Madness: Alice Returns—the second game in American McGee’s wonderfully twisted adaptation of Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland—has finally made a return on Steam after nearly six years.
The game was originally delisted from Valve’s client sometime in late 2016 thanks to some squiffy verification issues on EA’s end. While the game has been available on Origin the whole time, people were still keen to have the game in their Steam library. Keys have been going for a wild variety of prices during its absence, with some as high as $200. It looks like the game went back on sale on February 28, with one Steam review celebrating the game’s return writing: “I literally spent over 100 dollars just so I could play this game (while it was taken off sale), only for it to come back cheaper. Was it worth it though? Yes.”
I never got around to finishing Madness Returns myself, but what I did play back in the day was mighty enjoyable. It’s a little rough around the edges and platforming can be frustrating, but it’s fantastically moody and a whole lot of fun. Logan Decker gave the game an 82 in his Alice: Madness Returns review, writing “even in its darkest moments, Madness Returns plays enjoyably with magical grace and beauty—even Alice’s spirited pirouettes from one platform to another shed blue and teal leaves. This is the real triumph of Madness Returns: you could blot out the game’s dialogue and narrative, and the demented sets and gorgeous visuals would tell a mesmerizing story on their own.”
It’s now been over a decade since Madness Returns was released, with the series lying mostly dormant until recently. Last year, American McGee released a comprehensive pitch package for a third game in the series, and it was announced at the beginning of this year that an Alice TV series written by David Hayter is currently in the works.
