American McGee Is Building an Alice Spiritual Successor

A strong r/Games post is resurfacing GamesRadar+'s interview with American McGee, who says he is developing a spiritual successor to Alice: Madness Returns after EA rejected Alice: Asylum in 2023. The project is not framed as an official Alice sequel, but McGee makes clear that he is intentionally building a connective thread for fans who thought the series was over.

According to GamesRadar+, the new work is an official Plushie Dreadfuls game set in a semi-alternate universe populated by the stuffed characters from McGee's business with Yeni Zhang. McGee says the project centers on James, a new orphan protagonist, but he also explains that the opening is explicitly linked to the end of Madness Returns. That is why he is comfortable calling it a spiritual sequel.

The legal distinction is part of the story. GamesRadar+ quotes McGee saying there is an "obvious overlap" with Alice, but not one that should cause trouble "with the lawyers." That wording matters because fans have spent years wondering whether any continuation was possible after EA passed on Alice: Asylum. McGee is signaling that he wants emotional and thematic continuity without presenting the new game as an EA-owned revival.

GamesRadar+ also reports that McGee credits a December pop-up shop in Tokyo and handwritten notes from Japanese fans with pushing him back toward game development. He said the response was moving enough that it convinced him he still had stories to tell. In that sense, the project is both a commercial return and a personal attempt at closure after the failure to get a third Alice game approved.

The Reddit attention is understandable because this is exactly the kind of update cult followings wait years to hear. There is still no indication of a release window or finished build, but McGee's comments are more concrete than vague nostalgia. For fans of Alice: Madness Returns, the important takeaway is that the creator is actively developing a new dark fantasy project that deliberately carries some of the series' emotional DNA forward.