It’s been more than a decade since Alice: The Madness Returns, the latest installment of the Alice franchise was published, and its creator American McGee is doing his best to revive the series.
The history of the dark action-platformer series is nothing short of bizarre, even in an industry full of canceled projects that later get resurrected and then canceled again for no reason.
With two successful installments under his belt in 2000 and 2011, nobody doubts McGee’s passion for the project. But, the funding and support have been the main obstacles, especially after 2016 when Spicy Horse, the studio responsible for the first two iterations of the game, shut down.
American McGree is hoping to change this after releasing the first draft of a successfully crowdfunded script two years ago. With 3,192 paying Patreon members backing him up at the time of writing, the project is starting to gain traction. He's now released a 414-page design bible that should be the basis for the new project, announced a new partnered studio, and a simple request to Electronic Arts - let him make the threequel.
The published script contains tons of concept art and design notes, mock UI concepts that should spearhead development, and a brief preview of how different abilities would work and coexist. The full, finished script was initially available only to his Patreons and is now available to the public.
The Alice: Asylum video trailer concludes with the EA logo fading out alongside a strange plea saying "Let's Make Impossible Things Happen Together".
At the end of the day, EA still owns the Alice IP. If they don't greenlight and approve a sequel, it could all go to waste. Back in 2021 when McGee released the first draft script, he claimed that his intention was to build a production/design plan that would receive approval and support from EA.
Funding remains an issue but if they aren’t willing to talk about the project after the preview of this pre-production phase was made public, maybe they’ll have a change of heart after the final plan intrigues the audience.
Speaking of Electronic Arts, the company has just signed a multi-game deal with Marvel that includes an upcoming Iron Man game that will use Unreal Engine 5.
