Sonic the Hedgehog zooms into Angry Birds Epic

Sonic the Hedgehog has been a gaming icon for decades, and now he’s lending his powers to Rovio’s Angry Birds brand.

The Finnish tech giant has revealed the latest installment in its Sega partnership — one that will see Sonic appear in Angry Birds Epic, an Angry Birds spin-off role-playing game.

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For a limited time, gamers will be able to unlock and control Sonic in a special event on Piggy Island. Sonic is on your side, and your mission is to defeat Doctor Eggman, Sonic’s sworn enemy.

This comes just months after the spiny mammal invited a handful of characters from Angry Birds over to play in Sonic Dash, a Temple Run-type endless runner game on mobile.

“It’s been a fun partnership with Rovio,” said Naoki Kameda, Sega’s VP of business development. “It was great to host Red, Chuck, and Bomb in Sonic Dash this summer, and we hope fans enjoy playing with Sonic in Angry Birds Epic.”

You could be forgiven for thinking that Sonic has fallen on hard times, but Sonic Dash recently passed the 100 million downloads mark, claiming 14 million monthly players. It seems that he’s found a new lease of life on mobile.

Rovio recently launched Angry Birds 2, six years after the original, but the company has been branching out into too many things — as such, it recently announced it was cutting up to 260 jobs as it looks to refocus its efforts. And Sonic, it seems, is only too happy to help out.