1994’s TIE Fighter has been modded into 1999’s X-Wing Alliance, spectacularly

LucasArts and Totally Games’ Star Wars: TIE Fighter is still one of the best space sims ever made despite being 25+ years old, but now, after “years in development”, it has been modded into X-Wing Alliance – which wouldn’t be impressive, given that Alliance came out in 1999, except the results are incredible.

Even though this is technically a case of a 1994 game being modded into a 1999 game, it’s done via the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade project – which is a still-ongoing effort by a team of modders to completely update Alliance to look like a modern game. Pretty much every model, texture, and background in the game has been overhauled to incredible effect.

Now a separate team of modders has put TIE Fighter through this project, and the results look impressive, most impressive. It includes all 13 original campaigns, with the first eight being “reimagined” with new ships and missions. Including training levels, the mod boasts a total of 145 missions that have all been gloriously overhauled with the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade mod.

Even ignoring the ridiculously good graphics – which almost puts last year’s Star Wars Squadrons to shame – the mod also features a remastered soundtrack, which as every fan knows is vital to the Star Wars experience. It even has support for VR headsets, which sounds both thrilling and foolhardy considering how tough TIE Fighter can be.

If this were just TIE Fighter modded into X-Wing Alliance that would still be good, since Alliance’s engine was heavily improved, more friendly to play, and still holds up well today – but with the addition of the Upgrade project, this TIE Fighter Total Conversion has enough to go up against Star Wars: Squadrons, which we really enjoyed specifically because it was a hark back to the likes of TIE Fighter. Pick up Alliance – which is part of the Steam Summer sale right now – and give it a go.

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