•Dwarf Fortress creator Tarn Adams says he has no intention of using generative AI in game development, even as the technology spreads across the industry. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Adams described his opposition to the tools not only on principle but also because of their impact on software performance.
Adams acknowledged that the spread of genAI has left many workers anxious about being replaced by “some kind of robot that can’t even do your job at this point,” a fear he says he has watched play out in acquaintances working in the medical field. But he said his own reluctance is not simply defensive.
“I don’t think it would really boost my productivity at this point.”
Tarn Adams
He added that even if AI-generated code were good enough to use, “I’d still have reasons not to do it,” pointing to a problem he says is underdiscussed: generated code tends to ignore optimization. Without someone concerned about performance, games built with the technology run poorly.
“You can tell when you grab a vibe-coded game and your fan starts spinning,” Adams said. “It’s not good enough.” He cited a recent wave of AI-generated decompilations and recompilations as examples of work produced by people who do not care about development, only about being the first to announce that a title is now available on modern hardware for free.
Adams said he hopes such circumstances never force his hand. “The only thing that would push me forcibly […] would be if I could no longer release the game on Windows because Microsoft did some Copilot-ass thing that forced you to do some sort of gen crap to get your game recognised there.”
The interviewer, Lewis Packwood, then turned the conversation back to Dwarf Fortress. Adams described future plans for boat transport and player experiments in building in-game computers powered by vampires that players have trapped inside them.
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