American McGee's Grimm Goes Episodic In 2008

When we think of American McGee, we try not to think about the last couple of games he smeared his name with - (S)crapland and Bad Day L.A. Instead, we think about Alice, that insanely twisted fairy tale action game he became famous for back in 2000. "We want more of that!", that's what we're thinking! And that's what we're hoping to get from his next twisted fairy tale project, American McGee's Grimm. We briefly wrote about it a few months ago (story), although we still had no idea when to expect it at that time. Now we have. Sort of.

After the first preview of Grimm was published by PC Gamer, McGee can finally start talking about his new game, and one of the first things we learn is that Grimm will be an episodic project, currently planned as a 24 part series. The first episode should be released in 2008 by GameTap, who can pride themselves with having delivered the entire first season of Telltale's episodic Sam & Max adventure game.

As expected, American McGee's Grimm will be a dark retelling of several Brothers Grimm (and maybe other) fairy tales, completely unlike the fluffy, "politically correct" variations promoted by the likes of Disney. So forget everything you saw in cartoons about tales like Cinderella, Snow White, or Pinocchio. To get an idea about the mood of the game, today we have another couple of disturbing artworks in our gallery, once again done by Spicy Horse artist Lin Ran (Spicy Horse being the new studio that McGee opened in Shanghai).

There's still much to be revealed about this game, but from the little we've seen so far, we're inclined to believe that the spiritual sequel to American McGee's Alice is finally coming.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)