Dwarf Fortress uses version control now

Blog · Watch/Read · (gathered 2026-10-14)

• Simon Willison highlights the notable shift in Dwarf Fortress’s development, as its creators, Tarn and Zach Adams, have finally adopted version control, a tool Simon previously found astonishingly absent from such a complex codebase.
• He traces Tarn Adams’ public statements on version control, from disliking the “black box thingy” in 2013 and feeling “not cut out for it” in 2016, to confirming its use by March 2023.
• The adoption of version control coincided with the game’s highly successful Steam release, which made the creators millionaires, leading Simon to express a “tiny bit sad” feeling that they “gave in” before hitting that milestone without it.
• The narrative implicitly suggests that even for highly unique and long-running projects, standard development practices like version control eventually become essential, often aligning with increased scale or commercial success.