Here's your first look at Dwarf Fortress on Steam's actual Dwarves

Developer Tarn Adams has taken to Steam with a first look at the new, graphical Dwarf Fortress' actual dwarves. Smiley faces no longer, as they were in the ancient ASCII sets of our ancestors, the dwarves now have faces AND bodies. Behold!

The dwarves will be available in both color-coded by job and in actual-colors modes. So the bearded fisherdwarf above has chosen a dress to wear, and has an accurately-modeled beard style, but it has been recolored blue based on his job. The stoneworker, from the same civilization, is also wearing a style of dress, but sports a shaved head and white dress per her job. Fashionable! And I mean that literally, because remember that the civilizations of Dwarf Fortress have fashions and hairstyles and colors that they prefer, so these dwarves' clothing is based on that random generation.

In actual-colors mode, the dwarves' clothes would be whatever color the material actually is, which Adams says is "more drab" before you get a dyes industry up and running. Adams also provided a look at some bronze-armored and steel-armored warrior dwarves, with equipment appropriate to how they are outfitted in-game. The iron-armored dwarves are wearing lovely teal-dyed cloaks and headscarves.

Dwarf Fortress is getting a Steam release for the first time, which will cost actual money rather than free, and as part of that it's getting a graphical upgrade. And by that I mean it's getting graphics at all. (Also, a major UI upgrade.) We spoke with Tarn Adams about the lovely new look of Dwarf Fortress, and saw it in motion, a couple months ago, and we've been covering all manner of pretty birds and monsters and things as they appear.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.