Andor Season 2 is Making an Old Star Wars Video Game Ship Canon

The upcoming second season of Andor is bringing the TIE Avenger from the old Star Wars X-Wing video games into Disney’s official canon. Like much of the expanded universe material made before 2014, the classic Star Wars video games were shuffled off into their own Legends timeline to make room for the Sequel Trilogy and other Disney-produced Star Wars works, but this hasn’t stopped elements from appearing in canon shows, movies, and games since.

This rings true for 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and its connected Disney Plus series Andor, as the former introduced black-armored Death Troopers that resembled the “Shadow Troopers” seen in Legends material like the 2008 video game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Andor would also include an Easter egg nod to The Force Unleashed in its much-praised first season, as armor similar to Starkiller’s Sith Stalker gear could be spotted in Luthen Rael’s antique shop in several episodes.

Andor is getting an even more overt reference to classic Star Wars games in its second season, as reported by Games Radar. Earlier this week, Disney released a teaser trailer for its upcoming wave of Disney Plus-exclusive shows, including the second season of Andor which is set to premiere in April 2025. At one point, Cassian Andor is seen hijacking an Imperial Tie Fighter, and a closer look will reveal that it is in fact a TIE Avenger from the 1994 PC flight simulator Star Wars: TIE Fighter, the first sequel to Star Wars: X-Wing.

Andor is Bringing Back the Classic TIE Avenger

The TIE Avenger (or TIE/ad starfighter as it is officially called) was introduced as an updated version of the TIE Advanced x1 fighter flown by Darth Vader in Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope, and it would continue to appear in Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance. It hasn’t been seen in official Star Wars media since, even as other elements from Star Wars video games have slowly made their way into the canon Expanded Universe.

Since Andor is a prequel to Rogue One (which in turn is a prequel to A New Hope), it seems that the TIE Avenger was already in development before Vader famously took the ship that inspired it into battle. Fans who grew up playing the classic Star Wars: X-Wing games will certainly appreciate seeing the TIE Avenger finally become official canon when Andor’s second season airs on Disney Plus early next year.

Star Wars

Star Wars is a multimedia franchise originally created by George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd with the 1977 motion picture. The science fiction franchise follows the adventures of characters (both humanoid and alien) in outer space including those who can wield a mystical power known as the Force. Since the release of the original trilogy of movies, the franchise has expanded to include multiple films and branched out to other media like comics, video games, tv shows, theme park attractions, and more. The IP and Lucasfilm were sold to Disney in 2012.