Creator of “American McGee’s Alice” and “Alice: Madness Returns“, American McGee has announced a return to game development, announcing Plushie Dreadfuls: THE GAME as a new project set around Wonderland.
In a video shared on X, McGee said fan reactions during a recent Tokyo pop-up event helped push him back toward making games, and confirmed he has begun early talks with a developer to build a playable demo while he works on the project’s story and design.
McGee addressed long-running requests for a new Alice title directly, saying the rights situation around the IP makes it “simply impossible” to produce a new game in that series. Instead, he’s shifting the creative focus toward a Wonderland-inspired concept within the Plushie Dreadfuls universe.
“Fortunately, we have managed to bring Wonderland into Plushie Dreadfuls,” McGee said in the video, before clarifying the direction of the crossover:
“Actually, it’s the other way around. The story I’m working on now has the universal Plushie Dreadfuls living inside of Wonderland.
We have just started talking with a developer who will help us build a demo for this new game concept.
It has been an incredibly successful year for Plushy Dreadfuls, and I hope that you will continue to show your love and support for what we are doing there because it would help us to bring life to these new ideas.”
American McGee
What is Plushie Dreadfuls?
Plushie Dreadfuls is McGee’s long-running plush brand under his company, Mysterious.
Launched as a small-batch line, the project built its identity around themed plush characters designed to resonate with personal struggles and identity topics—an approach that helped it develop a dedicated fan community well beyond traditional collectibles.
Over time, Plushie Dreadfuls expanded into more overt character-driven collections, including Wonderland-inspired designs tied to McGee’s broader creative history.
The brand currently sells a dedicated “Victorian McGee’s Alice” line, which reimagines familiar figures such as Alice, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter in Plushie Dreadfuls’ signature style.
The Alice game that was never greenlit: Alice: Asylum
After American McGee’s Alice (2000) and Alice: Madness Returns (2011), McGee spent years trying to pitch a third entry titled Alice: Asylum—a project he developed publicly with supporters through Patreon. In February 2023, he shared that the team had completed a v1.0 Design Bible, presenting it as the core creative package for the proposed game.
That effort ended in April 2023, when McGee said EA—holder of the rights to the Alice game—declined to fund the project and showed no interest in licensing the IP. In his “End of the Adventure” post, McGee described the Design Bible as a 414-page PDF outlining the full vision for the “third chapter” of the series, and confirmed the pitch had reached its endpoint.
The decision meant Alice: Asylum was never greenlit—and McGee said he would step away from video game development after EA declined to move forward. His new announcement positions this return as a reversal of that 2023 exit, sparked by renewed fan energy and a new creative direction built around the Plushie Dreadfuls universe.
