McGee: Alice won't go "over the top"

American McGee has told Eurogamer that his new game Alice: Madness Returns will not squirt blood and gore "for the sake of getting an M rating".

Quite the opposite: McGee said his game would favour "adult" and "mature" topics over injections of puberty for a new console audience.

"No, no no no. This is definitely an M-rated title," McGee told Eurogamer. "The first Alice, we never set out to get an M-rating. It was more about trying to be true to the fiction that we created from the well known books.

"This time around it's the same thing: we're trying to be true to this version of Alice that we've created and the world in which she lives and the problems she has. That means we are going to be dealing with what you could call adult or mature topics; she's not living a happy or easy life.

"But, that being said," he added, "we're not trying to go over the top and use blood and gore and violence just for the sake of getting an M rating. This will be an M title, but it's going to be in the sense of mature, adult content, not over the top violent, horror content."

American McGee's Alice was published on PC 10 years ago by EA. A decade on and EA is ready for a sequel; American McGee himself unveiled Alice: Madness Returns at a publisher showcase during the summer.

Alice: Madness Returns will be released on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011.

We'll be publishing our full interview with American McGee about Alice: Madness Returns next week.