Martin JørgensenDownload Angry Birds free for PC and relive the nostalgia
Angry Birds is wildly entertaining and has even made many iPhone owners addicted to the game. The premise is simple: you have a set number of angry birds at your disposal, and it’s your job to launch them from a giant slingshot toward structures where your enemies are hiding. Destroy the buildings with the birds you have to clear each level.
The game was also recently re-released as Angry Birds Reloaded. It isn’t free-to-play, but it’s included with an Apple Arcade subscription.
The story behind Angry Birds and the studio that built it
The company behind Angry Birds is Rovio Entertainment—and saying they know a thing or two about entertainment is an understatement. Founded in 2003 (originally named Relude; an investor later prompted the change to Rovio), the studio—whose name means “bonfire” in Finnish—set out in 2005 to produce a lot of spil for mobile phones.
Four years later (and 51 games in), things looked bleak for Rovio as it was running out of money after mass-producing titles that didn’t land. Their 52nd game was Angry Birds, and it quickly became one of the most-downloaded titles on Apple’s App Store.
Nine years after that (in 2018), Rovio surpassed 4 billion downloads across all its games, and on their website they describe how their games have been played all over the world—from Antarctica to space stations in orbit.
Gameplay 101: how to beat the piggies
Angry Birds is user-friendly in many ways (which helps explain its massive success). Load a bird into the slingshot, pull back, and send it flying across the stage to hit the mischievous pigs who stole the birds’ eggs.
The game responds instantly to your drag-and-release gestures, which makes it feel surprisingly modern despite its age. In other words, you’ll quickly figure out exactly how to play just by experimenting—you can’t really go wrong, since you can always restart a level.
Not just a hit game—a full-fledged brand built on angry birds
As mentioned, Angry Birds became a massive success. It evolved into several spin-offs and sequels, including Angry Birds 2, which was developed after the company expanded with a Stockholm office.
But it wasn’t just a stack of games that drove the brand’s popularity—there’s also been a ton of merchandise, from plush toys and apparel to YouTube series and a major Hollywood movie.
Choose from many different birds in your fight against the green pigs
In Angry Birds you’ll meet a squad of funny (and grumpy) birds. Each bird has a special ability that makes it stronger against certain materials or parts of a level. The red bird is the standard flyer, while the yellow bird can be tapped mid-flight to accelerate and deal extra damage.
You can also call in the Mighty Eagle, an enormous bird that obliterates almost everything in its path.
Conclusion
Angry Birds was a huge hit—and for many, it still is. The original game captures a specific moment in the gaming and mobile industries, when simple (yet polished and fun) titles took center stage. Suddenly, the App Store was packed with games that are now iconic, including Candy Crush and various iterations of Tetris.
It’s still fun today and easy to jump into thanks to its user-friendly design that leverages intuition to fling birds across the level.
