Rovio Announces Angry Birds Epic, A Turn-Based RPG

There was a time when I was over Angry Birds. Something about the combination of its seemingly unearned popularity and its ubiquity on the ugly clothes of equally ugly children that I would see while out and about really turned me off. But then Rovio put out Angry Birds Star Wars and I started to come back around. Last December’s release of Angry Birds Go!, a capable and great-looking downhill kart-racer, further convinced me that this Angry Birds thing was more than just a fad: the people making these titles were legitimately great game developers, and this was a franchise worth paying attention to.

But after Rovio released the above teaser trailer last week, the company seems to have lifted the veil on what they’ve got up their sleeves. Kotaku reports that the game is called Angry Birds Epic, a turn-based, strategic RPG, and that, right there, is enough to get me supremely stoked.

The post says that an early iOS version of game is going to be soft-launching in Australia and Canada this very week, while the finished version will head to the rest of the world later this year for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 8. Additionally, it’ll offer up “turn-based combat and an extensive crafting system.”

The post elaborates on the crafting situation, which seems to be one of the big moneymakers for the game:

“Sounds like crafting will be an important part of the game as well, with players making armor, potions, and weapons using resources either won in the game or purchased via real currency.”

I’m definitely keen to give this game a shot, mostly based on how great the aforementioned Angry Birds Go! turned out to be. That said, I already have a good idea as to how this game will go: you’ll be subjected to ads during loading screens, sponsored items, and progress impediments that strongly urge you to drop bits of cash to get the items you need to keep going. It’s the freemium model, and it does very well for app developers.

I wouldn’t mind shelling out a few bucks to get a version of the game that doesn’t require such microtransactions and lets me just play a pretty, fun turn-based RPG. I’m not holding out hope that this’ll be the case, but I’m going to keep my fingers crossed. Either way, I’m definitely going to grab this when it’s released for Android later this year.

[Source: Kotaku]