Star Wars: The Old Republic Gets a Release Date

The release date of the highly anticipated MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic has been made public. Bioware and LucasArts have confirmed the official release date for video game to be December 20 in North America and December 22 in Europe.

The release date was revealed at the Eurogamer Expo in London. BioWare co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk confirmed the date, with Dr. Myzka saying "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."

The scheduled release puts Star Wars: The Old Republic in perfect shape for the Christmas timeframe. We can imagine Star Wars fans playing through the days post-Christmas, prior to New Year's. It also comes just a few days after the prior Star Wars MMORPG, Star Wars Galaxies, closes.

Although a number of MMORPG games have been either announced or made a move away from subscriptions (City of Heroes, Champions Online, DC Universe Online are examples), preferring to fund themselves with in-game micro-transactions, most of those started with subscriptions fees, then removed them later. For now, Star Wars: The Old Republic will opt for a $14.99 monthly subscription, with discounts for three month ($13.99 per month) and six month ($12.99 per month) subscriptions.

In addition, as is typical with most MMORPGs, Bioware will give gamers 30 days of free subscription time along with the purchase of the game.

Those who pre-order the game will get early access to the online world, but it's unclear how early that access may be. SW: TOR is set some 3,600 years before the rise of the Empire and Darth Vader.

You can watch a cinematic trailer below. SW: TOR has a MSRP of $59.95.