Gears of War: E-Day Review: Your Cover Crumbles, but the Path Never Bends

The Gears of War franchise has been alive and kicking for two decades now. As with many games of the late 90s and 2000s, the original game’s success paved the way for a long history with its dedicated fanbase. While there is an underlying campaign and storyline, its success has always been its multiplayer feature, which has offered various game types introduced across the different titles. This week sees the early access release of the latest addition to the franchise, Gears of War: E-Day, which is a prequel, set 14 years prior to the events of the original game.

Back in 2006 and 2007, Gears was one of the three staples for every LAN party during my university days. It held this honour alongside two games that still form a staple for online gaming – EA FC, or FIFA as it was back then, as well as Counter-Strike. That’s not bad company to find yourself in. Having been introduced to the game at the LAN, I was never familiar with the main campaign, with only surface-level understanding of the conflict between humanity on planet Sera and the Locust threat.

Gears of War: E-Day Story: What Is Emergence Day?

Gears of War: E-Day, or Emergence Day, continues that storyline of the humans and the Locust Horde. As stated in the introduction, E-Day takes place some 14 years prior to the original story, at the conclusion of the Pendulum Wars between the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG), and the Union of Independent Republics (UIR), which lasted 79 years. Emergence Day arrives six weeks after the armistice was signed between the two factions, in which a multitude of subterranean creatures in their millions, known as the Locust Horde, emerge from the depths and begin assaulting human cities across the planet. The lore has been well-established across the five previous main games, three spin-off titles, comic book series, eight novels and even a board game. Players, once again, follow the story of Marcus Fenix (John DiMaggio) and Dominic Santiago (Carlos Ferro) through their struggles.

How Long Is the Gears of War: E-Day Campaign?

Playing through the campaign for the first time, as well as the underlying research for the review, the story has been quite intriguing. While only an introduction to it all within the E-Day campaign, it merely scratches the surface. The campaign is expected to last 14-plus hours of gameplay, of which I have played through four of its five chapters in 11 hours. For a game with such a rich and in-depth story, the duration is somewhat underwhelming. However, looking back through the franchise history, the 14-plus hours marks the longest Coalition-built campaign to date. This is a clear indicator that replay value of its multiplayer modes is more of a key selling point, with the campaign more of the side quest. On that point, although the playthrough is set to take just 14-plus hours to complete, looking back at my achievements and completion percentage for each chapter at an average of 40%, there are plenty more campaign side quests to complete and collectables to find.

Gears of War: E-Day Gameplay, Controls and Combat

Gears’ gameplay is fairly straightforward as a third-person shooter. For the most part, the controls are intuitive enough that its five-minute tutorial is more than sufficient to get any player up to speed and jump right in. Using the Xbox controller, you use the left trigger to aim and the right trigger to fire. The A button does a lot of heavy lifting in that it allows players to take cover, slide when running, or interacting and jumping between walls and pillars as required. The X button is for basic interaction and object collection such as picking up or swapping out weapons and ammo, opening doors and the like. The B button is for melee attacks, and with the right weapon in hand, delivers some gruesome slashing. The Y button is for free jumping or climbing on objects. For long-term fans of the game, these are slight changes to the standard, which would be a welcome introduction I’m sure. Sprint now sits on the left-stick click, and the series’ signature Active Reload returns.

The game is quite action-packed, delivering high-octane gun fights from start to finish, with plenty of violence, gore and guts to spill along the way. It offers an abundance of weapon choices along with varying monsters to kill in a multitude of ways. It offers a grungy, straightforward take on the hero trope, similar to its previous instalments. That said, there are a few moments it attempts to push more serious points and the severity of war and its consequences but doesn’t land nearly enough of this to really push the boundaries of an emotional narrative. There is one particular moment where this is explored, but gets right back into it some 30 seconds later.

Kalona Level Design: Is E-Day Too Linear?

In terms of its world-building and graphics, it delivers varying results. For starters, the entire game takes place within the walls of Kalona. The city itself doesn’t appear to be all that large, focusing on its city centre, the Locust tunnels and military posts on some of its outskirts. It feels even smaller playing the game in a linear progression model, walking from point A to B reaching checkpoints between missions. On more than one occasion, players return to command posts as well, creating a cyclic walk-about. At some point, having reached the same bridge for a third time and having to raise or lower via the same set of controls after fighting your way through another wave of the horde, it feels a bit cumbersome.

There are a few side quests scattered throughout the linear progression, allowing players a slightly different perspective of the city. However, there are two main variants to these quests in the form of helping your fellow Gears to tackle an oncoming horde, or to save a stranded citizen in a building or rooftop. This is coupled with the limitation of its linear path, where attempting to explore beyond a certain radius outside of your set path could result in an instant mission failure and restarting at your previous checkpoint.

Graphics and Destructible Cover in Unreal Engine 5

All that aside, the world itself is very interactive. Having been built on the Unreal Engine 5, Gears continues its long history with the gaming engine. With E-Day, the surroundings are more realistic. At times, players and enemies are able to take refuge behind a wall, car, pillar or any part of the world around you. However, it’s not as cut and dried as that, as continually shooting at these objects will break them down over time and could reveal your location or expose you to gunfire.

An example would be hiding behind a pillar, where the tiles could be shot off and the column disintegrated, which then requires you to bolt to the next cover position. Hiding behind car doors and such can also leave parts of your body exposed. Unlike many games where the entire car would provide a shield, having visibility of any part of your body through the windows and doors leaves you vulnerable to being shot at. There are also elements like the acidic spit from one of the horde that splashes against walls and objects around you, which means you could still take splash damage if you’re not careful. As a result, planning your cover and point of attack needs a bit more strategy than just running and hiding.

Sound design and controller vibration are equally strong, adding to the sense of being under constant assault.

RELATED: EA Sports FC 27 Review: Harder Tackles, Smarter Keepers and the Return of Alex Hunter

Gears of War: E-Day Multiplayer and Co-op

While a large part of the game is its multiplayer component (Horde Siege and 4v4 Versus), this wasn’t fully available for the review period, which was limited to campaign co-op. This feature unlocks with the Early Access release, which opens on 1 October for Premium Edition owners, where more players will be available to complete teams in lobbies. Online multiplayer requires a Game Pass subscription that includes online play. That being said, there was an open beta in August, plus specific multiplayer previews for the game earlier this year for fans to view.

Gears of War: E-Day Release Date, Price and Game Pass

It’s clear that there is still solid interest in the latest Gears game, despite its 20-year history. With an estimated 120,000 pre-orders on Steam alone, according to Alinea Analytics (29 September), it has reached a reasonable milestone for Xbox and its developers. These are third-party estimates and exclude Xbox and Microsoft Store sales as well as Game Pass players. Gears of War: E-Day is available to pre-order on Xbox and Steam, and will drop on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass when it lands on 6 October 2026, with Premium Edition early access from 1 October.

RELATED: Marvel’s Wolverine Review – Adamantium-Strength Story, Cardboard Combat

Where to Play Gears of War: E-Day

Gears of War: E-Day launches on 6 October 2026 on Xbox Series X|S and PC, via Steam, the Xbox store and the Xbox app, with Premium Edition early access from 1 October. It is a day-one release on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass (see Game Pass plans), and it is not coming to PlayStation 5. The Standard Edition lists at $69.99 on Steam in the US.