The psychological platformer Alice: Madness Returns from American McGee was removed from Steam just a few months after returning to the platform. The 2000 cult classic American McGee’s Alice and its 2011 sequel portray a dark and violent version of a typical story Alice in Wonderland . In March, Alice: Madness Returns became available on Steam again after five years of removal, but now the game has been removed from the platform again.
As a direct continuation of “Alice” by American McGee, “Alice: The Return of Madness” follows orphan Alice Liddell after her release from the Rutledge Orphanage. Vivid hallucinations return Alice to Wonderland, which is threatened by a hostile entity named Hell Train. Alice: Madness Returns, combining elements of action, platformer and psychological horror, allows players to fight for the salvation of Wonderland, while simultaneously facing Alice’s traumatic past. Publisher Electronic Arts removed the game from Steam back in 2016 to encourage purchases in its own digital distribution service Origin. Alice: Madness Returns then returned to Steam in 2022, but the sequel to American McGee’s Alice was removed from Steam again.
As the developer of American McGee announced on Twitter (via PC Gamer), Alice: Madness Returns was excluded from Steam just a few months after its return to the platform. According to the creator, a member of the McGee Spicy Horse studio asked to remove the name Akaneiro: Demon Hunters 2013 from the digital platform. However, instead, Steam removed all of the developer’s games, including Alice: Madness Returns. Thus, the removal of the name was a simple misunderstanding, and American McGee asks Valve, the Steam developer, to help sort out the situation.
Although Alice: Madness Returns is temporarily unavailable on Steam, a new video showing Alice: Asylum recently teased the planned third installment of the series. The video, taken from the game’s design bible, uses concept art to detail the storylines and gameplay goals set for the third “Wonderland” experience. Apparently Alice: Asylum will explore the five stages of grief, probably turning these psychological concepts into confusing landscapes and terrifying enemies that Alice will face. Nevertheless, American McGee has yet to get the rights to start creating the third Alice game, so for now the project is purely theoretical.
Alice: Madness Returns has only recently returned to Steam, but the cult classic adventure in Wonderland is again unavailable on the Valve platform. However, this incident seems to be a simple misunderstanding, so we hope that the psychological platformer will return soon. Alice: Madness Returns from American McGee is a popular and unique interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s work, and gamers should be able to experience it for themselves on any platform.
