Enlarge / When I originally played TIE Fighter , I could not have imagined such a thing as lens flare. (credit: LucasArts/TFTC)

It had been a long, long while since I last suited up for the Empire and shot up some X-wings. At least 25 years, really, and probably a few more. Star Wars: TIE Fighter was a high point for LucasArts, but also for the amount of time and energy a certain teenage Ars Technica writer could devote to learning the attack patterns of Rebel squadrons.

When I saw recently that a rather massively scaled "Total Conversion" of TIE Fighter had released a new update, it felt like as good a time as any to jump back in the cockpit. TIE Fighter: Total Conversion (TFTC) is a nearly total remake of TIE Fighter , inside the more-advanced engine of its sequel, X-Wing Alliance , piggybacking off that game's own big fan-made modernization .

What Total Conversion promises is still TIE Fighter , but with:

Enlarge / When I originally played TIE Fighter , I could not have imagined such a thing as lens flare. (credit: LucasArts/TFTC)

It had been a long, long while since I last suited up for the Empire and shot up some X-wings. At least 25 years, really, and probably a few more. Star Wars: TIE Fighter was a high point for LucasArts, but also for the amount of time and energy a certain teenage Ars Technica writer could devote to learning the attack patterns of Rebel squadrons.

When I saw recently that a rather massively scaled "Total Conversion" of TIE Fighter had released a new update, it felt like as good a time as any to jump back in the cockpit. TIE Fighter: Total Conversion (TFTC) is a nearly total remake of TIE Fighter , inside the more-advanced engine of its sequel, X-Wing Alliance , piggybacking off that game's own big fan-made modernization .

What Total Conversion promises is still TIE Fighter , but with:

Enlarge / When I originally played TIE Fighter , I could not have imagined such a thing as lens flare. (credit: LucasArts/TFTC)

It had been a long, long while since I last suited up for the Empire and shot up some X-wings. At least 25 years, really, and probably a few more. Star Wars: TIE Fighter was a high point for LucasArts, but also for the amount of time and energy a certain teenage Ars Technica writer could devote to learning the attack patterns of Rebel squadrons.

When I saw recently that a rather massively scaled "Total Conversion" of TIE Fighter had released a new update, it felt like as good a time as any to jump back in the cockpit. TIE Fighter: Total Conversion (TFTC) is a nearly total remake of TIE Fighter , inside the more-advanced engine of its sequel, X-Wing Alliance , piggybacking off that game's own big fan-made modernization .

What Total Conversion promises is still TIE Fighter , but with: