Angry Birds Journey Soft Launch Takes Flight

Recently, the Finnish developer Rovio has soft-launched Angry Birds Journey, a new casual puzzle game that will see the classic slingshot gameplay return to the series.

Rovio revealed the development phase in a blog post, confirming that the game will be available to download in the US, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Canada and Poland across the App Store and Google Play.

Angry Birds Journey is free-to-play and will see the birds face up to new levels and challenges, with several fan favorite characters set to return. According to Rovio, Angry Birds Journey has added many new faces and a new art style to appeal to more players, while retaining the original feel of the series.

In addition, Rovio said that during the soft launch phase of the game, they will monitor and react to player feedback of Angry Birds Journey to make improvements.

Shortly after the game's launch, Rovio has subsequently confirmed to PG.biz that Angry Birds Journey is a rebrand of Angry Birds Casual, which originally went through an early market testing period from March to May last year.

In Angry Birds Casual, instead of attacking their normal nemesis – the Bad Piggies – the birds partnered with their adversaries to free caged Hatchlings. By completing levels, coins could be spent to unlock in-game rewards. An update added in player profiles, avatars, mystery boxes, on top of new effects and visuals. It’s not clear how many of Angry Birds Casual’s elements will carry over to Angry Birds Journey.

If the game does make it out of soft launch successfully, it will be the 19th official Angry Birds game to launch since the first made its debut in December 2009. No details of an official release date were shared by Rovio at this time. 

Despite the number of spin-offs, Rovio is extremely strict about the quality of the Angry Birds franchise. Just before the Christmas break, Rovio confirmed that it had ceased development of its previously soft-launched turn-based RPG Angry Birds Legends. It seems Rovio’s bar for a full release is set quite high, as only a couple of months prior to this did the studio scrap Angry Birds Tennis following another unsuccessful soft launch period.