American McGee, the creator the Alice franchise, makes a strange plea to Electronic Arts asking for support to help make the "impossible" Alice: Asylum happen. The story of the Alice franchise's creation over the past 20 years and more is bizarre, even for the video game industry. Yet American McGee is determined to continue the series, with Alice: Asylum inching forward. Yet McGee's strange plea to Electronic Arts may belie deeper issues with making Alice: Asylum a reality.
It's been over a decade since the release of the most recent Alice game in the franchise, Alice: Madness Returns. Like prior Alice games, Alice: Madness Returns was published by IP-owner Electronic Arts, but it would prove to be the final game release in the series. Despite McGee's best efforts, Alice developer Spicy Horse closed in 2016. McGee has instead turned to crowdfunding in an effort to start a new project.
The latest creation stemming from McGee's lucrative Patreon has now been shared online. It's a 414-page design bible for what McGee's current project, Alice: Asylum, will entail. A trailer coinciding with the design bible's release has also confirmed a development studio has partnered with McGee for Alice: Asylum's creation. It's named Virtuous and is best known for support work and port development. There's just one issue, though, which is that EA still owns the Alice IP.
At the end of the Alice: Asylum video, McGee adds a strange plea to EA. EA's logo fades into view and the message "Let's Make Impossible Things Happen Together" is shown on-screen. Some might assume that including EA's logo on-screen implies McGee is already working with the publisher to make Alice: Asylum happen. Unfortunately, it seems likely EA is entirely uninvolved at this point.
On one hand, McGee has successfully made multiple Alice: Asylum projects over the years. His passion for the project is real. On the other hand, the gaming industry has many examples of crowdfunding efforts failing to come to fruition, and it's possible this will be the same case.
What can't be denied is that McGee has created both a script and a design bible for Alice: Asylum. That much is true. Whether Virtuous is actually signed on to make a game or only tacitly involved in the project isn't clear. And EA's involvement, or whether it would ever be interested in returning to Alice at all, is the biggest question of all. Alice fans may want to maintain some skepticism about Alice: Asylum.