Sep 24, 2011

Posted by in Featured, News | 34 Comments

Star Wars: The Old Republic To Be Released 12/20/2011 Worldwide

Just a lazy Saturday morning right? Thought you were going to get up early and mow the lawn? THINK AGAIN!

BioWare Co-Founders Dr. Greg Zeschuk and Dr. Ray Muzyka at Eurogamer Expo today announced what might be the most long-awaited piece of news since… the long awaited announcement of TOR itself!

Star Wars: The Old Republic will officially release on December 20, 2011 world-wide.

Read that again. TOR is coming out this year!

Dr. Ray had this to say:

“This is an incredible moment for everyone at BioWare and our partners at LucasArts who have dedicated their lives to build this extraordinary game. We appreciate the patience from the millions of fans who have been waiting for the game’s release.”

They also announced the subscription plans, and as suspected it doesn’t stray too far from what we’re all used to:

  • 1 Month Subscription: $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99)
  • 3 Month Subscription: $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
  • 6 Month Subscription: $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

No mention was made of micro-transactions or other forms of payment, for now at least.

Absent from the announcement was the start date for Early Game Access, which everyone who pre-orders will receive. Although BioWare’s David Bass was able to provide us with this important insight on the topic on Twitter:

@doctordake: Before Dec. 20 :)

Stay tuned for more on this breaking news, and incredible moment for not only the TOR community but the gaming and Star Wars community as a whole! You can read the official press release here.

[UPDATE] A new version of the Fate Of The Galaxy trailer has been released. It doesn’t appear to be any different, aside from the release date tag at the end.

[UPDATE 2] There’s now a short video of the moment that the Dr.’s made the release date announcement yesterday… thanks to Corellian Run Radio for the find!

  1. Definitely a surprise! Is it bad that I was on the can when I saw the tweet? I doubt I’ll be the only one.

  2. Very interesting. About a month after i expected. Seems strange to do a release 5 days before Christmas. I know not everyone celebrates it, but it is still a huge thing for retail sales. This should be interesting. Now to go see how the official forums are going…

    • I have a feeling they are thinking they will have sold out their pre-orders by then. I think they are right! There were tons of people who wouldn’t pre-order just because there was no release date… So when is the money going to be taken from our accounts? Any idea?

  3. Well it guess it guarantees a certain timeline for us? If we back into ‘Early Access’ that could be Thanksgiving to first week of Dec. Which could mean a few bet weekends in Oct?

  4. Eeeep! As much as I want to be in early access I hope that I am not, I would like to play Skyrim a bit more before I am thrown in to the Star Wars universe =^__^=

  5. well i know where all my christmas hours are going to go

  6. Nighthaunter says:

    Not great for me as I go away from 23rd-31st with no Internet access, oh well.

    Also, they said early access will be days not weeks, probably the weekend before release till the 23rd.

  7. Well I have already outlined my Xmas gift from mrs Zlatto.
    Some serious game time over the weekends around the launch.
    No shopping needed for her, a great deal

  8. I know I’d like to add constructively to this post by saying well…something. But all that comes to mind is…OHMYGOD!!! *coughs* Sorry.

  9. Don’t think of me as a doom sayer or a a whiny little gamer but this is very disappointing. I honestly couldn’t care less about the release date now…. I was expecting Oct or Nov and I would have been THRILLED. I love bioware and it’s dedication to polish but this release date sounds like the opposite. My guess is they are releasing before christmas regardless of if it is finished. I was always checking as many tor sites as possible to get any shred of info just because I thought it would be on the shelves in Oct or Nov.

    There is no good reason to release it then and I SERIOUSLY doubt they will finish it that close to the end of the year. I was expecting a “well we have all the bugs out and we can’t find any reason to hold it off… lets put it out in two weeks” or a “yeah we are still bug removing so it won’t be out til January. Sorry guys” I would have been fine with either. But this release date sounds like they don’t care about if it is finished come december.

    Again I will play this game until my fingers fall off… then I will learn to play with my other body parts… but seriously bioware? seriously? You are telling me it is going to be finished not earlier like everyone expected or later to show that you are dedicated to making it perfect but a christmas launch (((let me tell you a secret no one is christmas shopping that close to Dec. There will be very little purchases of the game that are not pre orders just because everyone will be broke from christmas shopping)))

    So excuse the rant/vent I just needed to get it out.. RD sounds too late to care and seems like a last minute christmas sell.

    I look forward to finally picking this up and playing it but man this is really bad.

    • It hasn’t occured to you that people would buy swtor while christmas shopping?

    • You are a doom sayer and a whiny little gamer.

      I’ve been following this game since it was just a rumor back in 2006. A release date is amazing.

      Just goes to show that absolutely nothing is whine-proof.

    • Im glad im not the only one pissed about this release date i agree with everything u say and another thing is that dont they think that people will be on vacation and miss the release date? because i will be in austrailia for two weeks befor and after it comes out witch means that i wont be able to launch my guild into the game or i wont be the leader in the game.

    • Limewire and Darth Ed, two uninspiring names for two uninspiring people. I’m sorry if questioning something means that I am scum. Good to know you guys have people figured out so well.

      I guess Bioware will have plenty of time to get rid of all those bugs since they are barely scraping in at the end of the year. I hope there are no further problems or delays and I hope that all the people out of town for the holidays at least get some play time during EGA.

      • Apologies to Limewire. I see no real reason to have grouped you with Darth Ed. I merely mean that 80% of people buy Christmas gifts weeks if not months before Christmas, some families celebrate Christmas earlier due to scheduling conflicts, and many gift buyers do not have any extra money (especially in this environment) to purchase anything that close to Christmas.

  10. Yeah, it’s late, and that sucks. That’s 3 months of waiting for me. But honestly, it comes at a time where I know I won’t be on the road for work, and will have at least a few weeks of time to sit on my patooty and ignore the world.

    Here’s hoping for Beta access!

  11. I’m beyond excited. I think all of the TOR faithful were hoping of a “sooner” launch, but we have a release date and its THIS YEAR!! With awesome titles such as BC3, MW3, and Skyrim to occupy people’s time prior to launch. I think it is the ideal time.

    Love the site btw!

  12. This means I wont be going to my grandma’s for christmas… She’ll be bummed :(, but as she has no internet, I see no other solution… I am kinda dissapointed, was hoping late october, expecting mid november, but I cant imagine why they’d do it late december. There’s absolutely no reason, they could have finished the game already… >:(

    • informatics projects are never done or completed, there is always something to tweek or to fix.

      only difference with mmo is it’s the same rule but on steroids

      • and it’s never the programmer who says the project is ready it’s always some strange guy in marketing who job was to sell car the last year but it is not a prob that he doesn’t know what a while(true){} dose because he played mario when he was young.

        so then the programmer goes into a work-a-holic session to finish the job on time some time he success some times other times he fail because the time constraint was just to crazy for him.

  13. I heard the news around 9AM when I was bouncing from site to site on my usual Saturday morning info hunt when I saw a comment on torwars at first I thought it was a troll just you know trolling then I decided to check it out and how pleasantly surprised (read as ecstatic!) I was to find that it was true. I spread the news to a few guildies and said to my friend “I hope we killed deathwing enough by then or the GM is gonna need a new hunter.”

  14. Great news! get the early access program going… better sooner then later there will be a LOT of pre-orders…thanks BW, EA for a firm release date and good luck on your new begining, may the force be with you.

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