Angry Birds has been one of the most popular games to ever launch on mobile smartphone operating systems. It, along with Plants vs. Zombies, really proved to people that smartphones and tablets are viable options for casual, on the go gaming. The game has been nominated for numerous awards over the years, and an uncanny amount of variants have been released. Hoping to ride the same success as Zynga, Rovio released Angry Birds Friends for Facebook, as well. It has seen over 60 million installations and 15 million monthly active users. Going back to its mobile roots, however, Rovio announced some big news during its earnings call earlier this month.
Angry Birds Friends will be available on mobile THIS THURSDAY! twitpic.com/cmvyof #AngryBirdsFriends
– Angry Birds (@AngryBirds) April 29, 2013
Earlier this month, Rovio announced its revenue for 2012, reporting $200 million in revenue, but that’s not all it had up its sleeve for this month. Also during the earnings call, the company announced that it would be bringing Angry Birds Friends to Android, but did not give a clear release date. In a tweet on Monday, however, Rovio announced that Angry Birds Friends will be making its way to both iOS and Android this Thursday, May 2nd. The game will be free, but will offer in-game purchases for power-ups and other similar advantages. It’s worth noting that this is the first Angry Birds variant that will be free and offer the entire game. Previous iterations offered simply a few levels for free, and required users to purchase the full version to go on in the game.
For those unfamiliar with the title, Angry Birds Friends is essentially the same as other iterations of the game, but allows you to play against your friends and families. In order to increase the competition some, though, four new abilities are available that change the gameplay just a bit. Power-ups allow you to view exactly what angle your bird will fly at, increase the size of your bird, and increase the speed of each shot. Those power-ups are not free, though, and require Bird Coins to purchase, which we imagine will be integrated with in-app purchases on mobile devices.
Do you still play Angry Birds or has it grown a bit stale? Let us know down in the comments!