Rovio’s Angry Birds defined the early days of mobile games. Now, the studio has set their sights on consumer VR with their next installment of their incredibly popular pig-smashing title. Called Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs, the game is set to debut early next year on “all major VR platforms,” the studio says.
The made-for-VR game is currently under development by Rovio and VR/AR studio Resolution Games, the minds behind VR titles such as Wonderglade and the Bait! series.
While we don’t know much about gameplay mechanics yet, it’s possible the Magic Leap One release of Angry Birds: FPS – First Person Slingshot may hold some answers. Resolution Games was also involved in its making, a title that does away with the standard side-scrolling gameplay for a more immersive first-person experience of physically shooting a slingshot at the 3D piggy fort.
Here’s Rovio and Resolution’s description of Angry Birds VR:
“Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs will allow fans of the incredibly popular franchise to swoop in on a remote island to take on the infamous green pigs with the help of their favorite Angry Birds characters.”
Surprisingly enough, this isn’t the first time Rovio has jumped into virtual reality with some flavor of Angry Birds for VR. The company demoed a first-person prototype on Gear VR as far back as 2015 at the Rock in Rio festival that summer, although it never saw public release afterwards. The studio is also working on an upcoming VR arcade experience for its the release of The Angry Birds Movie 2 film.
Angry Birds VR is slated to arrive in early 2019 on “all major VR platforms.” The studios are staying mum on exactly which platforms these will be, although we’d expect to see at very least a respective versions for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR, and possibly also mobile VR platforms such as Oculus Go, Google Daydream, and maybe even Oculus Quest when it launches next year.
