As a longtime Gears of War fan, I have been so pumped about Gears of War: E-Day ever since the first trailer dropped. I’ve been following the game for a while, and I was really excited to get my hands on it. That doesn’t mean I was going to forgive every flaw; there were some ups and some downs, but throughout the campaign I found myself laughing at some of the ridiculous things happening on screen, getting pumped up at some of the brotherhood scenes between Marcus and Dom, finding relief after surviving a difficult encounter and occasionally saying “OH SH**” out loud when the game completely caught me off guard.
E-Day feels like a return to what made the original Gears of War trilogy special. It is dark, violent, emotional and occasionally horrifying. Marcus and Dom are back together, the Locust feel threatening again, and the gunplay is some of the best the franchise has ever offered. More importantly, The Coalition has found ways to modernize Gears of War without abandoning what made the series unique in the first place.
Some things still frustrated me, like certain story decisions, parts of the semi-open structure that don’t quite work, and a few moments involving established Gears lore that didn’t hit as hard as I wanted them to. These issues ultimately prevented me from giving E-Day that perfect score, but they rarely took away from what is otherwise an incredible return to glory for the franchise.
Living Through Emergence Day
Set 14 years before the original Gears of War, E-Day stars a young Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago as humanity encounters the Locust Horde on Emergence Day. Rather than telling the story of a world that has already been ravaged by years of war, The Coalition allows us to experience the moment everything begins to fall apart and a bit before it. Some opening cutscenes show Marcus and Dom learning to cope with the end of the Pendulum Wars and the death of Carlos Santiago, Dom’s older brother and one of Marcus’ closest friends.
The campaign then jumps into a dark, horror-inspired setting that immediately establishes its tone. Throughout the story, cinematic transitions tell you how many hours you are from or into Emergence Day. It is a relatively small addition, but one that gives the campaign a sense of momentum. You aren’t simply completing a series of missions about E-Day. It feels like you are experiencing the invasion alongside these characters as they try to understand what is happening around them.
This approach also gives E-Day some of the best world-building the franchise has seen as you witness locations change while the invasion progresses. Recognizable city streets gradually transform into the ruined environments of the original trilogy. Revisiting an area and seeing how much destruction has occurred since you were last there helps illustrate the scale of the Locust invasion without requiring a cutscene to explain it.
Some of my favourite examples of this storytelling weren’t even the traditional missions. Sometimes I was walking through the city with Bravo Squad and would randomly come across action happening in the world. For example, I came across two soldiers positioned inside an apartment preparing to ambush Locust moving through the street below. I initially assumed I had found another side mission, but no prompt or objective marker appeared. It was simply another battle in a much larger war.
Moments like these make the world feel as though it exists beyond Bravo, and they are far more effective than some of the game’s actual side missions.
Marcus and Dom Are Back
An unavoidable sense of nostalgia comes with seeing Marcus and Dom together again. These are characters my friends and I grew up playing as, and seeing younger versions of them reimagined with this level of detail immediately brought me back to playing the original trilogy.
Marcus and Dom are considerably younger here, and neither has experienced the events that eventually shape them into the characters we meet in the original Gears of War. Dom still has his family, and Marcus thinks he has no further purpose now that the war is over; their relationship is already recognizable, but E-Day lets you explore them at a different point in their lives while also introducing Mags Carter and Lucas Reyes as part of Bravo squad.
The Coalition does a particularly good job developing these characters while you’re actually playing the campaign. Conversations happen as you explore the environment, letting smaller pieces of their personalities and histories emerge naturally without constantly pulling you into cutscenes. You spend a lot of time with these characters, giving them plenty of opportunities to interact.
Even though The Coalition let the narrative director go, the script is surprisingly effective at shifting between emotions. Some moments made me hate the Locust and want to fight them, while others had me cheering for the squad, getting pumped up, or genuinely laughing at something that was said or done.
Some characters also make an impression despite having relatively little screen time. One character in particular is introduced at the beginning of a mission, and somehow by the end of it I genuinely cared about what happened to them.
My biggest issue with the story is how it distributes some of its important moments among the squad. Mags is positioned as an experienced veteran, so it makes sense that Marcus and Dom would occasionally look to her for guidance. However, there were several significant moments when I wished Marcus or Dom had been given more agency.
This became particularly noticeable during discoveries about the Locust and how the COG learns to fight them. I wanted to experience more of these moments through Marcus and Dom, but Mags often takes the lead instead. I also wasn’t invested in one storyline in Act 4 that felt cheesy and flat.
Thankfully, The Coalition has plenty of surprises for fans, including a few that put a huge smile on my face. E-Day is absolutely a game I recommend experiencing with as little spoiled as possible.
The Horror of Gears of War
One of the things I wanted most from E-Day was a return to the darker atmosphere of the original Gears of War, and The Coalition nailed it. The Locust feel dangerous again, and the game uses its enemy variety to make individual encounters more unpredictable. Rushers are a perfect example. They’ll sprint toward you, vault over obstacles and tackle you directly to the ground. The tackle animation gets repetitive after you’ve seen it enough times, but mechanically, they do exactly what they’re supposed to. They force you to react rather than comfortably sitting behind cover.
Enemy AI also puts up a respectable fight. I played on normal and got downed far more often than I expected. Enemies were willing to pressure my position rather than simply waiting for me to pop out of cover. The range of enemy types forces you to prioritize different threats, especially when the game starts throwing several enemy types at you at once.
Boss encounters offer a welcome change of pace with a good mix of larger ground encounters alongside aerial challenges. Playing above the easiest difficulty provided a solid challenge throughout the campaign. I imagine it would be a great challenge on anything above normal. If you want the story, casual is the way to go.
The atmosphere during these firefights in E-Day is darker and grittier than the more recent entries, with the Locust presented as horrifying creatures invading a society that has no idea how to deal with them. The cutscene with Vraahk that The Coalition showed off in their campaign trailer is actually extended and slightly different here in the game, which was a nice surprise and added to the horror of these Locust as they terrorize Kalona, leaving you feeling helpless.
Gunplay at Its Best
For everything E-Day adds to the formula, its greatest strength might be the simplest: shooting Locust feels incredible. Weapons carry the weight expected from Gears of War. The sound design is exceptional; enemies react satisfyingly to gunfire, and landing a Longshot headshot produces exactly the disgusting crunch you want to hear. Combined with the blood effects and destruction around you, combat feels like you’re in a real battle.
I’m not normally the sniping type, but the Longshot became my weapon of choice whenever I could find one. During one encounter, I fired at a Locust. I took his head off, only for the shot to continue into an explosive barrel behind him, which then exploded, killing another two Locust standing nearby. It was completely unscripted and beautiful to watch. It often happens when several of the game’s systems naturally come together at the perfect moment. The campaign creates encounters that give you the tools to experiment without prescribing exactly how to use them, which means you’ll inevitably experience moments other players won’t
The game also offers an excellent variety of weapons. Familiar Gears favourites return alongside additions such as the Breechshot, which quickly became another favourite of mine. The blade mounted to the back of the weapon can be used for melee attacks and fits perfectly with the franchise’s brutal nature. The Incinerator Shotgun offers another close-range option by firing hazardous rounds, which I believe are imulsion-infused, while the weapons and equipment scattered throughout the campaign give you plenty of opportunities to change your loadout.
My experience with the Gnasher was oddly inconsistent, though. There were several situations where I was convinced I had landed a shot only to get a very different response from the game, and that left me frustrated on many encounters because there are a lot of wretches around. Whether that came down to inconsistent hit reg or my own inability to use the Gnasher properly, I don’t know. Still, it was one of the few weapons that didn’t consistently feel as satisfying as the rest of the arsenal.
Evolving How Gears Move
Changing the movement in Gears of War was always going to come with a bit of controversy. The weight of these characters and reliance on cover are fundamental parts of the franchise’s identity, so making Marcus and company much more mobile could easily have changed the rhythm of combat.
Instead, the new movement mechanics feel like a natural evolution: jumping adds considerably more verticality to environments, and sliding lets you pull off so many sick moves without making the characters feel unnaturally agile. You can vault through the environment, climb over vehicles, and approach enemies from angles that wouldn’t have been possible in earlier games.
The key is that environments are designed around these abilities. Verticality isn’t simply an extra button you occasionally press. Some encounters reward height, while others push you to move between elevations to flank enemies.
Despite the added mobility, characters still retain that classic Gears of War weight. You’re controlling massive COG soldiers, not superheroes, and The Coalition has balanced modernizing traversal while maintaining that identity.
One seemingly minor addition I also appreciated is the ability to rotate the camera completely around your character. Earlier Gears games restricted the camera, so having full control while exploring makes a noticeable difference. Weird, but I like seeing my characters in a 360 view.
Another thing I really liked was that the game let the environments speak for themselves instead of filling your HUD with objective markers and icons everywhere. One thing to note: you can toggle Tutorial hints on and off depending on how much guidance you want, so I would do that before you start playing. Otherwise, you’ll get an on-screen notification when a hardcase is near you.
Collectibles have improved since the preview build I originally played, too. Instead of constantly placing markers in front of you, the game subtly uses the classic Gears audio cue to indicate something is nearby. You can still rely on the map and extra help if you want it, but players who prefer searching environments themselves can do so without every secret being immediately revealed.
Perks, Mods and Hard Cases
The new perk and modification system is one of E-Day’s more significant additions to the traditional campaign formula, and after experiencing it across the full game, I’m a fan.
Hard Cases hidden throughout the world provide additional weapon modifications, giving exploration a tangible purpose beyond simply finding collectibles. Weapons, armour and tactical equipment can all be modified with abilities that complement different approaches to combat. You can upgrade and customize all this in the supply caches placed throughout the world.
Each weapon offers a surprising amount of perks to choose from. For example, you can add a perfect reload mod that increases weapon damage after a perfect reload, or a stock that reduces sway and improves accuracy. Tactical upgrades offer options like the Sonic Disruptor or Adrenaline Injector. You can also add mods to these, and I was a big fan of the Sonic Disruptor mod that sent out a 360 pulse that burned any enemies in the vicinity. It was useful for keeping enemies from pushing too hard.
These additions provide another layer of customization without turning Gears of War into a loot-focused RPG. You’re still picking up weapons and moving through a largely linear campaign, but the mod system lets you gradually tailor your Gear to how you prefer to fight. This should be especially fun in co-op, where one player can lean into a support role while another focuses on long-range combat or pushing enemies head-on. Previous Gears games let you bring different weapons into a fight, but E-Day gives each player more freedom to develop their own playstyle.
My biggest issue was understanding exactly when additional mod slots became available outside of the hard cases. There were several occasions where I suddenly realized I had another slot for a weapon, armour or tactical modification without understanding what I had done to unlock it. I may have missed an explanation somewhere along the way, but I don’t think the progression was explained clearly, so if you read this and you know how, leave a comment below! Ultimately, it’s a small complaint about a system I would happily see expanded in future Gears of War games.
A Bigger Gears World
The semi-open structure is one area of E-Day where my feelings are more mixed, even though it remains a largely linear campaign. Certain portions expand into larger, hub-like environments, giving you opportunities to explore, find Hard Cases, complete secondary objectives and discover encounters throughout the city.
At its best, this approach produces some of my favourite natural moments in the game. Stumbling across soldiers fighting the Locust or discovering something happening inside an apartment makes the invasion feel much larger than the squad you’re controlling. The world feels like it keeps operating whether you’re there to witness it or not.
Unfortunately, the side missions aren’t very good, and they require you to enter an area and hold down X to activate them. It’s a weird game design choice, and I found it surprisingly immersion-breaking. If I walk into an area where civilians are under attack, I shouldn’t need to confirm that I want to participate in the encounter. The situation itself should naturally begin.
Some of these side objectives are also relatively simple and sometimes feel closer to small Horde encounters than meaningful side missions. Thinking back, I don’t think I was even rewarded for completing them, which made the organic encounters scattered throughout the world much more interesting to me than the objectives explicitly labelled as additional content, because either way you were completing missions and likely getting XP.
One thing worth mentioning is that, at times, the larger environments felt empty if you weren’t running into any side missions or live moments. I also found myself going back and forth in these areas doing missions where you respond to emergencies or protect civilians. That makes sense, given you’re experiencing Emergency Day in real time, but I don’t think it hits the way The Coalition intended. I will say, though, the quieter moments provided welcome downtime and character dialogue between major encounters.
E-Day It’s Like an Epic TV Show
The set pieces throughout E-Day are exceptional and show just how much The Coalition understands the scale this franchise can deliver. Some are fully cinematic, while others allow you to play through the experience as everything falls apart around you. The latter were consistently some of my favourite sequences because they keep the spectacle part of the gameplay instead of simply asking you to put the controller down and watch.
I’m deliberately avoiding examples because these moments are considerably better when you don’t know they’re coming. There were sequences where the sheer scale of what was happening made me stop and appreciate how far Gears of War has come technologically.
Yet E-Day doesn’t rely entirely on spectacle. Smaller details are everywhere. Doors have different opening animations, environments change as the invasion progresses, and pieces of cover can even deteriorate during firefights, forcing you lower as the protection you were relying on gradually disappears.
There’s a lot of thought behind what E-Day does, and the campaign constantly shifts between mission styles rather than relying on the same combat scenario for its entire runtime. It reminded me of those old-school games where a campaign wasn’t afraid to introduce an idea, like taking you off the ground and controlling a helicopter just for fun, then continuing with the game.
The soundtrack also deserves some real recognition here. Composer Adam Lastiwka’s score complements the action without overwhelming it. Subtle guitar work occasionally surfaced in quieter moments, making the scale feel more epic. Then, when the music ramped up alongside the gunfire, explosions, and screams of the Locust Horde, the audio became one of the game’s strongest elements. It made me feel like I was watching an episode of Band of Brothers, which is a really good thing.
The Coalition created a world that gradually transforms into the ruined planet Sera longtime players recognize. They gave Marcus and Dom another opportunity to fight alongside each other without simply relying on nostalgia to carry the experience. Most importantly, The Coalition remembered that Gears of War should be a badass third-person shooter. There’s still a lot of Gears of War to come, and after seeing what The Coalition accomplished with E-Day, I’m more excited about the series’ future than I’ve been in years.
Verdict
Gears of War: E-Day feels like the first true Coalition Gears of War game. It’s a shift away from Gears 4 and Gears 5, and it feels like the game the studio genuinely wanted to make, capturing what made the original trilogy special while finally pushing the series forward in its own way. They’ve taken the horror, brutality, brotherhood, and incredible gunplay that defined those games and used them as the foundation for something more modern. Expanded movement gives combat more freedom, while perks and modifications add another layer of experimentation, and the larger environments make Emergence Day feel like a genuine catastrophe happening around you.
Gears of War: E-Day is incredible. Despite a handful of frustrations keeping it from perfection, it’s one of the best games I’ve played this year.
I Shall Hold My Place in the Machine and Never Fight Alone.
[The publisher provided a copy of the game for review purposes.]
Reviewed on: Xbox Series
