Zynga will launch Empires & Allies mobile version with realistic art

Zynga is unveiling today that it is working on a new mobile version of the action-strategy game Empires & Allies. But the mobile game differs from the earlier Facebook version in a very important way: it replaces the cartoon visuals with more realistic modern combat art.

In that sense, Zynga is taking Empires & Allies to a more hardcore audience. The original Empires & Allies debuted on Facebook in June 2011. The free-to-play turn-based strategy game soared to more than 39 million users in its first 25 days. It had a more accessible, cartoon art style, and the combat wasn’t graphic by any means. But the game fizzled out, and Zynga decided to shut down the Facebook web version in April 2013.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.