The Mandalorian season 2: release date, when it’s set and who is in the cast with Pedro Pascal in the Disney+ Star Wars spin-off

Star Wars fans are gearing up for the release of the second season of The Mandalorian, the Disney+ spin-off television series which charts the exploits of a lone bounty hunter.

Once on the hunt of a young, Yoda-like creature known only as The Child, The Mandalorian now seeks to protect it from a remnant of the fallen Galactic Empire.

Season 1 was set five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, and the second instalment picks up soon after the conclusion of the first.

Here is everything you need to know about it.

What will happen in Season 2?

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Jon Favreau described Season 2 of The Mandalorian as beginning "very directly" after the end of the first season.

The Mandalorian is still protecting The Child and searching for its home, and that remains the central conceit of the film.

But Favreau has also said the second season will introduce a larger story, with episodes being "less isolated" than many of the first season's were, with each having "its own flavor".

Characters introduced in the second season will come with new storylines (Favreau has said he was inspired by the multiple storylines of Game of Thrones), and the series will explore stories other than the Mandalorian's.

Who has directed episodes of Season 2?

Season 1 of The Mandalorian was notable for the guest directors it brought in to direct episodes, including Jurassic World's Bryce Dallas Howard, and the Academy Award winning Taika Waititi.

With Favreau stating each episode of Season 2 will have "its own flavor", individual directors’ flairs are more important than ever; so who’s been drafted in this time around?

Nigerian director Rick Famuyiwa (Dope) will return to direct an episode of Season 2, as will Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Dallas Howard.

New directors to step in for the second season include Favreau himself (he was unable to direct any of the first due to his commitments to 2019’s The Lion King remake), Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) and Peyton Reed (Ant-Man).

Carl Weathers will also step behind the camera for a Season 2 episode; Favreau promised that the actor could direct a second season episode when hiring him to co-star in the first.

Who stars in it?

Pedro Pascal will be making his return as Din Djarin, The Mandalorian at the centre of the show who in Season 1 was hired to capture an alien infant known as "the Child", though he now protects the Child from a remnant of the Galactic Empire.

Carl Weathers (best known for portraying Apollo Creed in the Rocky films) also returns as Greef Karga, the leader of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, while Gina Carano (Deadpool) reprises her role as former Rebel shock trooper turned mercenary, Cara Dune.

Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) also reprises his role as villain Moff Gideon, who is attempting to capture The Child.

Who’s new on the cast?

Alongside all the returning characters you’d expect, a number of actors are appearing for the first time in Season 2 as characters that have already appeared in other areas of the Star Wars universe.

Rosario Dawson (Jane the Virgin) plays Ahsoka Tano, the Jedi Padawan of Anakin Skywalker introduced as the protagonist of The Clone Wars animated series.

New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison will play iconic Star Wars bounty hunter, Boba Fett. Temuera actually played Boba’s dad Jango in Star Wars’ 2002 episode Attack of the Clones, and since Boba is a cloned descendant of his Kaminoan father, it’s a casting choice that more than makes sense.

Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) reprises her role as Star Wars: Rebels character Bo-Katan Kryze in live action for the first time, and Timothy Olyphant (Fargo) is on board as Cobb Vanth, a slave who rose to become a sheriff of Freetown on the planet Tatooine, and who has previously only appeared in Star Wars novels.

When can I watch it?

Disney has confirmed that Season 2 of The Mandalorian will debut on Disney+ on Friday 30 October.

The new season will once again consist of one episode per week across a period of around two months.