Official Tweet The source code to ZZT (the first title by Epic Games) has finally been recovered and released.

[Krvavi Abadas]

yes, as the tweet notes. Tim Sweeny did indeed lose the source code as far back as the late 90s. he eventually approved of a reverse-engineering project (from the same user, fittingly.) that rebuilt it from scratch, but this is the real deal.

a few bits and pieces have been publicly taken out due to copyright concerns, though this unfortunately is a common issue with source code releases. the famous release of the DOOM source code was actually the Linux port due to the original DOS version using the DMX sound library, which they couldn't get permission to share.

it's also worth noting Tim had expressed interest in open-sourcing the original Unreal Engine back in 2014, though that hasn't really gotten anywhere since.

We definitely can't open source Unreal Engine 2 or 3, because of dependencies on a large number of external closed-source middleware packages with complex licensing requirements.

Open sourcing Unreal Engine 1 might be possible, but getting the source and dependencies into a releasable state would take a lot of cleanup effort that we just haven't been able to find time for. I hope we can do it someday!

maybe this will finally get him to do something about it, especially considering the current circumstances.

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

it's an april fools joke, yes. but it does have Achievements for running the game up to 5 hours.
however, it's just the original DOS version running on DOSbox from the looks of things. even though the source code is now readily available.

i even got in contact with asie, and they more or less said they weren't involved with this in any way. which is unfortunate, as Epic hiring them to do an official "remaster" would have been fun to see.