Star Wars: Rogue One - Expect To See A Lot More Of Darth Vader By The End Of The Month

Lucasfilm's been having a lot of fun teasing the presence of Darth Vader in Rouge One. For the longest time his part in Opening Crawl: The Movie was the subject of nothing more than hushed speculation, and they've only been slowly sneaking out information in the past few months; EW confirmed his appearance, the Star Wars Celebration trailer showed his silhouette and then the second trailer gave us the back of his helmet.

He's not going to be in the shadows for much longer, however. StarWarsNews.net have revealed promo images for a set of Rogue One trading cards, and in amongst them is a 3/4 view of the asthmatic Sith Lord.

It's cool to see him face on for sure (note the slightly redder eyes, in keeping with the original costume), but it's what it signals that's more important; Vader's likely going to be a fully unveiled presence come Force Friday, Star Wars' seemingly-now-annual merchandising blitz, at the end of the month. Last year several characters - Luke, Maz and Snoke explicitly, as well as a few others - weren't featured in many of the pre-release toys for story reasons, and I kinda expected the same here, but that doesn't look to be the case.

I guess it doesn't matter too much with Vader is that there's no visual element to hide - he'll look the same as he did at the end of Revenge Of The Sith/start of A New Hope - and they needn't point to the plot element of his cameo, so get ready for a lot more Anakin in your life very soon.

Force Friday is on 30th September. Star Wars: Rogue One will be in cinemas from 16th December.