Long story short, the bombshell announcement led to an acclaimed launch last month, with the title becoming an enormous success, selling just shy of 500,000 copies in December. Rising healthcare costs is what convinced the pair to release this paid-for, enhanced edition, which would feature modern graphics, with the support of publisher Kitfox Games. In an in-depth interview with the New York Times in 2011, Tarn Adams revealed that they refused a $300,000 licensing deal for the use of the Dwarf Fortress name for more commercial purposes.īut in March 2019, they announced that another version of Dwarf Fortress would release on Steam and Itch.io. Over the years, Tarn and Zach Adams have been happy with the donations-based, self-sustained model they put into place to support themselves and Dwarf Fortress, on PayPal and Patreon. With its text-based graphics, its (very) challenging learning curve, its procedurally generated world and its advanced simulation, Dwarf Fortress has been captivating players for almost two decades, and never technically came out of alpha. Released in public alpha in 2006, the original Dwarf Fortress reached the status of cult classic over the years, with a dedicated, hardcore community. The life's work of brothers Tarn and Zach Adams (under the name Bay 12 Games), it has been in active development since 2002.

Dwarf Fortress is an oddity across the games industry.

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