Dwarf Fortress — patch notes and updates
Stored observation / content update:
Dated developer announcements recorded from Steam. Open the source for the complete update.
| Update | Date | Excerpt / source |
|---|---|---|
| Myth & Magic news + Quality of life update 🧙♂️ Dwarf Fortress Patch 53.12 | 2026-04-14 | Hey everyone, We’ve got a jam-packed update today with a big quality of life patch along with a new Tarn Time video with news about Magic (the update), Magic (the cards) and another surprise! You’ll just have to watch and find out…. Patch Notes for 53.12 General updates Added display of accepted petition building projects (guildhalls and temples). Added standing orders to automatically accept or reject citizen petitions and various residency petitions. Added standing orders allowing mining designations to globally ignore new warm/damp stone warnings. Squad disband icon is no longer a red X that looks like it closes the menu. Disbanding squads |
| Food fixes, AMA, community spotlight and more! 🍖 Dwarf Fortress Patch 53.11 | 2026-03-04 | Hey Urists, Alexandra here with with today’s patch and a bunch of community news! We've got an AMA on r/dwarffortress, some support for creating your own Dwarf Fortress gatherings and some cool stuff from the community. But first, patch 53.11 from Tarn: Patch Notes 53.11 Here's another routine patch. Notably, good food should make dwarves happier and they should seek out better food. I've been sick through February so the changes are a bit sparse, but I should be back at things now. General updates Made happy food thought levels easier to obtain (more in line with newer food values). Dwarves seek good meals more aggressively and value better |
| Aquatic portraits, Naked dwarf fix and more 🐠 Dwarf Fortress Patch 53.10 | 2026-01-12 | This is a tiny small release to fix the freeze issue and the naked dwarves. Release notes for 53.10: This patch fixes a freeze and a display error in some creature lists. We also added the final aquatic portraits. General updates - Stopped game from freezing during some item storage checks related to burrows. Graphics updates - Added 28 aquatic portraits to finish the set. - Made dwarves clothed again in certain lists. - Stopped last portrait being shown on small animal sheets if the animal has no portrait. - Made female peachick visible again. |
| Portrait Update + other fixes 🐶 Dwarf Fortress Patch 53.09 | 2026-01-07 | We heard your feedback about the portraits and updated a bunch of them that were feeling inconsistent with the tone of the game. I'm still getting a hang of making art direction decisions and wasn't as careful as I should have been. So Guido/Neoriceisgood and I talked more about the portrait art and I gave him more time to rework them. Although we always welcome feedback, it was disappointing to see disrespectful and disparaging comments directed to Guido/Neoriceisgood who was simply working within the confines of his role. And so I ask that folks be more kind to the dev team in future feedback. I also want to clarify that we do not use gener |
| Hotfix: Patch 53.08 | 2025-12-19 | Here's a little patch to clean up some issues that sprang up (broken deconstruction speeds, broken work detail scrollbar.) I've also tried to adjust the new material-based dwarf dig speeds to be faster overall - there had to be give somewhere, so legendary miners now aren't as relatively speedy (they are still twice as fast as a novice.) Native metals were also taking way too long to mine. And the lack of drinks effect was coming on a little too strong too early in mining in a noticeable way. General updates Reduced erroneously long deconstruction speeds. Fixed broken scrollbar for work detail labor list. Changed relationship between mining s |
| Dwarf Fortress Patch 53.07 🏹 What’s next for Sieges? + New animal portraits | 2025-12-18 | Hey Urists, This is our last Dwarf Fortress update for the year and we have patch 53.07, a list of the upcoming major features and a winter Tarn Time video. Release notes for 53.07: Here's another patch for the Siege Update. Dwarves will now have happy thoughts to bolster them after sieges, while invader movement has been made a bit more dynamic. There are lots of new animal portraits. Hundreds of them! And the lua has been brought in line with our full set of procedural creature graphics, so forgotten beasts in new worlds should look extra fancy now. Siege Updates Added a positive thought for everybody in the fortress when a siege is defeate |
| Siege Fixes and New Song 🎶 Dwarf Fortress Patch 53.06 | 2025-11-24 | Release notes for 53.06: Continuing to add improvements to the Siege Update. Some sources of siege freezes/lag are gone, and the invaders should be a bit smarter with more active rams. Some new graphics tweaks, and a new song, "Nabidas"! The problem with inter-party fighting in adventure mode on ambush is fixed. Siege updates Fixed slowdown associated with invaders trying to break through certain floors from below. Made builders always try to connect staircases even if the main siege path has changed. Fixed issue causing siege path to sometimes reset if it required both miners and builders. Fixed issue causing battering ram pathing spam. Adde |
| Hotfix: Patch 53.05 | 2025-11-18 | Release notes for 53.05: General updates Fixed crash with animal domestication status sorting. Fixed happiness sorting. |
| Scary Ogres, Siege Fixes + Fangamer Update 🗡 Dwarf Fortress Patch 53.04 | 2025-11-17 | Hey Urists, Here's a bigger patch for siege mode and a handful of general fixes. We've also had two hotfixes go live for immediate siege mode fixes, which you can read about here for patch 53.02 and 53.03. We've also got some news about a Fangamer sale and the highly requested restock of the pint glasses. Release notes for 53.04: Continuing to improve the Siege Update. You can now view and set the status of your siege engines from a centralized tab. Lots of improvement for invader AI, and ogres look properly scary now. There are also some general improvements to item pictures, as well as various stability fixes. Siege updates Randomized attac |
| Hotfix: Patch 53.03 | 2025-11-10 | Release notes for 53.03:Here are some more fixes for the Siege Update.Fixed crash when loading certain historical figures from the disk.Fixed an occasional crash when doing multi-stage construction.Fixed issue where battering ram operators could get stuck in ground when the ram turns.Stopped brewing jobs from searching for improper items.Stopped babies born in fort from worshipping extra deities. |
| Hotfix: Patch 53.02 | 2025-11-04 | Release notes for 53.02: Here's some cleanup for the Siege Update to fix a few issues. General updates Hospital patients and babies don't shut off the brains of people carrying them, again. Made siege engine operators leave their engines when not commanded to be there. Added practice fire mode for siege engines. Fixed a crash if world population is uncapped. Corrected minor issues with siege engine target selection and skill use. Stopped wagon goods from creating incorrect transparent pixels in wagon. Fixed typo with some plurals. |
| The Siege Update is Out Now! 🏹 | 2025-11-03 | Attention Urists! The Siege Update is available now! This update completely revamps the way enemies invade your fort, empowering them to dig, build bridges, and overcome old standby defences like water or lava. Invaders will be smarter and have new weapons, but dwarves will also have new defensive tools as well. And to celebrate, the game is currently 20% off until November 10th! Release notes for 53.01: This is the Siege Update. Invaders should cause some more trouble now. Aside from a few minor things mentioned below, you don't have to create a new fort or world for this update. We've done about half of the possible changes we were contempl |
| Siege Update Release Date 🏹 | 2025-10-16 | Hey Urists! It’s Alexandra here with exciting news about Siege update. You won’t have to wait very long because it will be releasing onto the main branch November 3rd! Watch the release date trailer showcasing some of the new features coming: What’s Coming in the Siege Update? New enemy weapons: Battering rams, trolls can now carry giant pickaxes and blocks for building New enemy behaviours: Enemy behaviour is now classified into different roles (charge, hang back, ambush) and can path around dangerous areas. Engineers can build floors and stairs. Enemies can break through fortifications and raised bridges. They can also dig underground throu |
| Siege Gameplay, Crash fixes, Mod jam and Merch ⚔ Dwarf Fortress Update 52.05 | 2025-10-01 | Hey Urists, It’s Alexandra here and we’ve got a packed update this week with patch 52.05, siege update footage, merch announcements and an exciting community event. The team is busily finishing the last few features before the siege update is ready to go live. Patch 52.05 brings a bunch of crashing and stability fixes. Release notes for 52.05 General updates Fixed crash caused by interrogating certain suspects under certain circumstances in world generation. Fixed crash in legends caused by missing works of art. Fixed potential out of bounds crash setting appearance contributions from parents in world generation. Fixed pathing issues caused b |
| Army fix ⚔ Dwarf Fortress Update 52.04 | 2025-08-28 | Hey Urists, It's Alexandra here with patch 52.04 to fix issues with armies/squads travelling. We're sorry this was such a pain to deal with in-game, it was a nasty bug. There's also some other fixes in there. The team's focus for September is continuing with the siege update. We will have more news and details to share soon. New Single Release Dabu and Simon Swerwer just released the new single, a remastered and reimagined rendition of "Danger Room" using the original recordings. The cover art is also by Dwarf Fortress pixel artist Carolyn. This track will also be making its way into the game soon. Give it a listen: Release notes for 52.04: G |
| Dyes, Lua fixes and more! Dwarf Fortress Update 52.03 | 2025-08-07 | Hey Urists, It’s Alexandra here with update 52.03 which brings new colour and options for dying and some general fixes and improvements. From Tarn: Here is a release to continue to stabilize the lua update. There are several regular fixes as well, listed below in the patch notes. Also, we have some dye improvements for you! You can now mix dyes to produce a variety of colors, and you can tint with dyes to mix the natural color of the material and the color of the dye during the dyeing process. If you make a new world, you'll also have access to some additional outdoor plant dyes. Leather can now be dyed, and there are some new stockpile contr |
| Hotfix: Patch 52.02 | 2025-07-24 | Release Notes for 52.02: Fixed hang on Linux when updating an installed mod the first time. Removed the temporary geology variables placement layer/freq/parent from lua to prevent crashes. Fixed crash when opening the mod menu after deleting the %appdata% folder. Fixed a logic issue where any duplicated raws detected will cause further types of duplicated raws to no longer print. Init files are loaded from the game folder first so that updates always apply properly. The game now checks for prefs/arena.txt and prefs/colors.txt. Added more cases of auto-toggling portable mode if something fails to save. |
| More powerful modding is here 👾 Dwarf Fortress Update 52.01 | 2025-07-21 | Hey Urists, Modders rejoice, the Lua update is now available! Putnam has been steadily making improvements and it’s been running smoothly enough that we’re ready to put it on the main branch. This is an essential update that will pave the way for more advanced systems like procedural magic. It also gives the community the chance to dig deeper into the code and make even cooler mods. Thanks to everyone who helped us on the beta branch and if you run into any issues, please report them on the bug tracker. Want to make Dwarf Fortress mods with Lua but don’t know where to start? We collaborated with DPh Kraken to make two video tutorials. The fir |
| Hotfix: Patch 51.13 | 2025-06-26 | Release notes for 51.13 General updates Fixed a timing error introduced by ammo loading that caused many actions to be performed in slow motion, leading to all of the dwarves dying over a long period as drinking could not catch up with thirst. Adventurer can wait when under attack while nocking or loading. |
| Ranged Weapon Fix and Forgotten Beasts 🏹Dwarf Fortress Update 51.12 | 2025-06-26 | Hello! Here's a new update, focusing on ranged weapons and colorful beasts. We've reworked ranged weapons and archer behavior in preparation for the siege update. Ranged weapons can now be nocked/loaded, which takes the bulk of the time, and this can be done before firing ('n' in adventure mode.) This allows archers to be a bit safer, since they won't be paralyzed for a long while after firing a shot. The firing force of bows is affected by strength and skill up to a point, whereas crossbows are slower to load but don't require skill and attributes to get their full force. Crossbows are also easier to aim. Loading speeds of all weapons can be |