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Ten years later, one of the most infamous games ever is somehow back

Simple, sweet, and endlessly compulsive, from the same year that brought us GTA 5 and The Last of Us, Flappy Bird has somehow returned.

Flappy Bird returns: A flapping bird from platform game Flappy Bird

The release of Fallout London. Confirmation of Civilization 7. Growing older, tireder, and getting more gray hair. There are many things that I was certain would happen in 2024, but this was not one of them. Wind the clocks back a decade – jump back in time, like the specter of Ebenezer Scrooge – and what do you see? You see yourself, on your phone, trying to get a tiny pixelated bird to fly through the gaps in some pipes. It was here and then, just as quickly as it arrived, it was gone, destroyed by its creator at the height of its irresistible power. But now, ten years later, the infamous Flappy Bird is officially coming back – and this time it’s on PC.

Originally built in 2013, amid the great mobile gaming gold rush, Flappy Bird didn’t hit terminal velocity until early 2014 when it became, all of a sudden, the biggest game on Android and iOS, generating, by some estimates, as much as $50,000 per day. All you had to do was tap the screen – by making the plucky, stumpy little bird flap its wings, the goal was to steer it through increasingly complex 2D levels.

A platform game of endless replayability, in February 2014, Flappy Bird’s creator, Dong Nguyen, promptly pulled it from storefronts. Since then, the astronomical but fleeting success of Flappy Bird has remained a curious chapter in videogame history.

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But now it’s back – Flappy Bird is back. The suitably named Flappy Bird Foundation is a team of developers that has acquired the official trademark and rebuilt the erstwhile avian simulator for both mobile devices and browsers. You get the original game, but there will also be additional levels and challenges and different playable birds. There will even be multiplayer modes. The Flappy Bird release date is scheduled for 2025.

Until then, how about some of the best old games, or maybe check out the best upcoming PC games on their way to you.

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