$9.99Alice: Madness Returns A Wonderland warped by grief
Alice survived the fire that took her family, but her mind did not. Back in a grim Victorian London, she returns to Wonderland for answers and finds it corrupted by the same madness. A dark, surreal action platformer with a story about grief that actually earns its darkness.
Is Alice: Madness Returns worth it?
Alice: Madness Returns is worth it if…
- you want a dark fairytale that is actually about grief, not just dressed in goth
- you enjoy 3D platformers and do not mind that jumping takes up most of the game
- you like hack and slash combat with strange, upgradeable weapons
Screenshots
A Wonderland gone wrong
Eleven years after the fire that killed her family, Alice leaves the asylum and finds London cold, grey and full of memories she cannot face. So she goes back to the one place that always helped: Wonderland. It is not the Wonderland you remember. Something has poisoned it, and each of its five chapters is a different twisted take on the familiar: the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar, the Red Queen, all still there, all wrong now. The art direction carries the whole thing. Every area looks and sounds different, and the details are deliberate: this is a broken mind rendered as a place, and it is beautiful and disturbing at the same time. The story underneath is about trauma and abuse, and it builds to a twist that recontextualizes everything.
Fighting with kitchenware and fury
When Wonderland turns on Alice, she turns back. Combat is third person hack and slash, and the arsenal is as strange as the world: the classic Vorpal Blade, a punishing Hobby Horse, an explosive Teapot Cannon, all upgradeable as you go. You float through the air mid-fight, shrink down or grow to towering size and crush enemies underfoot. The fights are violent and gory, and the game does not soften it. Some later enemies are spongy and the combat can frustrate more than it entertains at times, but swapping weapons in the middle of an aerial combo still feels good. Alice gets a new dress for each part of Wonderland, and each one comes with its own abilities, like floating on the fabric itself.
Is this game for you?
Can you play it without knowing the first game?
Yes. Madness Returns tells its own story from the ground up, and it stands alone. The original American McGee's Alice exists as a separate game, and some players pair the two, but nothing here requires it. If you only play one, this is the one to play.
Is it really as dark as people say?
Yes, and not just in tone. The story deals with death, abuse and trauma directly, and some of the themes are genuinely heavy, including references that are hard to read. The gore in combat is graphic too. This is a game for adults, despite the source material's reputation as a children's story.
How long is it and how does it pace?
Expect somewhere in the range of twenty hours for a first playthrough, split across five chapters. The pace is linear: you move through one distinct world after another, fighting, jumping and collecting Alice's scattered memories. Some players find the later chapters stretch a little long, but each new area looks different enough to keep the trip fresh.
Is the combat hard?
It is challenging rather than punishing. Enemies come in waves, some of them take a lot of punishment, and a few fights get tight, especially on higher difficulties. The controls occasionally miss their mark, which adds frustration on top. If you want a relaxed power fantasy, this is not it; if you like earning your wins, it fits.
What carries the game if the combat is just okay?
The world itself. The art direction, the twisted takes on familiar characters, the eerie soundtrack and the way every chapter builds its own identity out of Alice's psyche: that is what people remember years later. The gameplay is the vehicle; the place you are traveling through is the point.
