Next Angry Birds game may let you play as the pigs

The developer of the Angry Birds series of games, Rovio, has aimed to bring in a little bit of variety in the catapult-launching game with newer versions introducing new levels, abilities and tricks. However, it now seems you'll be able to play as the pigs in the coming version. Pocket-Lint reports that maker of Angry Birds, Rovio, will introduce a new twist in the next version of the massively popular game, where you would fire pigs at the birds.

The game, expected some time before Christmas, will be featuring a number of different pigs to fire, much like the different birds in the previous games, with different powers and capabilities. Though it isn’t certain, it can be that the main idea of the game would be to protect the eggs that the pigs have stolen from the birds by firing the pigs at them. Not many details are known about the game, and no screenshots have been released yet.

The Angry birds series has been undeniably successful. Starting with its debut on iOS devices and eventual ports into other platforms, the franchise has proved extremely popular. At one point, the Playstation 3 version of Angry Birds even became the best selling game on PSN. The company announced 1 billion downloads for Angry Birds in May. The download count, however, includes all platforms and all the Angry Birds games that Rovio has made, which are: Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Space, as well as the free, light versions of the games. According to Mashable, Rovio communications specialist Sini Matikainen stated in an email, "We are so thankful to all of our fans for their support, and we can’t wait for them to see what we have coming up."

Rovio has seen massive success with the series. The first game debuted for iOS devices in 2009 for $0.99, with the Android release shortly after, which was free and ad-supported. When the game was in development, the folks at Rovio liked the idea of building wingless and legless birds. To choose an enemy for the birds, they thought pigs were appropriate as the swine flu epidemic was in the news at the time. Rovio partnered with Chillingo to publish the first Angry Birds app to the iOS App Store. After that, Rovio self-published all their Angry Birds titles, with the exception of the PlayStation Portable version of the game, which was published under the production of Abstraction Games and distrubuted by Chillingo.

After the regular Angry Birds gained the enthusiasm that it did, Rovio launched a Halloween special under Angry Birds Seasons in October 2010, again first only for iOS; Android and Symbian versions of the game came in December of that year. In March 2011, Rovio tied up with 20th Century Fox to bring Angry Birds Rio. And finally, in March of this year, they launched Angry Birds Space with all new gameplay featuring new physics and gravity mechanics.