Bad Piggies: Rovio’s Next Game Will Let You Play As The Pigs, Launches September 27

You can only kill so many pigs in Angry Birds before you inevitably start to feel a bit of empathy with them, so it doesn’t come as a huge surprise that the next game in Rovio‘s franchise will let you experience the Angry Birds universe from the pigs’ perspective. The game will launch on September 27 and will be available for iOS, Android and Mac. Rovio tells us that Windows Phone, Windows 8 and PC versions will follow shortly.

What Rovio isn’t saying, though, is what the actual gameplay will look like, though Fast Company’s J.J. McCorvey got a sneak peek at the game and notes that Bad Piggies will be a physics puzzler where players will have to help the pigs build “vehicles and contraptions.” The pigs, he says, will actually be likable in this game.

“There’s a lot of empathy towards the lovable enemies from the Angry Birds games, and we’ve been constantly asked: what about the pigs’ side of the story?” said Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio in a canned statement today. “Bad Piggies gives you the chance to play as the second-most-loved characters in the Angry Birds universe, and explore this rich world through their green eyes.”

The Angry Birds franchise allowed Rovio to make $106.3 million in revenue in 2011. A third of that came from merchandising and licensing. There have been persistent rumors that the company is planning to IPO in 2013, but it will probably need to show that it can expand its lineup beyond Angry Birds before that.

Rovio’s last game, Amazing Alex, debuted high in the iTunes charts, but never got anywhere near the traction of the Angry Birds games, maybe because its gameplay was a bit too complicated compared to Angry Birds. Earlier this month, Rovio also teased a new Angry Birds in Space game (Red Planet).