Rovio plans new Angry Birds games and football mobile title

Rovio is leaning on Angry Birds again, but this time the playbook is broader: new birds for Angry Birds 2, more games in the franchise, and a football-themed mobile title now in early development in Barcelona. That is the clearest signal yet that the studio is not just squeezing its flagship IP for one more round of downloads, but trying to build a second lane that can stand beside it.

The football project is still taking shape, but the hiring is concrete. Rovio is advertising a General Manager role for a new football mobile game in Barcelona, and the company is recruiting across new game teams. That matters because it points to active production, not a concept deck. For players, the big question is whether Rovio is aiming for an arcade-style kickoff, a live-service sports game, or something closer to a character-driven hybrid that borrows from the studio’s casual design DNA. The answer will tell you a lot about how far Rovio wants to push beyond birds and slingshots.

Angry Birds is still doing the heavy lifting while that work unfolds. Rovio says its mobile portfolio has been downloaded more than 5 billion times, and the company now operates seven game studios under SEGA ownership. It has already stretched the brand through Angry Birds Reloaded, Angry Birds Journey, Angry Birds Dream Blast, continuing Angry Birds 2 updates, and fresh content such as Shade, the new bird added to Angry Birds 2 in March 2026, the first new hero in the lineup since 2022. That is not the behavior of a publisher winding down a legacy hit. It is what a publisher does when it still believes the brand can be the center of gravity for future mobile revenue.

The pressure is there, though. SEGA’s FY2026 results presentation said Rovio’s performance was “soft” and pointed to impairment losses tied to the acquisition. In plain terms, SEGA needs Rovio to show that new mobile live projects can move the needle, not just keep the catalog warm. That is why the football title matters as much as the next Angry Birds game. One is a safer extension of a proven IP. The other is the first real test of whether Rovio can create another evergreen mobile pillar instead of living off the old one.

Rovio and SEGA have also kept pushing Angry Birds beyond the app stores. In January 2026, Angry Birds licensing was merged under SEGA’s global transmedia licensing operations, and The Angry Birds Movie 3 is already dated for December 23, 2026. Add in the company’s new game hiring and the fresh Shade rollout, and the message is hard to miss: Rovio is trying to turn Angry Birds from a franchise into a platform, while the football game looks like the company’s best shot at proving it can build the next one.