Game designer American McGee announced the end of work on Alice: Asylum – the third part of the alternative adventures of Alice in Wonderland. He shared the details in a post on social media.
McGee spoke about plans to create Alice: Asylum back in 2013. Since then, the game designer and the team have been thinking over the details of the game and trying to find funding for development – a complete book with all the concept art was even offered to the fans to evaluate. McGee approached Electronic Arts, which owns the rights to the Alice franchise, but the company refused to create the title, citing poor market research results. In addition, EA has stated that it is not going to license the development of Alice: Asylum to third-party studios – the franchise is an important element of the company’s portfolio. What will happen to the developments created by the McGee team is unknown.
After Electronic Arts’ refusal, McGee stated that he no longer had the strength to try to start production of the sequel again. Therefore, he will retire from the video game industry and focus on his family.
The original American McGee’s Alice was released in 2000 and tells an alternate history of Alice in Wonderland with an emphasis on a dark plot. The game received high ratings from critics (85 out of 100) and users (7.9 out of 10), as well as a direct sequel to Alice: Madness Returns. The second game in the series also became popular – critics rated it 75 out of 100, and the players gave it 8.4 out of 10.
