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DFHack - Dwarf Fortress Modding Engine
Steam News 6 April 20261mo ago

DFHack 53.11-r3rc1

This is a prerelease build for final testing! Highlights Rework for Steam client compatibility The overwhelming purpose for this release is to rework DFHack so that it will work seamlessly when installed via Steam. Stea…

Update log

Full DFHack - Dwarf Fortress Modding Engine update

The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.

Extracted changes

0 fixes1 addition5 changes0 removals
  • Compatibility
  • Gameplay
changedThis is a prerelease build for final testing!
changedRework for Steam client compatibilityThe overwhelming purpose for this release is to rework DFHack so that it will work seamlessly when installed via Steam. Steam recently changed its client in a way that made our prior method of installing DFHack where DF could "see" it stop working. With a single tiny exception, the entirety of this update is to facilitate being able to install DFHack via Steam with a minimum of user hassle.
changedHighlightsRework for Steam client compatibility; Windows console encoding
changedRework for Steam client compatibilityThe overwhelming purpose for this release is to rework DFHack so that it will work seamlessly when installed via Steam. Steam recently changed its client in a way that made our prior method of installing DFHack where DF could "see" it stop working. With a single tiny exception, the entirety of this update is to facilitate being able to install DFHack via Steam with a minimum of user hassle.
changedWindows console encodingDwarf Fortress recently was updated to force UTF-8 for all interactions with the operating system in Windows; however, this change did not reach to the text console used by DFHack on Windows, which is still defaulting to the user's default system code page. This has caused some anomalous behavior for users whose default system code page is not already UTF-8. This update includes a tiny change that forces this console to also use UTF-8 regardless of the user's default system code page.
addedSpecial instructions for this updateOne of the side effects of the changes made by the Steam client is that people who were using DFHack before the Steam client change now have a "stranded" installation of DFHack still living in their Dwarf Fortress installation folder. This installation must be removed for DFHack to work correctly going forward. Our installer has code to detect this. On Windows, the user will be asked for permission to remove the legacy installation, while on Linux a popup with instructions on how to remove the legacy installation will be displayed.

This is a prerelease build for final testing!

Highlights

Rework for Steam client compatibility

The overwhelming purpose for this release is to rework DFHack so that it will work seamlessly when installed via Steam. Steam recently changed its client in a way that made our prior method of installing DFHack where DF could "see" it stop working. With a single tiny exception, the entirety of this update is to facilitate being able to install DFHack via Steam with a minimum of user hassle.

Highlights

Rework for Steam client compatibility; Windows console encoding

Rework for Steam client compatibility

The overwhelming purpose for this release is to rework DFHack so that it will work seamlessly when installed via Steam. Steam recently changed its client in a way that made our prior method of installing DFHack where DF could "see" it stop working. With a single tiny exception, the entirety of this update is to facilitate being able to install DFHack via Steam with a minimum of user hassle.

Windows console encoding

Dwarf Fortress recently was updated to force UTF-8 for all interactions with the operating system in Windows; however, this change did not reach to the text console used by DFHack on Windows, which is still defaulting to the user's default system code page. This has caused some anomalous behavior for users whose default system code page is not already UTF-8. This update includes a tiny change that forces this console to also use UTF-8 regardless of the user's default system code page.

Announcements

Special instructions for this update

One of the side effects of the changes made by the Steam client is that people who were using DFHack before the Steam client change now have a "stranded" installation of DFHack still living in their Dwarf Fortress installation folder. This installation must be removed for DFHack to work correctly going forward. Our installer has code to detect this. On Windows, the user will be asked for permission to remove the legacy installation, while on Linux a popup with instructions on how to remove the legacy installation will be displayed.

In addition, for technical reasons, DFHack can no longer completely install itself into Dwarf Fortress solely by installing the app on Steam. As a result, it is now necessary to launch from the DFHack application at least once after installing DFHack so DFHack can install itself into Dwarf Fortress. After this, it should be possible to launch from either Dwarf Fortress or DFHack the same way as before.

If you have problems with DFHack not working after installing this update which are not resolved by launching the DFHack application, we recommend the following process:

  • Uninstall DFHack via Steam

  • Remove the following files and folders from the Dwarf Fortress installation folder:

    • [c]hack[/c] (entire folder/directory)

    • [c]stonesense[/c] (entire folder/directory)

    • [c]binpatch.exe[/c] (Windows) / [c]binpatch[/c] (Linux)

    • [c]dfhack-run.exe[/c] (Windows) / [c]dfhack-run[/c] (Linux)

    • all files named [c]allegro_*.dll[/c] (Windows) or [c]liballegro_*.so[/c] (Linux)

    • [c]dfhack-client.dll[/c] (Windows) / [c]libdfhack-client.so[/c] (Linux)

    • [c]dfhooks_dfhack.dll[/c] (Windows) / [c]libdfhooks_dfhack.so[/c] (Linux)

    • [c]lua53.dll[/c] (Windows) / [c]liblua53.dll[/c] (Linux)

    • [c]protobuf-lite.dll[/c] (Windows) / [c]libprotobuf-lite.so[/c] (Linux)

  • Reinstall DFHack via Steam

  • Launch DFHack once

DFHack Lua scripters need to be aware that the [c]hack[/c] folder is no longer guaranteed to be in [c]hack[/c]. A path to it can be obtained with the [c]dfhack.getHackPath()[/c] call. While all standard scripts have been updated to reflect this, user written scripts have not. The [c]dfhack-config[/c] folder has not moved with this update.

DFHack Steam Cloud support

DFHack has, for some time now, used Steam Auto-Cloud to synchronize

Source

Steam News / 6 April 2026

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