Angry Birds (video game)

This article is about the original video game. For the franchise it spawned, see Angry Birds.

Angry Birds
A square-shaped game image of an angry, limbless red cartoon bird on a blue outwards-striped background. The Rovio Entertainment logo is inside a white banner located in the top right corner.
Current app icon for the original release
Developer(s)Rovio Entertainment
Publisher(s)Chillingo (2009/2012)
Rovio Entertainment
Producer(s)Raine Mäki
Harro Grönberg
Mikko Häkkinen
Designer(s)Jaakko Iisalo
Programmer(s)Tuomo Lehtinen
Artist(s)Tuomas Erikoinen
Composer(s)Ari Pulkkinen
SeriesAngry Birds
Engine
Platform(s)
Platforms
Release
December 1, 2009
  • Maemo, iOS
    • FIN: December 1, 2009
    • WW: December 11, 2009[1][2]
  • Palm webOS
    • WW: August 2010
  • Android
    • WW: October 15, 2010
  • Symbian
    • WW: October 22, 2010
  • PlayStation Network, Windows, Macintosh
    • WW: January 2011
  • World Wide Web
    • WW: May 2011
  • Nook, Windows Phone
    • WW: June 2011
  • Roku
    • WW: July 2011
  • Nokia Asha
    • WW: November 2011
  • Bada
    • WW: January 2012
  • BlackBerry
    • WW: August 2012
Genre(s)
Mode(s)Single-player

Angry Birds, also retrospectively known as Angry Birds Classic, is a 2009 physics-based casual puzzle video game developed by Finnish video game developer Rovio Entertainment, and the first of the Angry Birds series. Inspired primarily by a sketch of stylized wingless birds, the game was originally released for iOS and Maemo mobile devices starting in December 2009,[1][2] utlising touchscreen controls. By October 2010, 12 million copies of the game had been purchased from the Apple App Store and Nokia Ovi Store, prompting Rovio to port Angry Birds to various other mobile devices as well as to home video game consoles, personal computers and others by 2011.

The gameplay of Angry Birds revolves around players using a slingshot to launch the birds at green pigs stationed in or around various structures, with the intent of defeating all of the pigs on the playing field. As players advance through the game, new types of birds become available, some with special abilities. Rovio supported Angry Birds with numerous free updates over the years which added additional game content; many special and themed games were also released thereafter, beginning with Angry Birds Seasons in 2010.

Angry Birds was very well received critically and commercially for its simple and addictive gameplay, comical style, and low price, turning into a mainstream phenomenon[6] during 2010 and 2011, and has been considered one of the greatest video games of all time.[7][8][9] It led to the creation of the Angry Birds media franchise consisting of merchandise of its characters, feature-length animated films, and more. The game was followed by a sequel in 2015, Angry Birds 2, and altogether there have been over five billion downloads of the Angry Birds game series across all platforms.[a][10] In early 2019, several Angry Birds games, including the original, were removed from the iOS App Store and Android Google Play Store. The original Angry Birds was remade and released as Rovio Classics: Angry Birds on March 20, 2022,[11] four years after the original was removed.[12] Rovio Classics was removed from Google Play on Android on February 23, 2023, and renamed to Red's First Flight on iOS on the same date.[13]

  1. ^ a b "Angry Birds Review". IGN.com. December 12, 2009. Archived from the original on May 4, 2010. Retrieved June 6, 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Angry Birds". Talk.Maemo.org. February 11, 2010. Retrieved March 24, 2011.
  3. ^ "SDL Testimonials". Galaxygameworks.com. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference xdadevelopers-rovioclassicsangrybirds was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "BlackBerry shows off some of its 70,000 new third-party apps, including Skype, Rdio, Kindle, and Whatsapp". The Verge. January 30, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  6. ^ Halliday, Josh (November 24, 2010). "Angry Birds to hit games consoles". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved September 11, 2024.
  7. ^ Van Camp, Jeffrey (November 23, 2010). "Israeli Angry Birds satire goes viral". digitaltrends.com. Retrieved November 26, 2010.
  8. ^ Shaer, Matthew (November 29, 2010). "Angry Birds bound for Xbox, PlayStation". Archived from the original on December 4, 2010. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
  9. ^ Erik Holthe Eriksen; Azamat Abdymomunov; Dagens Næringsliv (February 18, 2011). "Angry Birds will be bigger than Mickey Mouse and Mario. Is there a success formula for apps?". MIT Entrepreneurship review. Archived from the original on September 15, 2018. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
  10. ^ "Rovio games have surpassed 5 billion total downloads!". Rovio. April 14, 2022. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  11. ^ Derrick, Connor (April 2022). "Angry Birds gets the remaster treatment courtesy of a re-release from developer Rovio, out today for iOS and Android". www.pocketgamer.com.
  12. ^ "'Angry Birds' is celebrating ten years on the App Store". December 12, 2019.
  13. ^ Peters, Jay (February 21, 2023). "The classic version of Angry Birds is being delisted from Google Play but renamed on the App Store". The Verge. Retrieved February 21, 2023.


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