Streets of Fortuna received its first gameplay trailer on December 3, 2025 during the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted, showcasing Kitfox Games’ ambitious megasim sandbox RPG inspired by Constantinople circa 500 AD where everything is simulated and your actions have real consequences. Developed in consultation with Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams to optimize for emergent player stories, the game drops you into a procedurally generated city with 1,000 NPCs each living simulated lives with character traits, relationships, tastes, property, and schedules. Players must afford food and somewhere to sleep by learning a trade, begging, stealing, starting a religion, planning heists, escaping guards, or plotting to take down the Overlord. Closed alpha testing begins in 2026, with the developers planning to keep making the simulation bigger and richer for many years based on how players engage with the sandbox.
What Is Streets of Fortuna
Streets of Fortuna is a free-roaming megasim sandbox RPG that emphasizes emergent chaos rather than linear storytelling. Set in Fortuna, a fantasy version of Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire’s height, the game simulates every aspect of urban life including economics, social relationships, property ownership, crime, religion, and political intrigue. Players create a character with no predetermined class or job system, instead developing skills organically based on what activities they pursue. You could become a thief mastering stealth and lockpicking, a blacksmith building a legitimate business, a rebel organizing resistance against the Overlord, a priest starting your own religion, or a smuggler navigating gray markets.
The simulation depth means that every decision ripples through the game world in unpredictable ways. Steal from the wrong person and you might create a personal vendetta that follows you for years. Help someone and they might remember, offering opportunities later when you need them. Romance the spouse of a powerful merchant and face consequences when discovered. The gameplay trailer specifically showcases thieving mechanics, demonstrating how players must pay attention to NPC schedules, guard patrol patterns, property ownership, and social relationships to successfully steal without getting caught or beaten by vigilante mobs in the market.
Dwarf Fortress Influence
Kitfox Games enlisted Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams as a consultant to optimize Streets of Fortuna for emergent player stories, lending the game credibility among simulation enthusiasts. Dwarf Fortress revolutionized procedural generation and simulation depth in games, creating worlds where absurd narratives emerge organically from systems interactions rather than scripted events. A dwarf might go berserk after their pet cat dies, murder half the fortress, then calm down and become a legendary engraver who immortalizes the tantrum in stone carvings throughout the settlement. That kind of systemic storytelling is what Streets of Fortuna aims to achieve in a third-person human-scale RPG context.
The consultation with Adams suggests Kitfox is serious about creating genuinely reactive simulation systems rather than smoke-and-mirror illusions of reactivity. Many games claim that your choices matter but ultimately funnel players toward predetermined outcomes. True simulation means accepting that players will break systems in unexpected ways and designing robustly enough that the world adapts rather than crashes. Whether Kitfox can achieve that ambition at the scale they’re describing remains to be seen, but having Adams involved increases confidence that they understand what they’re attempting and the technical challenges involved.
Procedural Generation Everywhere
Every playthrough of Streets of Fortuna generates a completely different city with unique geography, architecture, NPC populations, economic conditions, and political situations. The trailer emphasizes that every person and place is differently generated, meaning you can’t memorize optimal strategies from one run to the next. Your contact with useful information in one playthrough might be a hostile guard in another. The lucrative heist target in one world might not exist in the next. This forces improvisation and adaptation rather than following guides or optimized paths.
The 1,000 NPC population is substantial for a single-player game where every character has simulated lives, personalities, and relationships. For comparison, most open-world RPGs have dozens of named NPCs with dialogue and hundreds of generic background characters who exist purely for atmosphere. Streets of Fortuna promises that all 1,000 NPCs are actual simulated entities with schedules, motivations, and reactive behaviors. The developers stated that number is likely to increase as development continues, suggesting they’re pushing technical boundaries to create the most densely populated simulation possible.
Survival Mechanics and Systems
Unlike many sandbox RPGs where survival is optional flavor, Streets of Fortuna requires you to afford food and shelter to stay alive. This necessity drives all player decisions, forcing you to choose between legitimate work that pays slowly but builds reputation, criminal activities that risk punishment but provide quick money, or creative hustles that exploit gaps in social systems. The trailer showcases intricate systems of character traits, relationships, tastes, property, and schedules that players must master to tell their story, suggesting mechanical depth comparable to Crusader Kings character management.
The survival pressure creates interesting ethical dilemmas. Do you steal bread from a baker who has plenty, or is that crossing a moral line? If you’re caught begging, will guards beat you for vagrancy or will wealthy NPCs take pity? When legitimate work doesn’t pay enough to afford both food and shelter, do you resort to crime or sleep on the streets? These choices have long-term consequences in a persistent world where NPCs remember your actions and adjust their behavior accordingly. The game doesn’t impose morality but lets consequences emerge from simulation systems.
What Kitfox Games Has Made Before
Kitfox Games developed Moon Hunters, a co-op personality test RPG, and Boyfriend Dungeon, a dating sim where you romance weapons. They also published Dwarf Fortress’s premium Steam version, establishing their relationship with Bay 12 Games and presumably connecting them with Tarn Adams for Streets of Fortuna consultation. Their previous work demonstrates interest in unconventional game design that prioritizes player expression and emergent storytelling over traditional genre conventions.
Streets of Fortuna represents their most ambitious project yet, scaling up from relatively focused indie experiences to a massive simulation sandbox. In their June 2024 AMA on Reddit, the team acknowledged they’re still in early production and the game won’t release for a good long while because they want to make sure it’s amazing even at initial release. The December 2025 gameplay trailer suggests substantial progress, but announcing closed alpha testing in 2026 indicates full release is likely years away. The developers plan to release early on Steam Early Access and continue expanding the simulation for many years based on player feedback.
FAQs
What is Streets of Fortuna?
Streets of Fortuna is a megasim sandbox RPG set in a procedurally generated Constantinople-inspired city where 1,000 NPCs live simulated lives. Players survive by any means necessary, with emergent storytelling rather than linear narrative.
When does Streets of Fortuna release?
No release date has been announced. Closed alpha testing begins in 2026, with plans for Steam Early Access launch eventually. The developers stated the game won’t release for a good long while as they’re still in early production.
Who is developing Streets of Fortuna?
Kitfox Games is developing and publishing Streets of Fortuna in consultation with Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams. Kitfox previously developed Moon Hunters and Boyfriend Dungeon, and published Dwarf Fortress on Steam.
Is Streets of Fortuna like Dwarf Fortress?
Conceptually yes, in that both emphasize emergent storytelling through deep simulation. Streets of Fortuna focuses on controlling one character in third-person RPG format rather than managing a fortress from an overhead view.
What can you do in Streets of Fortuna?
Players can learn trades, beg, steal, start religions, plan heists, escape guards, overthrow the Overlord, build relationships, romance NPCs, or pursue any path the simulation systems allow. There’s no class system or predetermined jobs.
How many NPCs are in Streets of Fortuna?
Currently 1,000 simulated NPCs each with character traits, relationships, tastes, property, and schedules. The developers stated this number will likely increase as development continues.
Can I sign up for Streets of Fortuna alpha testing?
Yes. The Steam page has signup for closed alpha testing beginning in 2026. You can wishlist the game on Steam to receive updates about testing opportunities.
Conclusion
Streets of Fortuna is exactly the kind of wildly ambitious simulation project that either becomes a cult classic like Dwarf Fortress or collapses under the weight of its own complexity. Kitfox Games is betting that players want truly emergent storytelling where systems interactions create unique narratives rather than experiencing predefined plots, and they’re enlisting Tarn Adams to help ensure the simulation depth supports that vision. The Constantinople setting is relatively unexplored in games despite being one of history’s most fascinating cities, and the Byzantine Empire’s complex social structures provide perfect material for simulation systems. Whether Kitfox can deliver on the promise of 1,000+ simulated NPCs living meaningful lives that players can meaningfully interact with remains the central question. If they pull it off, Streets of Fortuna could redefine sandbox RPGs by proving that deep simulation creates better stories than scripted content. If they don’t, it’ll be another cautionary tale about overambitious scope. Either way, the closed alpha in 2026 will reveal whether this megasim lives up to its Dwarf Fortress pedigree or becomes a cautionary tale about promising too much.