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The decade-long push to get Alice: Asylum–a theoretical third game in the Alice series–has ended, announced developer American McGee.
After the completion of an Alice: Asylum design bible–a huge document containing concept art, core game design concepts, and narrative goals–McGee said he resumed talks with Electronic Arts, the company that owns Alice’s IP, to see if EA would be willing to either fund Alice: Asylum or to license the IP out.
EA refused to do either. McGee said EA passed on funding due to “internal analysis of the IP, market conditions, and details of the production proposal,” and did not want to license the IP because, “‘Alice’ is an important part of EA’s overall game catalog, and selling or licensing it isn’t something they’re prepared to do right now.”
McGee spearheaded both of the previous Alice games, American McGee’s Alice and Alice Madness Returns. He has tried to get the third Alice game off the ground for years, opening up a Patreon to help support the creation of a production and design plan–with acknowledgement that it depends entirely on EA whether or not a third Alice game is greenlit.
Now with EA’s decision, McGee said the team has “exhausted” every option to realize a third Alice game, and that “there is no other way forward with the project.”
He will close the Alice: Asylum Patreon page and while content will remain, he will no longer try to raise funds for Alice: Asylum. McGee said he is also saying goodbye entirely to the Alice series, stating, “I have also reached an endpoint with ‘Alice’ and with game production in general. I have no other ideas or energy left to apply toward getting a new Alice game made.”
“Nor do I have any interest in pursuing new game ideas within the context of the current environment for game development,” McGee continued. “If someone does manage to convince EA to make ‘Asylum,’ I would like to make clear that, from this point forward, I have no desire to be involved with that or any other Alice-related development.”
McGee ended the Patreon note by thanking backers for their years of support. “We knew going into this adventure that failure was a possibility. But we wanted to believe impossible things–and we had fun doing that up to the moment when reality forced itself into our Wonderland,” McGee said. “It’s often said that when one door closes, another opens. Trite but true. And I hope that for all of you, this closure will bring life to other adventures and dreams.”
