European gamers eagerly anticipating the launch of the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta phase, which was due to kick off this week, will have to wait a little bit longer.

Bioware has postponed game testing in Europe due to the release of a new build of the game, which will launch some time over the next few weeks. If the beta phase had gone live this week as planned, players would have had to download a new 27GB game client and set up new characters, explained European community manager Chris Collins on the official Bioware forums.

"Given the news of this new build, it's now more important than ever that we invite European players into the game testing environments,"said Collins. "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."

Bioware’s massively multiplayer online role-playing game is currently due for release exclusively on PC in the last quarter of 2011, though a firm release date has yet to be announced.