American McGee announces retirement from game development

With EA's rejection of Alice: Asylum, American McGee is moving on from game development.

EA
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The Alice video game franchise has been around more than two decades now, and while the franchise has a dedicated fan base, it hasn’t seen a new entry since 2011. This isn’t for a lack of trying, As developer American McGee has attempted to get a sequel off the ground, to no avail. His latest attempt was Alice: Asylum, which was recently rejected by EA. Following that debacle, McGee has announced his retirement from video game development.

American McGee announced his retirement from video games in a post to his Patreon, which had been used to fund pre-production work on Alice: Asylum. In the post, he explains that he and the team at Spicy Horse had put together a 414-page design bible that outlined their ideas and goals for the new Alice game, which the company presented to Electronic Arts, which holds the IP. EA turned down the pitch and also said that it has no interest in licensing out its Alice IP. After the frustrating ordeal, American McGee decided it was time to call it quits.

Alice leaping in the air between trees with large mushrooms on them.

Source: EA

Alice: Asylum would have been the first new Alice game in over a decade, with Alice: Madness Returns having been released back in 2011. Since then, the story was continued with the Alice: Otherlands animated shorts in 2015. American McGee first revealed his plans for a new game, Alice: Asylum, in 2017. McGee has now stated that if another Alice game does get greenlit in the future, he won’t be part of it. He says he will now focus on his family business, Mysterious.

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Donovan is a young journalist from Maryland, who likes to game. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge Scream nerd and film fanatic that will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

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