The Dwarves

The Dwarves is a PC fantasy tactical RPG built around real-time battles, active pausing, party control, and a story-led journey across Girdlegard. KING Art developed the game from Markus Heitz’s fantasy novel, with THQ Nordic and EuroVideo Medien handling publishing. The current storefront identity remains The Dwarves; there is no verified rebrand or remastered replacement name.

The game is designed for solo players who want a focused fantasy campaign rather than an open-ended character sandbox. Its strongest identity comes from sending a small group of heroes against enemy forces that can dramatically outnumber them.

Real-time battles with a tactical pause

Combat takes place from an overhead perspective and unfolds in real time. You can pause whenever necessary, inspect the battlefield, select a hero, reposition the party, and activate an ability before returning to the action. This real-time-with-pause combat makes timing and command priority more important than fast clicking.

The active group can contain up to four heroes, while the wider roster includes 15 playable characters. Each hero has individual skills and a distinct role in battle. A durable frontline fighter can hold enemy attention while another character disrupts a cluster, knocks opponents away, or creates room for a more vulnerable companion.

The defining combat feature is crowd combat. The battlefield is built to handle large groups of enemies whose physical interactions affect positioning and movement. Foes can be pushed, staggered, blocked, or forced into disadvantageous locations, giving the party ways to survive encounters that cannot be won through simple damage output.

Hero abilities, positioning, and enemy pressure

The Dwarves is not a traditional turn-based RPG with a grid and fixed action economy. Instead, success comes from pausing at the right moments, switching between heroes, and combining their abilities while the fight continues around them. The system rewards players who treat every character as part of a coordinated formation.

Enemy groups include orcs, ogres, elves, bögnilim, zombies, dark mages, and other threats from the setting. Their numbers create pressure from multiple directions, so a battle can change quickly if a hero is surrounded or pushed out of position. Knockback and battlefield control are especially important when the party needs to interrupt a rush or separate dangerous targets.

Between encounters, you select heroes for the next engagement and continue developing the party through character skills and equipment. The game therefore sits closer to a story-driven party RPG than to a loot-heavy action RPG. Players who enjoy deliberate companion management and active pause controls may also appreciate classic isometric party RPGs like Pillars of Eternity, although The Dwarves places more emphasis on crowd control and direct battlefield movement.

Girdlegard, exploration, and consequences

The campaign follows Tungdil Goldhand, a dwarf raised among humans who becomes involved in a wider crisis affecting Girdlegard. The narrative draws directly from Markus Heitz’s novel setting, so the game spends meaningful time establishing its cultures, conflicts, creatures, and central characters.

Travel uses a world map where the party moves between locations, meets characters, and encounters events. The map is not just a menu between battles. You can uncover secrets, discover optional situations, solve puzzles, and make choices that influence later parts of the journey.

World-map decisions give the campaign a more reactive structure than a straightforward sequence of combat missions. An encounter may lead to a fight, a conversation, a side activity, or a different route forward. This makes exploration valuable for players who want story context and optional discoveries alongside the main adventure.

Content model and Digital Deluxe extras

The standard PC product is a premium single-player game. There is no free-to-play conversion, seasonal progression system, or competitive multiplayer layer. The main purchase provides the complete story campaign, its world-map travel, the hero roster, tactical battles, optional puzzles, and Steam achievements.

The storefront also lists The Dwarves - Digital Deluxe Edition Extras as the only separate downloadable content associated with the game. These extras are bonus material rather than a new campaign or gameplay expansion.

The Digital Deluxe package adds a digital soundtrack in MP3 format, a PDF artbook, and a detailed map of Girdlegard. The soundtrack contains 19 tracks plus an exclusive song featuring Blind Guardian. Players buying the base game should not expect the Deluxe upgrade to add new heroes, combat modes, or story chapters.

Who should play The Dwarves?

The Dwarves suits players who want story-rich fantasy, an overhead camera, active pause controls, and battles where a few heroes must handle overwhelming numbers. It is a reasonable choice for fans of party-based RPGs who prefer real-time command systems over grid-based turns.

It also works for players interested in Markus Heitz’s novel universe. The setting, protagonist, dwarf culture, and named factions are not decorative background details; they shape the campaign’s identity and provide much of its appeal.

Players seeking a highly reactive CRPG with extensive character creation, large branching quest structures, or a deep simulation of tabletop rules may find the design narrower. The Dwarves focuses on a directed party adventure with predefined heroes rather than unlimited build experimentation.

PC features, storefronts, and localization

Steam lists single-player support, achievements, Family Sharing, and Remote Play on TV. The PC version is centered on keyboard-and-mouse interaction, which fits its overhead camera, ability commands, pause controls, and party management. Steam does not advertise a Full Controller Support designation, so players should not assume a controller-first experience.

For storefront choice, the Steam edition uses the normal Steam client environment, while the GOG release is advertised as DRM-free and playable offline without requiring GOG Galaxy. The underlying game name remains The Dwarves on both storefronts, with Digital Deluxe presented as a package or upgrade rather than a replacement title.

Steam lists English and German full audio, with interface and subtitle support for English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Polish, and Turkish. That makes the game accessible to a broad PC audience, while English and German are the listed full-audio options.

Comparable PC party RPGs

The closest comparison is not a conventional action RPG. The Dwarves shares its party management and pause-based command structure with isometric fantasy party RPGs such as Sword Coast Legends, but its encounters are more focused on crowd movement, physical collisions, and surviving large enemy formations.

It also differs from games built around interchangeable or disposable adventurers. The Dwarves gives the campaign a defined cast of heroes, so the relationship between story scenes and combat roles is more fixed than in a character-creation-heavy CRPG.

That distinction matters when choosing the game. Players looking for dialogue-heavy exploration and broad role-playing freedom may prefer a classic CRPG, while players who want dwarf-centered fiction and real-time battles against large groups will find The Dwarves more directly aligned with that goal.

The Dwarves FAQ

Has The Dwarves been renamed on PC?

No verified rebrand has replaced the original name. Current storefront listings continue to identify the base game as The Dwarves. Digital Deluxe Edition is a package designation covering bonus content, not a new official title.

Is The Dwarves single-player or multiplayer?

The Dwarves is a single-player RPG. Steam lists no online co-op or competitive multiplayer mode, and the campaign is built around one player controlling Tungdil and the selected hero party.

How does combat work in The Dwarves?

Combat is real-time with an active pause. You control a party of up to four heroes, issue movement and ability commands, and use positioning, knockback, crowd control, and hero-specific skills to survive groups of enemies that can greatly outnumber you.

How many heroes can you use?

The game features 15 playable heroes with individual skills. Only a smaller active party enters each battle, so choosing the right combination of roles is part of preparing for an encounter.

What does the Digital Deluxe Edition include?

The Digital Deluxe package includes the base game together with bonus extras: an MP3 soundtrack, a PDF artbook, and a map of Girdlegard. It does not add a separate story campaign or new combat mode.

Does The Dwarves support controllers on PC?

The Steam listing does not advertise Full Controller Support. Keyboard and mouse are the safer expectation for the PC version because the game relies on overhead party control, ability selection, inventory management, and frequent tactical pausing.

Which languages are available?

Steam lists English and German full audio. English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Polish, and Turkish are supported for interface and subtitles.