Alice: Madness Returns is back on Steam again, American McGee says ‘yikes’

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Just a couple days after Alice: Madness Returns disappeared without warning from Steam, it's back on the storefront, and it turns out that—as expected—the whole thing was a big mistake.

It's been a wild ride for American McGee's twisted take on Alice in Wonderland. It was delisted from Steam in 2016, apparently thanks to some verification problems with publisher Electronic Arts. It returned earlier this year but last week went poof yet again, this time with no notice or explanation.

Even American McGee, founder of developer Spicy Horse (and whose name adorns Madness Returns' predecessor) wasn't sure what happened, although he speculated that somebody, somewhere, had likely just pushed the wrong button.

As it turns out, he was correct. "One of our team mistakenly instructed Support to 'shut down everything' when the topic was 'Akaneiro'—wrongly thinking other games (like A:MR) had been moved to a Mysterious Inc account," McGee tweeted. "Yikes."

This snafu made the news. Hope @valvesoftware can help. One of our team mistakenly instructed Support to "shut down everything" when the topic was "Akaneiro" - wrongly thinking other games (like A:MR) had been moved to a Mysterious Inc account. Yikes.https://t.co/G0UBrdOYp2June 20, 2022

Mysterious Inc. is McGee's current "business headquarters," which offers products like books, art, and other merchandise for sale. Spicy Horse closed its doors in 2016.

While Madness Returns is returned, American McGee's Alice is still not available on Steam (although it wasn't available there in the first place), and unfortunately McGee doesn’t know where to get it these days. Grim m is still listed, but it's no longer being offered for sale; it's not clear whether that's connected to the Akaneiro accident, but it is a relatively recent change, as the Wayback Machine indicates that Grimm was available for purchase as recently as April 7. (It 's still available for purchase on GOG.) Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, the game that started this whole thing (and which I actually rather liked in its pre-release days) is also still listed on Steam but not actually available to buy.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.