The decade-long push to get Alice: Asylum, a theoretical third game in the Alice series, is over, developer American McGee has announced.
After the completion of a Alice: Asylum Design Bible–a huge document containing concept art, game design basics, and narrative goals– McGee said he has resumed talks with Electronic Arts, the company that owns Alice’s intellectual property, to see if EA would be willing to fund Alice : Asylum or to license the IP.
EA refused to do either. McGee said that EA passed the funding due to “internal analysis of IP, market conditions, and production proposal details” and did not want to license the IP because “‘Alice’ is an important part of the overall catalog of EA games”. and selling or licensing is not something they are prepared to do at this time.”
McGee headlined both of Alice’s previous games, American McGee’s Alice and Alice Madness Returns. He’s been trying to get the third Alice game off the ground for years, opening a Patreon to help support the creation of a design and production plan, with the acknowledgment that it’s entirely up to EA whether or not a third Alice game is greenlit.
Now, with EA’s decision, McGee said the team has “exhausted” all options for a third Alice game, and that “there is no other way forward with the project.”
It will close the Alice: Asylum Patreon page and while the content will remain, it will no longer attempt to raise funds for Alice: Asyulm. McGee said that he is also saying goodbye to the Alice series completely, stating, “I’ve also come to an end with ‘Alice’ and with game production in general. I don’t have any other ideas or energy to apply to making a new game. from Alice.”
“I also have no interest in pursuing new game ideas within the context of the current game development environment,” McGee continued. “If anyone manages to convince EA to make ‘Asylum,’ I’d like to make it clear that I have no desire to be involved with that or any other Alice-related development going forward.”
McGee ended the Patreon note by thanking the backers for their years of support. “We knew that when we went on this adventure, failure was a possibility. But we wanted to believe impossible things, and we had fun doing it until the moment reality crept into our Wonderland,” said McGee. “It is often said that when one door closes, another opens. Trite but true. And I hope that for all of you, this closing brings other adventures and dreams to life.”
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