Landmark Interactive Fiction: Zork I, II, adn III Source Code Now Open Source
The source code for the groundbreaking interactive fiction trilogy, Zork I, II, and III, has been released to the public under the permissive MIT license. This initiative, a collaboration between Microsoft’s Open Source Programs Office (OSPO), the Xbox division, and Activision (the franchise owner), makes the code freely available on GitHub for students, developers, and historians to access, study, and utilize.
Originally developed by Infocom in the late 1970s and early 1980s,the Zork games represent a pivotal moment in gaming history.In a period before widespread graphical capabilities, Zork captivated players through richly detailed text-based descriptions, fostering a powerful sense of imagination. As Microsoft representatives Stacey Haffner and Scott Hanselman noted in the official announcement, “Zork asked players not just to win, but to imagine. It has always been more than a game; it’s a reminder that imagination and technology can outlive generations of hardware and players.”
Microsoft’s approach to preservation prioritized collaboration with existing digital archives. Rather than establishing new repositories, the company worked directly with Jason Scott, a prominent digital archivist affiliated with the Internet Archive, submitting official “pull requests” to Scott’s established historical collections. This ensures the code is formally licensed under MIT and accompanied by comprehensive documentation detailing its donation.
The released code is writen in ZIL (Zork Implementation Language) and focuses solely on the source code itself, leaving commercial packaging and trademark rights with their original holders. A key element of Zork’s early success was the “Z-Machine,” a virtual machine that enabled the game to run across a wide range of contemporary computers, including the Apple II and IBM PC, making it one of the first truly cross-platform gaming experiences.
Today, the open-source release allows enthusiasts to compile and run the games on modern systems using tools like ZILF. For those preferring a ready-to-play experience,the Zork trilogy remains commercially available through platforms such as GOG.com.
