Indie developer American McGee quite literally made a name for himself back in 2000, with the release of the now cult classic PC game American McGee’s Alice. The game gave players an opportunity to immerse themselves in a Wonderland far from the one envisioned by Lewis Carroll. As an older, much-disturbed Alice, your goal was to fight your way through the ravaged land and its strange occupants in the hopes of restoring it to its former glory.
The game was well-received and highly praised by critics upon its release, and a much-anticipated multi-platform sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, followed in 2011. Unfortunately, the sequel didn’t fare so well, and so any hopes for the planned third game in the series were dashed. Various ownership issues between American McGee and publishers EA have meant a long stalemate in the 6 years since the last game’s release, with no hopes of McGee publishing independently.
However, McGee has had recent success via Kickstarter for his dark fairytale-based card game Out of the Woods, so the timing may finally be right for a new Alice game to go ahead, and that indeed seems to be the line of thinking the developer is taking. McGee announced on his blog this past weekend that a proposal is now in the works for a third Alice game at long last, currently being titled Alice: Asylum.
The pitch being put together will include concept artwork, a design outline, and financial and business models. These will be sent to EA in the hopes of getting the go-ahead from them for production to begin.
In these early days of planning, McGee has asked for fans to prove to EA that the game is indeed wanted and will be well-received, by showing support for the project across Facebook and Twitter. The developer has also invited fans to tune into weekly livestreams on his YouTube channel, where there will be an opportunity to provide feedback and suggestions to the game’s pre-production team.
For further updates on this project as they emerge, sign up to the Alice 3 mailing list here.
