American McGee says the story of his Alice spiritual successor will tie to the end of the second game

American McGee says the spiritual successor to his Alice series will connect to its storyline in some way.

Back in 2023, McGee told fans to stop asking him about a new Alice game after the game designer claimed that EA had quashed his plans to make a third title in the cult series.

In December 2025, however, McGee announced on X that he was working on a game based on his Plushie Dreadfuls line of plush rabbits, and that it would be a “spiritual successor” to Alice which would connect to its story in some way.

In a new interview with GamesRadar, McGee has now reiterated his plan to tie the Plushie Dreadfuls game to Alice and its sequel Alice: Madness Returns, and do so in a way that doesn’t annoy the Alice IP holder, Electronic Arts.

“I’ve made an explicit point to link the start of the Plushie Dreadfuls game with the end of Madness Returns,” McGree explained, “and in doing that, you [can] call that a spiritual sequel.

“There’s a kind of obvious overlap, but not one that gets us in trouble with the lawyers.”

McGee explained that the Plushie Dreadfuls game – which stars a protagonist called James – would “achieve a certain level of closure” for him, and he hopes it will do the same for fans of the Alice series who were hoping for a third game.

“Alice, in some ways, she was drawing off of past experiences that I had as a child,” McGee said. “With writing the character for James, it’s a very similar thing. He’s an orphan, but he’s been adopted into this kind of dark, evil family.”

In 2023, McGee explained to fans that “EA owns Alice and they control it”, and that the publisher had turned down the opportunity to make his planned third game in the series, Alice: Asylum.

“If you want to do something with the IP, you are free to do that – just like you are with all other IPs – but you get into trouble when you start trying to sell the stuff you create,” he wrote at the time. “Additional questions on this stuff should be directed at EA. I really want some space from Alice and questions related to it.”

McGee’s career started at id Software, where he was a level designer on numerous games in the Doom and Quake series.

After leaving id he joined Electronic Arts and became creative director of American McGee’s Alice, a dark and violent take on the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland novels released in 2000.

In McGee’s game, Alice’s family die in a house fire. Five years later, while lying comatose in a psychiatric clinic, Alice mentally returns to Wonderland, which has been made to look surreal and disfigured by her mind.

The 2011 sequel Alice: Madness Returns saw Alice discharged from the clinic and living in a home for mentally traumatised orphans. Continuing to suffer hallucinations of Wonderland, she enters it again to face a new evil and find out more about her past.