Games Like Dwarf Fortress

A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more.

Why similar: Colony Sim 27.2%, Base Building 15.8%, City Builder 10.8%, Survival 9.5%, Sandbox 8.5%

Why You'll Like It: It is the clearest alternative for emergent colonist stories, mood and injury simulation, base design, and disaster-driven sandbox management.

Songs of Syx is a fantasy city-builder with vast battles simulating thousands of citizens and soldiers. Start off as a small village and build, scheme, and fight your way towards a mighty empire. The mechanics are deep and true to life, where tiny events can spiral into the collapse of kingdoms.

Why similar: Colony Sim 23.6%, City Builder 19.3%, Base Building 12.7%, Building 10.4%, Sandbox 10.2%

Why You'll Like It: Its huge populations, logistics-heavy city building, and simulated living world echo Dwarf Fortress's scale and systemic depth better than almost anything else on Steam.

Settle an untamed wilderness with the might of Dwarven engineering and thoughtful planning! Design and build your colony towards fame and fortune in a deeply-simulated fantasy world. Chill out in peaceful mode with a bustling settlement, or fight for survival against monsters and invasions!

Why similar: Dwarves 31.7% ★, Colony Sim 16.3%, City Builder 10%, Base Building 8.6%, Management 7%

Why You'll Like It: It modernizes the classic dwarf-colony formula with underground excavation, labor management, and fortress growth built very much in Dwarf Fortress's image.

Forge a new kingdom in a land recovering from the Fracture. Which of the surviving races will you lead to rebuild, explore, and conquer the unknown? The dwindling yet immortal Ancients? The bold and resourceful Humans? The life stealing Ardyn? Or the secretive Gwdir who shape living groves?

Why similar: Colony Sim 22.2%, City Builder 14%, Base Building 13.1%, Management 9.7%, Sandbox 9.3%

Why You'll Like It: It is explicitly inspired by Dwarf Fortress, featuring procedural worlds, multiple races, deep colony simulation, and plenty of emergent chaos.

Build and manage your own castle settlement in a land reclaimed by wilderness. With detailed management, survival strategy, and a moddable sandbox world, Going Medieval challenges you to build the mightiest colony this side of the apocalypse.

Why similar: Colony Sim 22.4%, City Builder 17.2%, Base Building 13.5%, Management 10.1%, Sandbox 10.1%

Why You'll Like It: The vertical building, layered construction, colonist scheduling, and survival management capture a lot of the fortress-design appeal in 3D.

Gnomoria is a sandbox village management game where you help lead a small group of gnomes, who have set out on their own, to thrive into a bustling kingdom! Anything you see can be broken down and rebuilt elsewhere.

Why similar: Colony Sim 29.4%, City Builder 21.6%, Sandbox 13.3%, Building 9.7%, Survival 7.8%

Why You'll Like It: This is one of the most direct Dwarf Fortress descendants, with dwarves, digging, workshops, stockpiles, and sandbox fortress management.

KeeperRL is a retro dungeon simulator with roguelike and RPG elements. Take the role of an evil keeper and build a formidable dungeon. Recruit sinister minions, equip and train them to explore the world and fight the forces of good.

Why similar: Dwarves 36.8% ★, Base Building 12.4%, Building 9.7%, Sandbox 9%, Management 8.9%

Why You'll Like It: It mixes roguelike and fortress sim ideas with mining, room planning, crafting, and defending an underground stronghold full of minions.

Pioneer a living world full of warmth, heroism, and mystery. Help a small group of settlers build a home for themselves in a forgotten land. Establish a food supply, build shelter, defend your people, monitor their moods, and find a way to grow and expand, facing challenges at every step.

Why similar: Colony Sim 32%, City Builder 24.3%, Building 11.9%, Sandbox 10.9%, Survival 8.6%

Why You'll Like It: Its voxel town building, job specialization, crafting chains, and cozy-but-chaotic colony flow make it a lighter but very recognizable cousin.

Stonedeep is an 2.5D underground city builder. Dwarfs gather resources, build and fend off monsters. Colonies can specialize in culture, production, military and trading. At start, dwarfs need drinks and rest. With a higher civilization level, they will increase their needs.

Why similar: Colony Sim 23.2%, Base Building 15.2%, City Builder 11.3%, Building 10.6%, Survival 9.2%

Why You'll Like It: This is a subterranean colony sim centered on dwarven digging, workshop optimization, and keeping a dangerous underground settlement functioning.

Clanfolk is a colony sim set in the Scottish Highlands. Harness your environment to survive - fish, gather, hunt, and farm as you prepare for the winter. Build an inn, trade with other clans, have children and marry them off - live life and prosper across the generations.

Why similar: Colony Sim 42%, Building 21.5%, Sandbox 20.5%, Simulation 9.1%, Crafting 3.5%

Why You'll Like It: Its intimate settlement survival, individual pawn needs, and organic story generation make it feel like a grounded, family-scale take on Dwarf Fortress.

Craft The World is a unique sandbox strategy game, the mix of Dungeon Keeper, Terraria and Dwarf Fortress. Explore a random generated world populated by dangerous creatures, build a dwarf fortress, gather resources, and craft all the items, weapons, and armor you need.

Why similar: Dwarves 41.8% ★, Colony Sim 19.8%, Building 9.8%, Sandbox 9%, City Builder 6.4%

Why You'll Like It: It streamlines the dwarven digging, crafting, and trap-building fantasy into a more approachable side-view colony sandbox.

Humans are long gone. In a world struck by droughts and toxic waste, will your lumberpunk beavers do any better? A sandbox city-building game featuring ingenious animals, vertical architecture, water physics, and terraforming. Contains high amounts of wood.

Why similar: Colony Sim 22.1%, City Builder 21.7%, Base Building 11.7%, Building 9.9%, Sandbox 9.3%

Why You'll Like It: Its intricate production chains, terrain reshaping, and survival logistics deliver the same satisfying long-term settlement optimization.

Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive.

Why similar: Colony Sim 34.8%, Base Building 20%, Survival 12.2%, Building 9.9%, Management 7.1%

Why You'll Like It: Although sci-fi, it scratches the same itch for obsessive systems management, survival engineering, and colonies collapsing in fascinating ways.

Ratopia is a new game that has combined elements of both strategic survival and city building. With plenty of content available, and more planned, enjoy a vast world to adventure and populate with citizens! Build your own economical system to sustain your ideal city of Ratopia.

Why similar: Colony Sim 22.1%, City Builder 15.3%, Base Building 13%, Building 11.6%, Management 8.9%

Why You'll Like It: It blends side-view colony building, citizen needs, economics, and defense in a way that feels surprisingly close to a compact Dwarf Fortress.

Embark on a space voyage with your ragtag crew of civilians in search of a new home. Build spaceships tile by tile, create optimal gas conditions, manage the needs and moods of their crew, encounter other space-faring groups, and explore the universe in this spaceship colony simulation.

Why similar: Colony Sim 22%, City Builder 15.1%, Base Building 13.2%, Building 9.9%, Management 9.5%

Why You'll Like It: This turns the formula into a spaceship, but the pawn management, resource loops, and procedural survival events are very much in the same spirit.

Lead your noble family in this medieval colony sim, facing off against class conflict, religious struggle, and political treachery. Tend to your people’s needs, uncover the lost knowledge of a fallen empire, and engage in nefarious plots against your enemies.

Why similar: Colony Sim 20.1%, City Builder 16.1%, Base Building 12.3%, Building 9.5%, Sandbox 9.1%

Why You'll Like It: Its feudal settlement management, character relationships, and emergent social crises appeal strongly to players who enjoy colony drama over pure city building.

Build a colony of ruthless capitalist Dwarves in a strange fantasy land.

Why similar: Dwarves 78.4% ★, Colony Sim 12.1%, Strategy 3.2%, Base Building 3.2%, Simulation 3.1%

Why You'll Like It: It focuses on dwarf workers, excavation, task assignment, and defending a growing colony, giving it obvious thematic and mechanical overlap.

A dark fantasy city builder where you must rebuild civilization in the face of apocalyptic rains. As the Queen’s Viceroy, lead humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, and harpies to reclaim the wilderness and secure a future for civilization's last survivors.

Why similar: Colony Sim 19.5%, City Builder 16.3%, Base Building 12.3%, Building 9.8%, Management 9.2%

Why You'll Like It: Its pressure-filled settlement building, adaptive logistics, and survival-first mindset will click with players who enjoy making hard colony decisions under constant threat.

Factorio is a game about building and creating automated factories to produce items of increasing complexity, within an infinite 2D world. Use your imagination to design your factory, combine simple elements into ingenious structures, and finally protect it from the creatures who don't really like you.

Why similar: Base Building 28.8%, Sandbox 15.5%, City Builder 10.3%, Management 9.3%, Survival 9.2%

Why You'll Like It: If your favorite part of Dwarf Fortress is designing efficient production chains and watching complex systems interact, this is an elite match.

Rise up in a search for immortality in this strategy sim and management game based on Chinese mythology. Rebuild your sect and train new disciples through the path of cultivation. Research magic and gather mystical artifacts, face ancient dangers and other sects in your path to spiritual ascension.

Why similar: Colony Sim 28.4%, Sandbox 18.4%, Base Building 11.6%, Simulation 11.6%, Survival 10.2%

Why You'll Like It: This is a brutally complex colony sim full of hidden systems, personal drama, and cascading failures for players who love Dwarf Fortress's depth.

A brutal godlike village sim that melds the god game, management, and tower defense genres! Fight off hoards of monsters at night, and expand your village in the day time. Inspired by games like Black and White, Rimworld, and Dwarf Fortress but not quite like any of them.

Why similar: Colony Sim 33.7%, City Builder 25.2%, Base Building 13.2%, Survival 10.1%, Sandbox 6.3%

Why You'll Like It: It combines colony building, survival pressure, and defense against overwhelming threats, creating the same 'hold it together' energy Dwarf Fortress often produces.

Brave a new world in Stranded: Alien Dawn, a planet survival sim placing the fate of a small marooned group in your hands. Forge your story through compelling and immersive strategic gameplay as you make vital decisions to protect your survivors.

Why similar: Base Building 25.8%, Colony Sim 25.4%, Survival 17.4%, Management 9.9%, Strategy 7%

Why You'll Like It: It offers detailed survivor simulation, base building, and unpredictable colony setbacks in a more accessible 3D format.

A fantasy village builder focusing on creative building, colonist psychology and base defense. Handle resources, farming, production, tools, diplomacy, families, trading, defense, and research, as well as the wishes, expectations, thoughts, and equipment of every villager.

Why similar: Colony Sim 31.5%, City Builder 16.7%, Base Building 13.5%, Building 8.9%, Sandbox 7%

Why You'll Like It: This is a lighter colony sim with individual settlers, building, and management loops that clearly draw from the same design space.

In this city-building strategy game, you control a group of exiled travelers who decide to restart their lives in a new land. They have only the clothes on their backs and a cart filled with supplies from their homeland. The townspeople of Banished are your primary resource.

Why similar: Colony Sim 34.5%, City Builder 29.7%, Survival 9.2%, Sandbox 6.6%, Strategy 5.7%

Why You'll Like It: It captures the harsh resource-balancing and settlement-survival side of Dwarf Fortress, even if it lacks the same individual-level complexity.

In this city-building game, you will lead a group of survivors in their search for a new home. Manipulate the landscape, manage limited supplies, plant crops, hunt wildlife, gather resources, and develop trade routes to build a bustling and unique town.

Why similar: Colony Sim 22.6%, City Builder 21.8%, Building 11.8%, Management 9.7%, Survival 8.9%

Why You'll Like It: It is a strong Banished-style city survival game with detailed production planning and population management for players who love the macro side of fortress sims.

Inhabit a deeply-simulated science fantasy world and chisel through layers of thousand-year-old civilizations. Build a character from over a hundred mutations and cybernetics. The award-winning sandbox roguelike & RPG full of robots, deep lore, and sentient plants.

Why similar: Survival 39.4%, Procedural Generation 17%, Moddable 14.3% ★, Open World 13.3%, Roguelike 9.2%

Survive and thrive in a post-apocalyptic future — resources are scarce, but opportunity calls! Build the ultimate disaster proof colony, protect your colonists, and restore civilization to a devastated world.

Why similar: City Builder 25.4%, Colony Sim 23.6%, Base Building 12%, Survival 11.3%, Strategy 7.7%

Why You'll Like It: Its focus on colony survival, specialists, expansion, and disaster recovery makes it a good fit for players who like rebuilding after things go wrong.

Build a prosperous settlement in a unique simulation of a feudal economy - each family runs their shop, owns their goods, and trades with other villagers in a free market. You will manage the land, build houses, organise events, set taxes, and balance supply and demand while engaging in diplomacy!

Why similar: Colony Sim 28.5%, City Builder 21.1%, Management 12.1%, Building 11.3%, Sandbox 9.8%

Why You'll Like It: It leans more into household economics, but its village simulation and production-web management still appeal to systems-minded fortress builders.

Gnomes is a turn-based tower defense with deep roguelike progression, set in ever-expanding, procedurally generated biomes. Build, farm and defend your village as you push deeper into goblin-infested territory. Unlock powerful upgrades and craft your environment to survive the endless goblin horde

Why similar: Dwarves 38.4% ★, Colony Sim 16.9%, City Builder 14.6%, Base Building 11.1%, Survival 7.9%

Only the world’s most ruthless Warden can contain the world’s most ruthless inmates. Design and develop your personalized penitentiary in Prison Architect.

Why similar: Colony Sim 22.4%, City Builder 16%, Base Building 13.8%, Building 12.2%, Sandbox 10.8%

Why You'll Like It: While the theme is different, its room planning, staff scheduling, logistics, and emergent management failures hit a similar simulation-heavy nerve.

Build, scavenge, craft, and perform occult rituals to survive in a demon-infested, post-apocalyptic colony simulation. Will you survive Judgment day?

Why similar: Colony Sim 29.1%, Base Building 16.2%, Survival 11.6%, City Builder 9.3%, Sandbox 8.2%

Why You'll Like It: Managing survivors, defenses, scavenging runs, and layered production under constant pressure gives it a strong disaster-colony vibe.

Become a real medieval feudal lord: start with a small village and build it up into an enormous impenetrable castle. You will have to repel enemy raids: hide behind thick walls, lure your enemies into strategically placed traps, and even lead your loyal peasants into battle.

Why similar: Colony Sim 23.7%, City Builder 15.4%, Base Building 13.9%, Building 10.9%, Management 8.3%

Why You'll Like It: It offers medieval settlement building, layered construction, and villager management in a smaller-scale package that still scratches the colony-sim itch.

Build, quest, and conquer across an infinite procedurally generated world. Play alone or with friends as you establish a settlement and explore deep dungeons, fight monsters and bosses, mine rare ores, craft magical equipment, recruit specialists for your colony, and more!

Why similar: Sandbox 25.6%, Base Building 22.9%, Survival 21%, Building 20.9%, Open World 4.6%

A free-roaming squad based RPG. Focusing on open-ended sandbox gameplay features rather than a linear story. Be a trader, a thief, a rebel, a warlord, an adventurer, a farmer, a slave, or just food for the cannibals. Train your men up from puny victims to master warriors.

Why similar: Sandbox 20.9%, Survival 16.4%, Base Building 14.6%, City Builder 14.6%, Building 12.2%

Foundation is a grid-less, laidback medieval city-building game with a focus on organic development, monument construction and resource management.

Why similar: City Builder 33.9%, Colony Sim 12.1%, Sandbox 9%, Building 8.9%, Management 8.8%

Gather resources, craft weapons, and build a castle. Then defend your castle against monsters who will try to siege, sap, and smash their way in. All in a procedurally generated 3D block world that allows for extensive crafting and total construction and destruction of the terrain.

Why similar: Dwarves 74% ★, Colony Sim 5.5%, Base Building 3.6%, Building 3%, Sandbox 2.8%

Extensions for Dwarf Fortress, including bugfixes, interface improvements, automation agents, design blueprints, modding building blocks, and other tools.

Why similar: Dwarves 54.1% ★, Colony Sim 18.3%, Building 7.3%, Simulation 5.4%, Management 4.9%

Kingdoms and Castles is a city-building simulation game about growing a kingdom from a tiny hamlet to a sprawling city and imposing castle. Make trade agreements, alliance, and war with neighboring AI controlled kingdoms. Each villager and resource is individually simulated.

Why similar: Colony Sim 24.9%, City Builder 23.4%, Management 9.8%, Building 8.6%, Sandbox 8.1%

Inspired by the deep simulation of Dwarf Fortress, the open world survival of Minecraft, and the social interactions of The Sims. Embark is a colony management game with a focus on complex simulation in a huge living 3D world.

Why similar: Colony Sim 37.9%, Base Building 16.6%, Building 9.1%, Sandbox 8.8%, Survival 7.7%

Colony Survival is a unique first-person strategy game developed by a two-man team. Build your own colony in a voxel world. Command guards, farmers, miners and other colonists. Defend your colony against the horde of monsters that attacks every night!

Why similar: Colony Sim 31%, Base Building 15.9%, Building 11.2%, Survival 11.1%, City Builder 10.6%

Dig! Dig! Dig! Manage the small underground Dwarf base and make it as rich as possible before they meet their inevitable doom. Purchase before May 11th and save!

Why similar: Dwarves 44.4% ★, Colony Sim 19.4%, Base Building 9.6%, Management 7.9%, Sandbox 6.4%

WorldBox is the ULTIMATE god simulator and sandbox game. A petri dish for your fantasy civilizations. Create your own world or destroy it using many powers. Watch civilizations grow, form kingdoms, colonize new lands, sail to far continents, wars to ignite, empires to fall and towns to burn!

Why similar: Colony Sim 36%, Sandbox 26.3%, Building 15.3%, Management 10.4%, Simulation 8.8%

Build a soviet republic from an impoverished country into a rich industrial superpower in a city builder with intricate production chains and a fully simulated global economy. Manage the lives of your citizens from education to work and party loyalty to criminal activity.

Why similar: Colony Sim 20.1%, City Builder 18.4%, Base Building 12.7%, Building 10.2%, Management 9.5%

Harness your Demigod powers to lead a group from rags to riches in this 3D Fantasy Kingdom Management Sim with RPG elements. Command from the sky or take control in 3rd Person to BUILD, BATTLE, and RULE. Navigate a world of interesting Nobles, earn their respect, and decide their Fates.

Why similar: Colony Sim 22.8%, City Builder 17.5%, Base Building 12.9%, Sandbox 10.2%, Building 9.2%

Protect and guide your people as you forge a town from untamed wilderness at the edge of the known world. Harvest raw materials, hunt, fish and farm to survive. Produce crafted items to trade, consume, equip and fight with as you battle for your survival against the elements and outside threats.

Why similar: Colony Sim 21.9%, City Builder 21.2%, Building 16.2%, Base Building 13.2%, Management 9.7%

Manage a Dwarven mining colony in the unexplored mountains of Mara. As conflict rages in the Overworld, you will need to craft, explore and fight as you provide the allies of your choice with the finest weapons and gear to assist them in the battle for glory.

Why similar: Colony Sim 30.9%, Base Building 18.4%, Building 14.1%, Management 13.6%, Simulation 5.9%

Dungeon Overseer is a colony simulator with a focus on base building and resource management. Become the Overseer by building a unique dungeon layout, constructing your lair, upgrading and expanding, questing, crafting, researching, recruiting, defending your base, and raiding.

Why similar: Colony Sim 25.9%, City Builder 19.3%, Base Building 15.4%, Building 11%, Management 7.9%

Manage your own medieval smithy in Blacksmith Master and supervise the entire process from mining ores and gems to designing and selling finished products. Forge everything from weapons and armor to tools and cooking utensils to fund your craft and become the Blacksmith Master.

Why similar: Colony Sim 19.8%, City Builder 16%, Base Building 12.2%, Building 9.8%, Management 9%

Settlements Rising is a medieval city building and colony management game. It offers a lively colony experience with simulated villagers, dozens of professions and resources, natural disasters, and raids, while providing full control over the colony through trade, production chains and datas.

Why similar: Colony Sim 24.1%, City Builder 20.4%, Base Building 9.9%, Building 9.2%, Management 8.1%

Stardeus is a deep colony sim set on a broken starship manned by drones and hibernating human survivors. As the AI, have your drones repair your ship, save your crew and travel the stars in this beautiful simulation.

Why similar: Colony Sim 28.3%, Base Building 16.8%, Sandbox 11.4%, Survival 11%, Management 9.5%

An open-world colony sim based on stories of the first men. Infinite possibilities await your very own Adam and Eve as they embark on a generation-spanning adventure. How will you shape their future?

Why similar: Colony Sim 30.9%, Base Building 18%, Building 8.5%, Sandbox 8%, Management 7.6%

Mind Over Magic is a colony sim set at the site of a cursed magic school. Build and optimize your own magical academy, train powerful Mages, and master mighty relics in order to battle through the Underschool, a mysterious underground dungeon that holds the key to liberation from a deadly curse.

Why similar: Colony Sim 29.1%, Base Building 15.9%, Building 14.6%, Management 13.1%, Survival 12.1%

The Wandering Village is a city-building simulation game on the back of a giant, wandering creature. Build your settlement and form a symbiotic relationship with the colossus. Will you survive together in this hostile, yet beautiful post-apocalyptic world, contaminated by poisonous plants?

Why similar: Colony Sim 25.9%, City Builder 22.6%, Management 13.2%, Base Building 11.2%, Sandbox 8.8%

Manor Lords is a medieval strategy game featuring in-depth city building, large-scale tactical battles, and complex economic and social simulations. Rule your lands as a medieval lord – the seasons pass, the weather changes, and cities rise and fall.

Why similar: City Builder 26%, Base Building 19.7%, Colony Sim 11.5%, Strategy 6.9%, Simulation 6.6%

Establish a home for your industrious mice under the oppressive paw of your cat overlords in this city builder featuring complex simulations, intricate production chains, and the age-old rivalry between cat and mouse.

Why similar: Colony Sim 20.1%, City Builder 16.1%, Base Building 12.2%, Building 9.7%, Management 9%

A dwarfish colony sim set in a fantasy world. Inspired by Rimworld and Banished. Dig deep to uncover riches and challenges, recruit dwarves to produce goods, and trade with other settlements (or raid them) to help your colony succeed.

Why similar: Dwarves 90.9% ★, Simulation 9.1%

Dwarves hunger for gold, and no mountain shall stand in their way! Mine riches, unearth artifacts, and upgrade your dwarves to devour ever-bigger peaks in this whimsical incremental game.

Why similar: Dwarves 53.5% ★, Building 11.7%, Base Building 11.1%, Management 8.4%, Strategy 5.7%

LiF:Forest Village is a city builder with survival aspects in a realistic harsh medieval world. Shape, build and expand your settlement, grow various food to prevent your villagers from avitaminosis and starvation. Possess them for additional micromanagement or simply to wander around.

Why similar: Colony Sim 35.8%, City Builder 30.5%, Building 8.1%, Survival 7.5%, Strategy 5.1%

Guide a group of space settlers trying to establish a base on a remote planet. Grow food, collect energy, mine resources, survive disasters and build a self-sufficient colony in a harsh and unforgiving environment.

Why similar: Colony Sim 29.3%, City Builder 22.4%, Base Building 15.9%, Survival 9%, Building 5.5%