Skylanders-inspired Angry Birds Star Wars II due out in September

Retail rejoice, the next game in the Angry Birds series features physical goods.

Rovio has unveiled a sequel to last year’s Angry Birds: Star Wars – aptly titled Angry Birds: Star Wars II.

It features the usual pig-slaying, lightsaber action (plus some new moves, apparently) but in a twist clearly inspired by Skylanders – gamers can now introduce extra characters into the game by using toys.

Toys that retailers will be able to stock at a variety of prices – from a few quid to 30. There are 30 figurines in total, and they can be placed on a small plinth, which must be positioned briefly besides the iPad for the character to appear in the game. It’s been created by those clever folk at Hasbro.

Oh, and Angry Birds: Star Wars II arrives on September 19th. So that gives GTA V just two days before everyone gets distracted by flinging pigeons across an iPad screen.

The game joins a raft of ‘toys-to-life’ games. Disney (which happens to own the Star Wars IP) is about to launch its own toy-based game Disney Infinity, while Activision (which happens to publish the console versions of Angry Birds) invented the whole thing in the first place with Skylanders. Skylanders: Swap Force is due this Christmas.