes
- Made adventurer NPCs tend toward taverns instead of castles
- Added announcement button to menu overview
- Improved travel restrictions check
- Added highlight for travel restrictions
Alongside Adventure Mode, it was also announced that Dwarf Fortress beta 28 is out today, implementing changes to character creation, improving graphics, and many more quality-of-life changes. The full list of patch notes can be seen via the Steam post.
Dwarf Fortress was originally launched back in 2006 as a public alpha by a team of two: Tarn Adams and Zach Adams. Not long after release, it garnered a cult following for its unique approach to gameplay, with its no-win state and emphasis on management helping serve as an inspiration future titles like Minecraft and Rimworld.
Desptie being released almost 20 years ago, the developers are still hard at work trying to perfect the construction and management simulation gameplay. Dwarf Fortress is available now on Steam for $29.99.