Angry Birds becoming turn-based RPG

Angry Birds developer Rovio has revealed that its next game in the franchise will be a turn based RPG.

Titled Angry Birds Epic, it will soft launch in Canada, Australia and New Zealand later this week with a roll out to other territories at a later date.

Although it's not describing the initial launch as an alpha or early access build, Rovio states that the game will be refined before launching globally. Initially targeting iOS, the final version will also be available for Android and Windows Phone 8 systems.

The notoriously successful bird-flinging game will be transformed into an RPG featuring a crafting system, a challenging endgame mode and a focus on narrative. Resources for the crafting system will either be picked up in the game or bought from a store through an in-app purchase system.

Rovio released a teaser trailer revealing a vague notion of the theme for Epic last week.

The Angry Birds series has spread its wings to cover several different themes and genres including a cart racer in the form of Angry Birds Go, spin off Bad Piggies and a very successful licensing deal with Star Wars.

An estimated 12 million copies of Angry Birds have been downloaded from the Apple App Store alone with the series now on practically every system imaginable. Angry Birds Star Wars was even one of the Playstation 4's launch titles.