Rovio has announced that it’s bringing the Angry Birds franchise to virtual reality (VR) next year.
“Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs” will be available early in the new year across all the major VR platforms, according to Rovio.
The game is being developed in conjunction with Resolution Games, a Swedish studio that recently raised $7.5 million to boost its VR and augmented reality (AR) game development. Indeed, Resolution Games was actually enlisted to help Rovio bring an Angry Birds AR game to market last year — “Angry Birds FPS: First Person Slingshot” arrived for Magic Leap glassed in October.
Rovio has actually developed an Angry Birds game for VR before. The Finnish company demoed a couple of Angry Birds games on Samsung’s Gear VR back in 2016, but nothing further seems to have come of that foray.
“Angry Birds lends itself perfectly to VR, where players can experience the already highly engaging characters and gameplay mechanics in a much more tangible and immersive way than ever,” noted Resolution Games CEO Tommy Palm. “Just as Angry Birds was applauded for its intuitive controls and gameplay on mobile, we feel Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs will continue that legacy for VR.”
While VR is increasingly infiltrating into all manner of domains, gaming (and porn!) remains one of the core markets for the technology. Angry Birds may not be the powerhouse it once was in the gaming realm, but it still counts nearly 9 million daily active users, according to Rovio’s recent Q2 financials, while gaming represented the vast majority of the company’s $80 million revenue for the quarter. Thus, it makes sense that Rovio is pushing the Angry Birds brand in the VR sphere.
