Angry Birds Star Wars is a puzzle video game, a crossover between the Star Wars franchise and the Angry Birds series of video games, launched on November 8, 2012, first for Windows, iOS and Android devices, later also to Mac and BlackBerry. The game is the sixth Angry Birds game in the series. The characters are copyrighted from George Lucas double-trilogy. On July 18, 2013, Rovio Entertainment announced that Angry Birds Star Wars would be heading for the PlayStation 3, Play Station Vita, Xbox 360, Wii, Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS on October 29, 2013 in conjunction with Activision. As of August 2013, the game has been downloaded over 100 million times on its various platforms. The game is a launch title for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
The story is pretty much the same as the same as the Star Wars saga, but in a more comedic and Lighter and Softer manner, and the gameplay mixes elements of the original Angry Birds and Angry Birds Space.
On July 15, 2013, Rovio announced a sequel, entitled Angry Birds Star Wars II. It is based on the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the television show Star Wars Rebels. Angry Birds Star Wars II was released on September 18, 2013. Notably, it was compatible with a series of figures released by Hasbro known as "Telepods" that could be teleported into the game by means of a special base — essentially an early version of Amiibo.
In February 2020, it was announced that both AB Star Wars games (along with Angry Birds Rio) would be ending support by the end of 2020. This is likely due to licensing issues with Disney, who currently owns the rights to the Star Wars franchise.
Tropes
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- Captain Panaka and Padme are rescued along with Jar Jar from the battle droids.
- Jango Fett, Count Dooku, and Zam Wesell appear in the events of The Phantom Menace.
- Binary Suns: Tatooine, of course.
- Boss Battle: You have to fight Lord Vader in the final levels of the Death Star and Cloud City episodes, and both he and the Emperor at the end of the second Death Star level.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: You can either pay $1.99 to upgrade Luke's lightsaber to the green version (slightly longer and more powerful), or you can finish the entire 40-level Dagobah-themed "Path of the Jedi" episode.
- Chained Heat: In Angry Birds Star Wars II, this is Ep. 1 Anakin's special ability. Tap the screen and he launches his pod racer engine and is pulled along behind it, making for a two-impact attack.
- Cool Helmet: The pigs are playing (among their many roles) stormtroopers and Imperial officers, so their respective helmets pop up frequently. Of course, there's also Darth Vader.
- Crossover: of Star Wars and Angry Birds.
- Deus ex Machina: The Millenium Falcon.
- Evil Laugh: Darth Vader laughs at you on the "level failed" screen in Angry Birds Star Wars. In Angry Birds Star Wars II, it's Palpatine. Averted in II's Pork Side levels in which Palpatine is infuriated.
- Expressive Mask: The pig stormtroopers and Darth Vader.
- Gravity Sucks: Some areas have a gravitational field around them that not only pulls the birds toward them but can also pull floating pigs to the ground to be eliminated if they're pushed inside it. It also affects how everything falls once a bird hits something, as objects will scoot/roll around the planet in the direction they fall until their momentum runs out.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Fittingly, the Stormtrooper pig and its Shadowtrooper variant are terrible shots.
- License-Added Game: Plays the angle of Universal-Adaptor Cast as Star Wars roles, featuring the birds as the Rebels and the pigs as the Empire.
- Merchandise-Driven: The "Telepods" are introduced in the second game, however, they aren’t required for gameplay. If you do buy them, though, you can scan them into the game to get a free permanent just like the ones you buy from the shop. Duplicate characters can stack, too.
- No Campaign for the Wicked: Averted in Angry Birds Star Wars II, you can play the Pork Side route, which shows the films' events from the bad guys' perspective and lets you play using the evil characters. The option is available in the first route but has to be unlocked for subsequent routes.
- Oh, Crap!: The pigs look scared when a bird or debris gets close to them.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: When temporarily allying with the birds, the Emperor and the stormtroopers simply wore fake bird beaks to fool the birds.
- Rearrange the Song: Angry Birds Star Wars and Angry Birds Star Wars II use a reworking of the traditional Star Wars theme that follows the Angry Birds theme's meter.
- Recycled IN SPACE!: This is an Angry Birds game that cross-over with Star Wars universe. Also, it literally takes place in space.
- Space Friction: Objects you hit that don't enter a gravity well will eventually slow down and stop moving.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Played with. In The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul gets sliced in half and falls down a shaft, but The Clone Wars reveals that he survived. In the Angry Birds recreation of that scene, Darth Maul victoriously escapes without injury.
- Spread Shot:
- Once Lando takes over for Han in the latter half of the Cloud City episode, his blaster fires a 3-bolt spread instead of 3 shots in a straight line.
- Captain Panaka in Angry Birds Star Wars II shoots two 3-bolt spreads instead of just one.
- See also the Stormtroopers and Shadowtroopers, who spread fire in every direction but where you aimed.
- That's No Moon: The first Angry Birds Star Wars game has an achievement called "That's No Moon", for unlocking the Death Star level set.
- Token Minority:
- Ep. 3 Anakin/Darth Vader is the only bird on the Pork Side. Justified since he wasn't initially on the Pork Side to begin with.
- Played with for Count Dooku; in the story, he was a former Jedi, but by the events of the game he's only shown as Palpatine's Sith apprentice after Maul. Here, he's a pig and therefore would be the only pig Jedi.
- Totem Pole Trench: Darth Vader is sometimes shown stacked atop a couple of pigs, presumably in an attempt to emulate the height of his canonical counterpart.
- Universal-Adaptor Cast:
- In the first game: Red is Luke (and by extension Vader), Bomb is Obi-Wan, Terence is Chewbacca, Chuck plays both Han Solo and Lando (colored appropriately, Stella is Leia, the Blues are Rebel pilots, Matilda is C-3PO and one of the eggs plays R2-D2.
- In the second game: Obi-Wan, C-3PO, and R2-D2 are unchanged, Obi-Wan's younger appearance aside. Matilda is now Qui-Gon. Red is now Anakin, with three different abilities between the three prequel episodes. Stella is now Padmé. Chuck now plays Captain Panaka. Bomb also plays Mace Windu. The Blues are now Jedi younglings.
- Vent Physics: There are large air vents in several levels of the Cloud City episode that alter the trajectories of both birds and debris. The latter half of the episode introduces moving air vents that make things even more challenging.
- Villain Protagonist: In the Pork Side levels, you play as the villains.
- Wrap It Up: Star Wars II's final levels are all an extremely abridged version of the remaining portion of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith rather than longer versions of each story (by comparison, much of The Phantom Menace is covered). One gets the feeling that Rovio was running out of time to use the license and thus had to finish the game quickly.
