Walmart Cancels Old Republic Preorders For No Reason

Without warning, Walmart appears to have lost or deleted an unspecified amount of Star Wars: The Old Republic pre-orders. Some customers are just now getting emails alerting them to the issue, citing a “temporary shipping issue.” BioWare has responded assuring that this ultimately will not effect Early Access to the game, but players are still without refunded credit for the purchase and any guarantee whatsoever that the edition they preordered will still be available.

The word is spreading in forums, with players upset about a sudden and unexplained disappearance of their pre-order. Lots of players. Possibly, all of those that pre-ordered at Walmart are feeling the sting, as Dualshockers suggests. A quick look at the threads also show a large number of customers who are stating that Walmart has erroneously claimed to have refunded the amount currently paid off for the game. The automated messages says one thing, but their bank statement says another.

Senior Online Community Manager Stephen Reid from Bioware did issue a brief statement in the thread. Unfortunately, since he can’t speak for a distributor, all he was able to assure was players’ Early Access status. Whether players will lose their chance at the copy of the game they chose, considering the limited supply of copies, is uncertain.

More information may arise as company PR managers start sending out press releases. For now, if you made your preorder through Walmart, now would be a good time to check on that. If you preordered the standard edition, you’ll likely be able to get another copy on the books or, at least, find one somewhere else. But, if you did have a Special Edition in your name and it’s gone up in flames like Biggs Darklighter, it looks like you preordered from Alderaan places.