Space Combat Confirmed for Star Wars: The Old Republic

BioWare announced that space combat will be coming to its upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic at its panel at Comic-Con 2010. Though interested parties will have to wait until the October issue of PC Gamer (out August 17th) to see the first screenshots, the company was kind enough to describe it on the official forums.

Regular, old ground combat.

Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat. In space combat, you fly your personal ship to various "hot spots" on your galaxy map. From there, you will blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars space battles.

Details remain light -- is this singleplayer or co-op content? What about PvP? -- but it's a promising addition to the game, currently in limited "game testing".