The popular dark action-adventure game series based on Alice in Wonderland is dead/kaput/finished, says creator American McGee. This series saw two entries released roughly ten years apart, the original, literally called American McGee’s Alice in 2000, and Alice: Madness Returns in 2011.
Both titles were published by Electronic Arts, and over the past several years, McGee has been attempting to gain the favor of fans and EA for a potential third title, under the name Alice: Asylum.
Unfortunately, efforts have been futile thus far. In February 2023, McGee posted a video asking EA to fund Asylum while also acknowledging the publisher’s distinct lack of interest in helping the franchise continue. EA has notoriously ignored cult classic franchises in order to finance larger, more profitable ones that have a higher probability of performing well.
Without the involvement of EA, the publisher that is in ownership of the rights to American McGee’s Alice, it means that the creator, American McGee himself, can’t make a new game.
In April 2023, McGee went on YouTube to announce his retirement from the industry as a definitive end point to this failure. He has been transparent from the beginning of trying to get a third entry in the series made. While there was a Patreon to accept donations and quite a bit of pre-production done for Asylum over time, the game will likely never see the light of day.
Fortunately, there is a game design bible on Patreon showing off what Alice: Asylum could be that is available for long-time fans to check out and download.