I have always enjoyed this game from afar. Official details of the announcement are below.
EA and BioWare have announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic, the popular Star Wars MMORPG, is now available to download for free on Steam! Beginning today, players can begin or continue their own story-driven Star Wars saga playing as many iconic character classes and choosing your path down the Light or Dark side of the Force.
Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) on Steam has full crossplay and cross-save with the direct SWTOR launcher, so all progress will carry over when player’s log in via either method.
Exciting new SWTOR themed collectables are now available on Steam, including new trading cards, profile backgrounds and emoticons. In addition, over 100 Steam achievements will be added in a future update and players will retroactively be awarded on Steam any achievements that they have already unlocked previously in SWTOR.
Check out the official blog post here for more details.