Euro SWTOR beta invites delayed

BioWare has postponed sending Star Wars: The Old Republic beta invites to European gamers.

The developer will now wait for a "major" new build of the game to arrive "later this week" before bringing a batch of European testers in, revealed European community manager Chris Collins. (The "later this week" date is not set in stone, but there's "every chance" it will happen.)

The arrival of the new Star Wars: The Old Republic client will take SWTOR offline, wipe all characters and require everyone to download the 27GB SWTOR client again.

BioWare didn't want to invite European testers this week, ask them to download a 27GB game and, then, days later, wipe their characters, turn the service off and ask them to download the client again. It's "not an experience we want new testers to be exposed to", Collins wrote.

This new build also brings first localised French and German versions of Star Wars: The Old Republic. And BioWare is "keen" to get "a lot" of feedback from these territories.

"Given the news of this new build, it's now more important than ever that we invite European players into the game testing environments," Collins shared. "You have my word that this batch of invites will happen, it may just mean you just have to wait a little longer."

"It's also important to remember this is just the beginning. In the future, we'll be inviting more and more testers to the EU game testing environments as well as future game testing weekends. So even if you're not invited to this next round of testing, there will still be plenty of chances to get involved."