LEGO Star Wars 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter review

LEGO Star Wars 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter marks the long-awaited return of a wholly unique ship, even if it's a little smaller than we’d have hoped.

The downsizing of a lot of mid-range ships and vehicles in LEGO Star Wars is an understandable but still disappointing trend. In some instances it can still make for excellent and creative LEGO experiences, such as with 2021’s 75301 Luke Skywalker’s X-wing Fighter, or before that, 75220 Sandcrawler from 2018.

But where it can sometimes offer a refreshing take on certain sets we’ve had a few times over, it can also present itself as more of a practical need from the LEGO Star Wars design team to build within tighter budgets. Rather than miss out on minifigures or particular details to a model, seemingly size matters not, and the compromise is in the general scale of what you build.

Which leads us to the long-awaited LEGO Star Wars 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter, swooping in to begin 2025’s 20th anniversary for Revenge of the Sith (even if the box art positions it as a Clone Wars set).

Release: January 1, 2025 Price: £59.99 / $69.99 / €69.99 Pieces: 497 Minifigures: 3 LEGO: Order now

A long time ago

By the time LEGO Star Wars 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter releases at the start of 2025 it will have been 15 years since we last got to build this ship at minifigure scale. That is so long ago in fact that the last model of this ship had a four-digit set number: 8088 ARC-170 Starfighter. That set from 2010 marked a five-year upgrade on the only other time we had an ARC-170 to build to minifigure scale – 7259 ARC-170 Fighter – which was released in 2005 as part of the Revenge of the Sith wave of sets. Marking two decades since then seems like the perfect time for an upgrade.

It’s important to note that comparing either of those much earlier versions of the ship to 2025’s 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter is a generally redundant exercise for the most part given how much has changed in that amount of time. That is except to understand a couple of areas where modern LEGO Star Wars design has taken things.

From an aesthetic perspective, things are a lot smoother – the parts selection available to the design team today versus 15 and 20 years ago is markedly improved and with that a whole host of nicer-looking, more authentic effects and details are built into 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter. The contouring of the engines in particular highlights the greater parts variety, as for the first time those big intakes at the front are nice and smoothed out. The stronger (yet finer) wings serve as another example of where modern LEGO design is at the moment, as does that smoother edging and finer, sturdier effect for the nose.

The mechanisation behind opening and closing the wings is also markedly different and is actually reflective of something only really developed in LEGO Star Wars over the last four or five years – smoothing out the end result play function and doing away with the need for rubber bands or jankier Technic gears. Technic still plays a key role in how the wings function here, but the movement is so much smarter in design so as to keep the whole feature easy and light to work, and capable of being done one-handed (you move a bar built into the bottom of the ship left to right to open and close the wings).

A good thing in a small package

As we say, comparing LEGO Star Wars 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter to what came before isn’t the fairest exercise for how much time has passed between the various releases, but beyond doing so just to appreciate where current design standards have really levelled up, we are also presented with a less positive comparison for 2025’s model – it’s smaller, even though the price is, adjusting for inflation, relatively the same.

This is a direction the theme has taken with a lot of its mid-range minifigure-scale vehicles and ships of late, presumably to keep costs within set budgets. At times it can definitely work, and at times it can push the set too close to the size and feel of a 4+ set (think the TIE Fighter from 2024’s 75393 TIE Fighter & X-wing Mash-up).

2025’s 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter clearly comes in smaller than either of the two ARC-170 LEGO sets from years ago, in wing span and in length of the central body. How much does it matter? The build is truly excellent, but your eyes do keep being drawn to those three cockpits and the minifigures sat within – they all seem a little too big and oversized, and visually it does begin to throw the whole model off.

For better or worse – and creatively it is a different challenge and mindset for the LEGO Star Wars design team to work with – LEGO Star Wars is a theme with a fanbase who prize accuracy of their sets very highly. Every time something has brought the ire of this passionate group of fans it has been down to an oversight in accuracy. 75397 Jabba’s Sail Barge is a beautiful set but the minifigure selection was wildly inaccurate and it was something some couldn’t look beyond (when you are being charged £429.99, rightly so).

Beyond older builders and deeper LEGO Star Wars collectors who have had the experience of building either 8088 ARC-170 Starfighter or 7259 ARC-170 Fighter before it and can recall just how heavy and large both versions were, comparing 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter to the source material or putting it next to something like 75401 Ahsoka’s Jedi Interceptor – or indeed staring at those cockpits for too long – really does accentuate that in this particular case, sizing down feels like a compromise.

Size matters… (or) not

That’s still not to take away from what is otherwise an all-round excellent and fun LEGO Star Wars set to build and swoosh around. Everything else here ticks all the boxes for fans and collectors, and even those terrifying stickers across the canopies of each cockpit are actually not so bad to put together (though we did build this straight after 75401 Ahsoka’s Jedi Interceptor which really did have some nervy sticker moments, so maybe our perspective is temporarily off).

LEGO Star Wars 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter is excellently and interestingly put together, from the unique way in which the wing-opening technique is imagined and achieved, through to the very smooth and satisfying contours of the bodywork and wings.

The scale issue is as big or as small as you see it. It wouldn’t stop us picking this up because for the price there’s enough value and enjoyment to be found. But it still begs the question – if they could have priced it a bit higher could we have had a bigger, even more perfect ship to build?

Our honest opinion: You’ll have to avoid staring at the cockpits too long to spot the smaller size of LEGO Star Wars 75402 ARC-170 Starfighter, but try because there’s a lot to really love here, and at a fair price.

This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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