Angry Birds was one of the “must have” apps of the early 2010s, alongside Doodle Jump and Cut the Rope. Whilst many of the game’s peers have long since been lost from the public consciousness, Angry Birds has somehow managed to cling onto relevancy well into the 2020s, in fact, it may be more popular than ever. With numerous sequels, spin-off titles, and even two widely popular movies that brought in heaps at the box office. It seemed that the game’s developer, Rovio, was content to ride the wave of popularity of their smash hit app.
One of their most popular additions to the series was Angry Birds Epic, an RPG developed by Chimera Entertainment and published by Rovio. The game was released in 2014, and it featured vastly different gameplay in comparison to its parent title. It turns out that’s just what was needed, as it received favorable scores from sites such as Metacritic aggregating reviewer scores to give it 70 overall with an audience score of 7.3. The gameplay is similar to a lot of other RPGs, players could choose three characters of different classes, moving them about a top down map and engaging in turn-based combat.
Unfortunately for those looking to play it now, it was taken off of the app store in 2019 and silently discontinued. Rovio later stated that they simply wanted to stop development on the game to focus on more important titles. Those who have it still downloaded can still play, but there is no way to play the arena or the events.
However, there has been a glimmer of hope for some fans who have chosen to believe Sega’s $1 billion acquisition of Rovio, which was confirmed earlier today, could be the answer to their prayers. A change in management could mean a change of heart about the games’ development — it was one of the most popular Angry Birds titles, after all.
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by u/Subdown-011 from discussion Sega confirms the acquisition of Angry Birds creator Rovio
in pcgaming
Of course, nothing has been confirmed yet, but maybe Sega will see the demand for the game and begin development on it once more. It’s unlikely we’ll hear anything for a while as the company behind Sonic The Hedgehog are probably busy sorting out the more important aspects of the deal. They’ll probably express their plans moving forward in the coming weeks and they may want to focus on the games Rovio already had in development first, but maybe then we’ll know for sure if there’s any hope for the RPG.
The fate of Angry Birds Epic hangs in the balance, nothing has changed as of right now, it’s still not available on the app store or anywhere else. Regardless, Sega’s acquisition has given a renewed hope that it could make a comeback, it was clear that Rovio had all but given up on the game.