McGee’s 2011 American classic Alice: Madness Returns has once again been pulled from sale on Steam, just a few months after it returned to the service after a long absence. The adventure game was unavailable for several years after EA’s DRM issues caused the game to be pulled from sale on the Steam store after it was moved to the EA Origin Marketplace. It wasn’t until February 2022 that it finally returned, with the nasty DRM removed, and now it’s gone again.
Alice: Madness Returns is a delightfully dark and prolonged version of the Alice in Wonderland story, with a story that divides its time between the dirty streets of Victorian London and the colorful fantasy of Wonderland. Now the title, the brainchild of former Doom and Quake developer American McGee, has been pulled from sale on Steam with a message that it was made at the request of the publisher.
mcgee himself i went to twitter, stating that he believes the title was mistakenly removed when another game from developer Spicy Horse was withdrawn from sale. Acaneiro: Demon Hunters was supposed to be pulled from the market because “it was broken,” says McGee, but every other Spicy Horse game was accidentally dropped at the same time.
The game, which has a “very positive” rating on Steam, has run into trouble on a number of occasions: in addition to a lengthy Steam outage, McGee himself infringed a copyright claim while streaming the game on YouTube. I recently played it after the news of its return to the Steam store and had a great time enjoying its quirky dark fairy tale forms and surprisingly solid combat (albeit with a decidedly clunky camera).
It would be a shame if the fantasy game didn’t return to the store, though McGee has contacted Valve support to try and resolve the issue, so it’s likely to be back in stock soon. However, whether or not we see a third game in the series, Alice: Asylum, is a more uncertain prospect.
Source : PC Gamesn
