Back in December 2022, I wrote in our Dwarf Fortress review that its Steam release is «a worthy revision of the legendary settlement sim.» And I stand by that.
But there was something missing: The beloved Adventure Mode, which let Dwarf Fortress Classic players trade their mountainhome management for wandering the procedural world in traditional roguelike fashion—until some kind of ogre or colossus inevitably punched your skull in.
Two years later—or almost a year after the mode became available in not-quite-complete beta form on Steam—the wait is finally over.
The fully-fledged Adventure Mode dropped today, and it's waiting for you to grab your heroic destiny by its individual teeth.
That's not a joke. Like the titular Fortress Mode, Adventure Mode possesses the same near-absurd degree of simulation. Once your adventurer leaves their starting hamlet and inevitably enters combat with some sort of goblin or hyena, you don't just have to settle for aimlessly hacking at them with whatever weapon you've got on hand.