With 800,000 copies of Dwarf Fortress sold, the newly minted millionaire creators' most high-roller purchase has been a Honda Civic

Dwarf Fortress brothers Zach and Tarn Adams
(Image credit: Annie Forsman-Adams)

Dwarf Fortress has existed as a free game for near-enough two decades, but its 2022 premium version—now with graphics—has gone from strength to strength. It turned Tarn and Zach Adams (Dwarf Fortress' original creators) into millionaires, and had sold over half a million copies as of March last year.

But that's old news, because the brothers told PCG at this year's GDC that it's now sold 800,000 copies and taken root on over a million wishlists. At this point, it seems like a million sales for one of the most profoundly free games in existence is all but assured. Do the brothers have a plan to reward themselves when they hit the milestone? Ah, well, not really.

"I mean, I didn't actually think of [hitting a million sales]," Tarn Adams told PCG, "Because you're like, when is that going to happen?"

Well, one good bet is when DF gets its imminent Adventure Mode update, which will bring the free game's popular RPG-ish roguelike mode to the premium version (in beta) on April 17.

"We're thinking of it like an update," says Tarn, "It's not Baldur's Gate 3 or whatever… It's just a gentle update. But it's also the first time we're communicating with our wishlist people ever. We have not emailed them [before] or anything. That's crazy, because there's over a million of them."

So I'd say there's a pretty good chance that DF's premium sales might brush up against a million in the wake of Adventure Mode's release. "There's probably going to be a little party," says Tarn. "Probably a trip to somewhere exotic," adds Zach.

But for now, the brothers are doing what they've always done: Working on Dwarf Fortress. 800,000 sales or no, the game is still technically in alpha, and there's much work still to be done. 

When PCG asked the pair how their newfound financial success had changed them, the answer seemed to be 'not much.' Tarn values feeling "comfortable and stable," while Zach has bought a house with his wife. But otherwise? It sounds like the most extravagant purchase by either of the newly minted millionaires was a car: "I decided to get a Honda Civic," said Zach, "because I've always wanted one."

Joshua Wolens
News Writer

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Read more
A medieval merchant in a small village
Manor Lords, the best city builder of 2024, hits 3 million sales as players continue to fill its maps with muddy medieval towns
Manor Lords promo art - knight on horseback looking at a medieval village in the distance, viewed from behind
PC Gamer's Best City Builder of 2024 has sold over 2.5 million, but here's the big news: Now it has bridges
A lineup of different sprites created for Dwarf Fortress' Adventure Mode.
With Adventure mode squared away, Dwarf Fortress is entering a 'new era of development' as its devs shift focus toward future features
Dwarf Fortress adventure mode art
Dwarf Fortress finally got its roguelike Adventure Mode on Steam, so if you'll excuse me, I've got to go fire up a fresh wombat man
The player stands in front of a gaping hole in their neatly trimmed garden lawn, with the rear of a house and decking in the background.
Designed in just a few weeks, this $5 indie game about digging a hole has journeyed to the centre of Steam's top sellers chart
A station wagon with sci-fi gadgets on it
The survival game with the best car ever has sold over a million copies in a year, and is now 40% off on Steam
Latest in Sim
A citizen of a city
A lot is going on for Cities: Skylines' 10th anniversary—from freebies to new creator packs—but there's still a big ol' elephant in the room
Staring eyes in a face covered in oil
Death Stranding 2's PS5 release date is in June, let's hope it doesn't take 8 months to hit PC this time
Cities: Skylines 2 screenshot - street level at night
Cities: Skylines 2's asset editor remains a distant dream: Colossal Order is still working on it but says it's 'proven more technically challenging than initially anticipated'
Town in Tales of Seikyu with two townsfolk sat on the stairs
Tales of Seikyu is just your regular farming simulator, apart from the fact I've got shapeshifting abilities and I'm engaged to a pretty persistent kappa
A spacecraft flying near the sun in Elite: Dangerous
Elite Dangerous just implemented an entire system colonisation mechanic, in case you really want to get off this planet
Birds in a garden in Birdfull
This cosy birdwatching idle game has me leaving behind my binoculars and enjoying the hobby from the comfort of my desktop
Latest in News
Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti graphics card
Specs for Nvidia's new RTX 5050, 5060, and 5060 Ti GPUs leak out and that 5060 might actually be half decent. If it's priced right
Pipboy holds up an open padlock.
A BIOS update could be all that's stopping you or someone else from jailbreaking your old AMD CPU
Asus's new ultrawide sucks as hard as it blows
Asus' new monitors purify 90% of airborne dust from your desktop and I've definitely seen some gnarly gaming setups that would benefit
A screenshot from Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro announcement video, showing a stylized processor against a dark background with glowing lines streaming from its edges
The AMD x Sony collab gave us FSR4 and a version will appear in PlayStation next year, too, having 'already started to implement the new neural network on PS5 Pro'
Pedro Pascal as Joel in a coat in winter looking unhappy
'Don't you know what he did?': The truth comes out in The Last of Us Season 2 trailer
Aloy
'Creepy,' 'ghastly,' 'rancid': Viewers react to leaked video of Sony's AI-powered Aloy