It’s the big news we’ve been waiting for — Bioware and EA have announced that we’ll have SWTOR in our hands right before Christmas! During their keynote address at the Eurogamer Expo, Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, co-founders of BioWare™, announced that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ will launch in North America on December 20, 2011 and in Europe on December 22, 2011.

Also announced were the monthly subscription fees that kick in after the 30 days of play time that come with the game:

• 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)

Now, the waiting begins…I suggest you kill some time by leaving your feedback on yesterday’s Companion update blog post.

😉

UPDATE: Darth Hater has a brief audio interview with Stephen Reid at EuroGamer right after the team announced the release date. Read the transcript or listen to the audio here.

UPDATE 2: Eurogamer has the video clip of the announcement up. View it here.