If you're having trouble with Gears of War E-Day servers being down or you're seeing an error code when trying to log into the online multiplayer game, then you're probably pretty frustrated. Unfortunately, I can't fix the problem, but I can tell you a bit more about why it's happening, what you can do in the meantime, and what your error code might mean.

What to do if the Gears of War E-Day servers are down?

Since launch, the Gears of War E-Day servers have had some problems. While in-game messages blamed this on overcrowding, it later turned out this was in fact due to DDoS attacks, as confirmed by The Coalition. Hopefully this sort of issue won't happen again, but if you do find that E-Day servers are down or you're put in a queue, you can still access the brilliant campaign in offline mode. If you've not tried it yet, it's definitely worth a go, as you can read in our Gears of War E-Day review.

Thanks to Gears of War E-Day co-op options, this means you can enjoy the campaign on your own or in split screen couch co-op even when the game's online servers are down.

If that's not for you, there are a few other classic options you can try. First off, always try turning your device and your router off and on again (it's a joke for a reason). If you're playing on Steam, you can also try verifying the game's files. To do this:

• Close the game.
• Open your Steam library.
• Right click on Gears of War E-Day in your library list.
• Select the 'Installed Files' tab.
• Click on 'Verify integrity of game files'.

If none of that works, then all you can do is wait for the issue to be fixed. In that case, keep an eye on official channels, such as the Gears Community X feed.

Gears of War E-Day error codes

If you're seeing an error code instead, there are a few reasons that could be to blame, and I'll go through them and their fixes right here.

• drone-snub
  • If you're using a VPN, try turning it off.
• quentin-ephyra
  • Xbox Quick Resume issue. Fully close and relaunch the game.
• gill-gutpuncher
  • Reset your device's date and time settings.
• manu-boomshot
  • Try restarting your router and device.
• drone-snub
  • Try restarting your router and device.
• elias-gutpuncher
  • Try restarting your router and device.
• marcus-lancer
  • A developer fix has now been issued for this one.

If you see any of these, give the options above a try, but I can't promise they'll fix anything. Sometimes these things are beyond our capabilities, and you'll just have to wait for a server-side fix.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

If you've been taking on the Locust horde in Gears of War: E-Day lately, you might have noticed some disruption in online play. The servers have been subject to DDoS attacks, but The Coalition is on the case and normal service is expected to resume in the near future.

The developer posted about the incidents on social media. "Earlier today, some players experienced intermittent disconnects, login issues, or other service disruptions in Gears of War: E-Day," a post on Twitter says. "These issues were due to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks targeting our online services."

Repairs are underway, and the tweet notes the devs are keeping an eye on things. "Our teams are continuing to monitor and mitigate this activity," the post continues. "We’ll provide updates if there are any significant changes."

The tweet ends by thanking fans for being patient and understanding. It's unclear how much damage the attackers caused or how badly the systems were impacted, but it was likely fairly noticeable and widespread if it necessitated an official response.

This is a frustrating turn since the game only came out last week, on October 6, and it's the big return for one of Xbox's flagship series. Many have likely already finished the campaign, and are now getting stuck right into the multiplayer - or they glossed over the single-player elements in favor of blasting and chainsawing others online.

Now, those plans have been delayed. In the responses, some users are noting they've been waiting a number of hours for servers to stabilize again, indicating it's been stop-start the last while. You can probably expect that to persist throughout today, before The Coalition managed to completely firewall the DDoS culprits.

Nobody said taking on the Locust would be easy. Sometimes it just takes a little more patience than you'd like. Remain steadfast.

Gears of War E-Day sold just 62k copies on Xbox versus 1.7 million Game Pass players, analyst estimates: "The $70 premium SKU is – functionally – dead on Xbox"

Gears of War: E-Day sales topped 230,000 across Xbox and Steam following an October 1 launch, according to estimates from analyst firm Alinea.

Market analysis head Rhys Elliott reports the Xbox player base is larger than it appears, even if premium sales were dominated by Steam. An estimated 62,000 people bought the game outright on Xbox consoles, with 168,000 buyers on Steam.

SteamDB ownership estimates, which are always fallible and are especially volatile shortly after launch, support this figure, estimating 171,000 to 195,000 owners at the time of writing.

How did a new, highly rated entry in a flagship series sell just 62,000 copies on Xbox in launch week? (Our Gears of War: E-Day review also awards it high marks.) Elliott notes that while Xbox Game Pass is "cannibalising much of the premium revenue," with some 1.7 million estimated players playing E-Day through the subscription service, over 722,000 Game Pass subs also paid for E-Day's premium upgrade.

"So '230K copies' undersells the paying audience," Elliott writes. "Including the 722K upgrades, nearly 950K people actually paid something for E-Day." This brings the game's total estimated sales revenue to around $37 million.

Nevertheless, "The $70 premium SKU is – functionally – dead on Xbox," Elliott argues.

I've reached out to Microsoft for comment on these figures, which remain unconfirmed estimates, and its expectations for E-Day.

As Circana games analyst Mat Piscatella points out online (not in direct response to Alinea's report, but certainly in its orbit), "it isn't straight cannibalism if a person paying for Game Pass plays an offered game through the service."

Many game developers, including several who've worked with or under Microsoft, have criticized the effects Game Pass can have on full-fat sales or the value of games. This year, Microsoft removed new Call of Duty games from the service's day-one offerings, though it stopped short of admitting it was losing too much money on the deal as Game Pass growth failed to meet expectations despite a significant bump from CoD.

However, the assumption that, in a world without Xbox Game Pass, the sales of games like Gears of War: E-Day would be directly boosted by however large their Game Pass audience was doesn't hold up.

"Not every person who plays a game via a sub service would buy that game were it not included in that service," Piscatella notes. We don't, and can't, know exactly how many Game Pass players, or even Game Pass premium upgraders, would've paid full price in this case, but it certainly wouldn't be all of them. We also can't separate the value of any Game Pass subscriptions purchased by people enticed by E-Day – that is, the value-add.

E-Day was once on track to become another multiplatform Xbox game before Microsoft shelved a reportedly near-finished PS5 port to prioritize its home console, even if that means limiting its audience.

Gears of War: E-Day studio reportedly fears post-launch layoffs, "wouldn't put it past" Microsoft to withhold bonuses.

Gears of War E-Day might be restricted to PC and Xbox, but that doesn't mean you can't consider playing it with your friends on those platforms. Even better, the latest instalment includes that near-lost, increasingly rare mechanic that is couch co-op, so charge those controllers, get comfy, and lock in for the Gears of War E-Day co-op campaign.

Is the Gears of War E-Day campaign co-op?

Yes! The Gears of War E-Day campaign does have co-op, both online and local. You can continue your journey from any chapter you've already started, or your most recent save, and friends will be launched straight in with you.

All multiplayer and single-player campaign options are reached from the same screen. To invite friends to join you in the Gears of War E-Day campaign online, launch the campaign from the main menu, and you'll automatically be assigned to play as Marcus Fenix. Scroll across and click on any of the buttons beneath the three remaining characters to open your friends list. Choose the friend you want to play with to send an invite.

If you want to play the Gears E-Day campaign in couch co-op, press the menu button on the second player's Xbox controller add select the player's account or log-in as a guest.

I've missed couch co-op in most modern games, so it's nice to see it as one of the Gears of War E-Day campaign co-op options. Whether you're playing alone or with a friend, make sure you've got the best Gears of War E-Day mods for your weapons, armor, and tactical equipment, and prepare yourself by checking out the average Gears of War E-Day campaign length.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Whether you're thinking about checking off the campaign before tackling Horde Siege or you want a break from the multiplayer mode, you're here to answer the question of the Gears of War E-Day campaign length.

Based on a few playthroughs, we've got the approximate answer below, and while it's longer than any other Gears campaign so far, it's far from a long game, meaning you'll have plenty of time to complete it once or more and get into Horde Siege, too.

What's the Gears of War E-Day campaign length?

Based on a few playthroughs, the approximate total playtime for the Gears of War E-Day campaign is:

• Story Campaign: 11-13 hours.
• Standard Playthrough (Story + major side quests): 13-15 hours.
• 100% Completion: 15+ hours.

As you can see, even with finding all collectibles and completing side quests, you'll be able to complete Gears of War E-Day in less than 20 hours, making it a very reasonably sized game. Previous Gears of War campaigns usually last under 10 hours, with Gears 5 - the longest before E-Day - tipping the scales slightly over that amount. This makes E-Day the longest Gears game by far, but it never feels too long thanks to an engaging and moving story from start to end.

Even if you're not a completionist, I certainly recommend looking around for Hardcases, which is made much easier by using the clever Tac-Com mechanic, as these contain Gears of War E-Day mods for your weapons and armor. You'll also be able to get mods from completing side quests, too, so keep an eye out for yellow icons, indicating a nearby side quest.

You could also speed things up a bit by bringing in a friend to help you through the Gears of War E-Day co-op campaign.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

To streamline killing enemies as quickly as possible, you're going to need the best Gears of War E-Day weapon builds, so you'll need to find the best mods. As soon as you enter Act 2 Chapter 2, the E-Day map opens up to you, and you're relatively free to explore as you wish.

In doing so, you'll discover weapon mods and upgrade caches, and I'm sure you'll immediately want to know the best Gears of War E-Day weapon mods to hunt down as soon as possible, just as I did. Since weapons mods and extra slots are obtained from Hardcases found around the map and for completing side quests, it can be hard to know where to start, so, here are the best weapon builds and where to find the mods and slots you'll need to craft them.

Best Longshot build

The best Longshot build consists of:

• Full Metal Jacket
  • Default
• Skeleton Frame
  • In a hardcase to the south of Monroe Library
• Forged Barrel
  • In a Hardcase under the Gears Statues in Act 2 Chapter 3
• Mod slots
  • In a Hardcase near the bloody fountain in Act 2 Chapter 2
  • TBC

The Longshot is a one-hit kill sniper rifle that excels at both wiping out enemy snipers and more nearby foes with the Forged Barrel. There's no need to use any scope on this as the default is perfectly suitable for any use. Since you need to reload after every bullet, accuracy is key here, which we've got with this build, but if and when I find a mod that increases mag capacity, I'll be adding that, too.

Best Prototype Lancer build

The best Prototype Lancer build consists of:

• Full Metal Jacket
  • Default
• Chainsaw Autoloader
  • Obtained during the 'Gear Up' campaign mission early in the campaign
• Holo Sight
  • In a Hardcase on the first floor, across the street from Carter's Place
• Cover Brace
  • Found in the Hardcase to the west of the Courthouse
• Extra mod slots
  • Found in the Hardcase to the west of the Courthouse
  • TBC

The iconic chainsaw gun is back and there are some excellent mods to stick on the Proto Lancer as soon as you have them - not least the Chainsaw Autoloader, which has great synergy with the Full Metal Jacket mod. From here, Holo Sight is essential given it's toggle zoom, meaning you only have to use it when you need it. Plus, since you'll almost always be using your Proto Lancer from behind cover, the Cover Brace is another no-brainer, leading to the perfect full build ones you've unlocked all three slots.

Best Snub build

The best Snub build consists of:

• Full Metal Jacket
  • Default
• Aim Stabilizer
  • In a Hardcase to the south of the Bank of Tyrus.
• Extended Mag
  • Default
• Extra mod slots
  • TBC
  • TBC

You're unlikely to get much use out of your Snub, but it can come in handy in short-range combat or when you're out of bullets, so don't overlook these mods. For the best build, you're just going to need to make it more accurate and with a larger mag capacity, with the Aim Stabilizer and Extended Mag, of course with the default Full Metal Jacket in there as well.

Best armor mods

These are the best armor mods to equip:

• Hardened Cover
  • In a Hardcase outside Amberstone Storage
• Rock Steady
  • In a Hardcase outside Amberstone Storage
• Proximity Regen
  • In a Hardcase under the flyover at the south of the Chapter 2 map (where a very dark cutscene takes place, but no spoilers)

When you get your armor slots, the build above gives you increased resistance against incoming fire while behind cover, but also allows you to automatically regain health when killing enemies at close range. Rock Steady, meanwhile, improves your accuracy when firing, so it's a great all-round build.

Since you're searching Hardcases and completing side quests to collect these mods, prepare yourself by checking out our guide to the Gears of War E-Day campaign length. We've also got a guide to getting your friends involved with Gears of War E-Day co-op, so don't forget to let them in on the best mods, too.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

After the seven year wait between Gears 5 and Gears of War: E-Day, The Coalition studio head Mike Crump says we won't be waiting quite as long for what's next.

Gears of War: E-Day is finally out after being announced back in June 2024, and by extension has ended the series longest hiatus. Gears 5 was released all the way back in 2019, following a three year wait between it and Gears 4 – which in turn only took three years to release after the launch of Gears of War Judgement. In fact, the entire original trilogy released within a five-year span, meaning the wait between 5 and E-Day has been pretty significant for fans.

Speaking to the BBC, Crump promises that E-Day will set a "great foundation" for the future of the series, and that "the next game will not take nearly as long." However, reports out of the studio ahead of launch were that of fear that Microsoft would be laying off staff members following the release of the game and as part of the company's planned 3,200 job cuts by the end of the fiscal year (with the game's story director being laid off just before launch).

Crump acknowledges this, saying: "What I say to myself, what I say to the team, is we just [sic] we need to focus on the things that we can control." He adds, "For us that's about shipping a great game that people are going to love and I feel like, as a team, we've done that."

Gears 5 pretty famously ended with a massive cliffhanger, so naturally fans have been waiting to see the resolution of that, and still are given that E-Day is a prequel to the entire series. But thankfully, it sounds like it won't be seven years away.

Gears of War E-Day review: "Brings Gears back to the cutting edge of shooters."

Gears of War: E-Day Metacritic scores are in, and it's the best reviewed game in the series since Epic Games stopped developing it.

Over on Metacritic, the game currently sits at a score of 88 based on 50 critic reviews, and while this doesn't quite match the 94, 93, and 91 that the original trilogy from Epic Games got, it's still bound to be cause for celebration for fans. The score of 88 means that it does beat out People Can Fly's Gears of War Judgement (79), and The Coalition's Gears of War 4 and Gears 5 (both 84) – as well as spin-offs Gears Tactics and Gears Pop. So, it's the best Gears in 15 years as far as the numbers are concerned.

In GamesRadar+'s Gears of War E-Day review-in-progress, features editor Andy Brown calls it "the best cover shooter I've played since Xbox 360" and says "crunchy shootouts and a groundbreaking adaptive cover system makes every shootout dynamically chaotic, but the devastated city of Kalona is the real star of this show." The full-scored review will be available in the near future after the game's multiplayer has been thoroughly tested.

The game nabbed full marks from multiple outlets, including Pure Xbox and Eurogamer Germany, however, the majority of the scored reviews are deemed "Positive" by Metacritic, while the only ones that aren't are the three deemed "Mixed."

At the moment, a number of outlets have published unscored reviews, so this may be subject to change in the coming weeks, but for now it's good news for The Coalition. However, this comes at an unfortunate time for the studio as the game's story director, Juan Vaca, was laid off after the game went gold, while reports from the studio have devs fearful for more layoffs and withheld bonuses following Microsoft's planned layoffs before the end of the fiscal year.

Gears of War: E-Day devs want to be known for "all the things that made Gears resonate in the first place," without "looking outside at other franchises."

We're mere days away from the launch of Gears of War: E-Day, and the return of one of Microsoft's banner game franchises. What should be excitement for developer The Coalition is reportedly closer to dread, as team members fear being let go once the highly anticipated game ships.

According to a report from Eurogamer, a number of staff at the studio are anxious about the coming weeks amid ongoing layoffs across Microsoft's games wing. Since July, hundreds of roles have been cut across the myriad studios owned and operated by Xbox.

CEO Asha Sharma stated that a total of 3,200 jobs would be let go over the course of a harsh restructuring process. We've seen Halo Studios, Obsidian, Bethesda, Ninja Theory, and more impacted by these changes, and people at The Coalition believe they could be next.

Comments made to Eurogamer paint a picture of existential dread as the release day for the new Gears of War approaches. Though the studio had a reputation as one of the "good children" at Microsoft, as one source put it, a combination of internal changes and the game's release is ratcheting up the nerves.

Until now, The Coalition considered itself relatively safe because the developers were working on a flagship property and consistently delivered results. But when Juan Vaca, story director on E-Day, was laid off last week, amid several others quietly let go recently, reality set in that perhaps nobody is truly safe.

"I can only imagine the heartbreak of spending all those years on a game to have the final stretch ripped away, completely out of your control," said a source on Vaca's exit. "It's like you planned for a year on a meal for your family where everyone will be there and the day of, you get locked out of the building or something and can't join in."

Indeed, there are many who aren't far off Vaca in terms of time spent on the project. Recent months have been a crunch period, but it feels like there's nothing they can do to avert changes. "We honestly expected the layoffs to hit us post-release, but that seems to not matter now," says one developer. "Now we're just expecting the next wave, or being reorganized under Activision or something later this year."

There are also worries that anyone laid off now would miss out on post-release bonuses tied to the game's critical performance. "It's hard to believe anything [Microsoft leadership] say anymore after discarding staff in this manner," one developer stated, with another adding they "wouldn't put it past" the corporation to hold back on those lucrative payouts.

At the time of writing, Gears of War: E-Day has debuted to a Metacritic score of 87. Sadly, all anyone can do is see what happens in the coming weeks. The Coalition has plans for five seasons of updates post-launch for E-Day, including celebrating the property's 20th anniversary in November.

Gears of War: E-Day devs want to be known for "all the things that made Gears resonate in the first place," without "looking outside at other franchises"

As Gears of War: E-Day launched, developer The Coalition was thinned by more Xbox layoffs. It's a heartbreaking circumstance by any metric, but the timing feels crueler since rolling credits on E-Day's campaign and seeing the extent of their triumph – an ode to big-screen action that restores Gears to the cutting edge of third-person shooters.

Too often, AAA shooter campaigns can feel like bolt-on afterthoughts in a multiplayer-oriented genre. But E-Day builds an entire city in excruciating detail, only to tear it down brick-by-brick around you.

Good kid, bad city

Kalona is an industrial city, with Gothic streets criss-crossing between dockyards and military forts. Headlines splashed across billboards celebrate the end of a war fought against the Union of Independent Republics (UIR). Kalona's gothic grandeur has been untouched by the war – I'm reminded of New York City's celebrations post-World War 2, which in pictures seems far removed from mainland Europe's devastation.

The conflict casts a long shadow over returning Gears protagonists Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. Brought closer by the death of Dom's brother and Fenix's squaddie Carlos Santiago, who died fighting the UIR, the pair are ditching a military ceremony to get drunk when the titular Emergence Day begins. The earth cracks open and hordes of subterranean humanoids – some scuttling on all-fours, others geared with guns and armor – spill onto the surface and kill indiscriminately. The horror is awfully believable: civilians are slaughtered as they run while fire and sinkholes lay waste to Kalona itself; leaving Fenix and Santiago to link up with a back-footed defense alongside fellow Gears Carter and Reyes.

With E-Day's campaign set entirely within Kalona, The Coalition shows its destruction in unflinching detail. Hammering home that this is happening as we play, E-Day rarely cuts away from Fenix – who leads Bravo Squad from one fire to the next – and instead uses returning locales to ground Kalona's downfall. One setpiece, Legacy Bridge, is used several times – but with the campaign's full-throttle pacing makes it feel like lifetimes have passed between each visit, to say nothing of the city falling apart around it. I'm reminded of Halo 3: ODST's excellent single-setting, which made you ache for New Mombasa through reminders of the world that was.

The bleak tone is surprisingly complementary for Gears' larger-than-life action, personalities, and load-bearing use of the word "fucker". But even the latter is additive to E-Day's story. In the moments we spend with Fenix, Bravo Squad, and other survivors; the bravado is stripped back to explore grief, trauma, and humanity. And going so long without discussing shootouts (in a Gears of War game!) speaks to the strength of E-Day's setting. But this is an action game first and foremost – not that any reminder is needed.

Reloaded

Gears of War: E-Day is the best cover shooter I've played since the series' Xbox 360-era heyday. Where 2024's excellent Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 thrived by pushing its scale and melee combat, E-Day reaches new heights for cover shooters in a more literal sense – turning encounters into scrappy, fluid gunfights. An adaptive cover system means nearly anything can be used, not just ol' reliables like car bonnets and concrete corners, and on plenty of occasions I'm saved by Fenix's willingness to dive behind shin-high rubble and shoot whilst lying on his back. Cover being more naturalized does wonders for Kalona – the absence of traditionally signposted cover makes it feel like a city, not a level.

Surviving is tricky, even on normal difficulty. The Locust are smart foes and know how to press an advantage. Twitchy crawlers rush at your position even as well-armed Drones dig in and fire from cover, the latter preferring to shoot and flank rather than charge forwards. Unique enemies reveal themselves across the campaign, and are deployed rarely enough that they are always an 'oh shit' moment – be it acid-spitting toad-creatures or, to coin an in-game description, "floating ballsacks" that rain fire from above.

In your corner, precision and brute force are equally viable. For most of the game I opt to play at mid-range where possible, using bolt-action rifles to carefully pick off targets. But limited ammo means you'll often fight with whatever gun you can scavenge, and after one such fight in an overrun train station, I grew attached to the Gnasher shotgun – its buckshot initially feels lackluster, but when you're close enough to fire without first aiming, it's devastating.

There were several times when E-Day sold me on a gun I had initially written off. Weapon and armor mods, found in hardcases across the city, are deliciously impactful. My favorite switches the Gnasher to slug rounds, allowing it to capably pop Drone heads from several meters, and my Longshot sniper rifle was unrecognizable by the end of the game, having swapped its long-range scope for an over-the-shoulder reticle in tandem with a mod that reloads its chamber with every headshot.

The result is so much variety that I struggle to draw the line under examples – it would be sacrilege, surely, to not praise the acid-spitting Incinerator shotgun, or the return of the Lancer assault rifle. The Lancer is Gears' most famous weapon, thanks to the iconic chainsaw blade fixed beneath the barrel like a bayonet. But, I find melee disappointing in E-Day – a little too soft and weightless in comparison to trading desperate gunfire from cover.

It took me 16 hours to finish E-Day's five-act campaign. That includes most of its side objectives – not to chase down collectibles, but because I wanted the extra shootouts they promised. I rolled credits days ago, and feel the same melancholy that finishing a good book can leave me with – in this case, a testament to those engrossing few days in Kalona.

I'm a little less enthused by E-Day's multiplayer, which is a mixed bag. Versus – PvP modes ranging from team deathmatch to objective-based scraps – is too uneven to feel truly competitive. Expect to be matched with level 50+ players while you're still level one, resulting in too many one-sided stomps in quickplay. I can live with that in isolation, but more damning is how poorly E-Day's cover-based pacing survives contact against other players.

The emphasis on positioning that fuels the campaign's scrappy shootouts is gone, as players (including myself) careen around the map with one-shot-kill Gnasher shotguns – which is fun in its own way, but better-suited as a Quake-style LAN party game than something to be taken too seriously. Especially as guns and loadouts are locked behind a leveling system, so you can't just mash together your preferred kit and lean into the chaos.

Much better is Gears' Horde Siege mode, which drops three teams of four players into Kalona to fight the Locust on several fronts. Each squad has their own primary objective, but with optional side objectives encouraging detours, you'll often wander into someone else's war. It's an excellent dynamic: I've been on the cusp of being overrun during an objective defense, only for friendlies to crest the horizon, Lancers blazing, to save the day. It's even better when the shoe is on the other foot, and I've barreled through Locusts and over rubble to revive someone outside of my squad. A hero? Me? You're too kind (and correct).

The world feels harder nowadays, and layoffs at The Coalition are just one facet of that. I often look to games to meet me in the moment, but equally important are those with the power to take us away. Gears of War: E-Day does this sublimely, its campaign contrasting quiet vulnerability and cataclysmic setpieces so dramatically that it would be comical if not so well done. Versus mode isn't for me, but I continue to dip into Horde Siege on evenings and I'm already planning to run through the campaign on a harder difficulty with friends. E-Day is a very good time, and it's easy to underestimate how powerful that can be.

We reviewed Gears of War: E-Day on PC, with a Steam code provided by the publisher.

Gear up for your next adventure! We've rounded up the best shooters to play in 2026.

After seven years, the Gears of War series is back, and this time we're experiencing Emergence Day in full. The appropriately titled Gears of War: E-Day arrives on October 6, and in the meantime, the devs have revealed what you can expect in the shooter's initial months.

In a news post on the official site, developer The Coalition breaks down the first couple of seasons and what's coming in each. Season 1 actually started in the beta period, has all the launch basics like modes and maps, and will run until December 1. There are three events therein: Halloween, 20 Years of Gears, and Thanksgibbing.

Each one comes with a special Versus mode, a Horde mission, and special rewards, and they'll all run for two weeks. Ranked play on Versus launches on October 13, a week after the game's release, so experienced players can jump right into the deep end of competitive multiplayer.

Season 2 is a special one, because it's dubbed Legacy and covers the franchise's 20th anniversary. I know, I know - I can't believe it's been that long since a friend brought me over just to show me the first Gears of War in motion. Anyway, a "special birthday gift" is coming for all players on November 7, the anniversary of Gears of War's launch.

"Crafted as a love letter to the franchise and you, our fans, you can expect a ton of new content inspired by the franchise’s most memorable moments," reads the tease for Season 2. Exciting.

We only get the titles for the following three seasons: Infiltration, Pendulum, and Devotion, respectively. Not much to go on, but I'm sure all three will deliver chaos in their own way.

Following up on the multiplayer beta, The Coalition provides some insight into the feedback received. This includes series-first changes to The Gnasher. "To improve hipfire, E-Day is the first Gears title to introduce a hybrid between muzzle and camera-oriented shooting," says the blog. "When you fire on a target, we check both the camera and muzzle shots and apply the one that better matches what the player would expect. This means a shot that looks like it should hit, will hit."

On top of this, some mechanics are actually absent at launch, due to how E-Day has been built from the ground up. "Including every legacy feature from Gears of War was not possible for launch," The Coalition says. "Those features, like Meat Shields, Chainsaw Duels, select weapons from the franchise’s past, and online work like Private Lobbies and leaderboards – are not gone from the franchise."

It's noted the devs are working on bringing them all back in, it just may take some time. Included, then, is a list of bug fixes and tweaks. There's a lot going on to ensure E-Day runs as smoothly as possible. We'll need it to deal with the encroached Locust.

Gears of War: E-Day director laid off days after completing development as Xbox cuts reach The Coalition

The Gears of War E-Day release time is fast approaching, and if you've already made your purchase to secure the pre-order bonus of Early Access then it will arrive even earlier for you. This is your opportunity to join Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago as they experience the devastation of Emergence Day, with an origin story detailing those first encounters with the Locust Horde. To find out when you can begin, this is when you can play Gears of War E-Day in Early Access and general release.

If you're hoping to play Gears of War E-Day on PS5, then unfortunately we have some bad news for you about Xbox exclusivity.

When does Gears of War E-Day come out?

If you qualify for the Gears of War E-Day pre-order bonus then this grants you Early Access to the game, starting five days earlier than anyone else on Thursday, October 1. This is a simultaneous worldwide launch where everyone will get access at the Gears of War E-Day release time of 3pm UTC on Xbox and PC, as confirmed by studio head Mike Crump in this Xbox Wire post. That converts in different regions as follows:

• US West Coast: 8am PDT
• US East Coast: 11am EDT
• UK: 4pm BST
• Central Europe: 5pm CEST
• Eastern Australia: 1am (next day) AEST
• New Zealand: 4am (next day) NZDT

Regardless of whether you've pre-ordered or not, everyone can pre-install Gears of War E-Day from Tuesday, September 29 at the above times so you're ready for action at launch. If you didn't pre-order or are playing via Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass, you can get into it from Tuesday, October 6 at the worldwide launch times shown above.

As all of these releases occur simultaneously around the globe, there is no need to mess around with your device's internal clock or attempt the 'New Zealand time zone trick', as none of that will get you access any earlier. However, you should definitely take advantage of the pre-installation period starting on September 29, as Gears of War E-Day is likely to be a significant download and you don't want to still be waiting for it to arrive when launch time rolls around.

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Microsoft has laid off the story director of Gears of War: E-Day days after he confirmed that the game has gone gold.

Xbox announced its latest wave of redundancies that continue the planned 3,200 jobs cut throughout FY27 confirmed earlier this year. Xbox confirmed 268 job losses yesterday, including at Halo Studios, whose franchise has been moved to Activision, and unfortunately, there are more job losses across Xbox studios not outlined by Microsoft.

Juan Vaca, story director at The Coalition, posted on his LinkedIn account that he is among those losing their job as part of the latest wave of Microsoft layoffs. Vaca acted as the story director on Gears of War: E-Day, which is set to release in less than two weeks.

In a sad turn of events, this post came just five days after a previous post from Vaca, celebrating that "Gears of War: E-day has gone gold" and that he's "excited for the world to see what the whole team's been cooking."

According to a Kotaku source, a small number of people were cut from The Coalition, with reasons not related to the wider Xbox restructuring. Gears of War: E-Day is set to release on October 6, 2026, so just why Xbox is laying off prominent members of staff this close to launch is unknown.

Microsoft is still planning to cut over 1,000 jobs before the end of the fiscal year, with discussions over Dishonored maker Arkane's potential buyout still ongoing, while discussions over the closure of Ninja Theory are set to begin after two potential buyers fell through for the studio. This follows what have been yearly batches of layoffs since Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard in 2023.

After more than a decade steering the blood-soaked franchise, Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition wants to be recognized creatively for all of the things that made Gears become the cover shooter poster child two generations ago: really tight action, hefty weapons, and being best-in-class at "tearing monsters apart."

It's been almost 20 years since Gears of War first chainsaw-gunned its way to the surface and over 10 years since The Coalition took over the franchise from Epic Games. But the series' stewards are still committed to delivering on what the series does best.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026, creative director Matt Searcy says "we really wanted to be known for what Gears already is." To him, Gears has always been "one of the probably best-in-class at cover shooting" thanks in large part to its "unabashed sort of tearing monsters apart."

"Ultimately, we base it around the [...] the pillars that made the original games great. What if we just built a modern game, a new engine from scratch around those pillars? And so, the short answer to your question, what do we want to creatively be known for? It's all the things that made Gears resonate in the first place," Searcy adds.

While trying to recapture the series' signature knack for monster-crushing action, the developers still wanted "the game to feel new," but Searcy says the team approached the challenge "by looking at ourselves and not looking outside at other franchises." The Xbox studio recently rejected the aggressive monetization of modern shooters, for example, and promised to return to the "good ol' days."

"Gears is one of those franchises that's always pushed the boundaries of visual [and] hardware, and I think [The Coalition] team shares a lot of that pedigree with Epic from from the past," brand director Nicole Fawcette adds, explaining that the studio is full of developers who have "truly hit their stride in this game and in their career, and it shows up on screen."

"Like, it's just a team that like strives to do their best with a franchise they love," she says. "Everybody [is] giving their absolute f*****g balls, every effort that they can to to bring it to life, and I think it shows."

Gears of War: E-Day comes out on October 6 for PC and Xbox Series X|S.

We played Gears of War: E-Day's campaign, and it's even bleaker than we expected.

Gears of War: E-Day is set on the brink of humanity's destruction. The titular Emergence Day refers to the moment when hordes of Locust soldiers rose from the ground to wage war on humanity, killing a quarter of the planet's inhabitants in little over 24 hours. We know that this was just the beginning – with the broader Gears series set during the ensuing war – but when I'm thrown into the industrial city of Kalona, survival feels futile.

My hands-on takes place in the game's second act, as a night of horror bleeds into dawn. Kalona is in its death throes. The military is only just pulling itself together, but its higher-ups have no clue how to organize against an enemy that can attack from below-ground. Although boots-on-the-ground soldiers are putting up resistance, it's scrambling and disorganized, leaving returning protagonists Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago to fight fires on all fronts.

Band of brothers

Jumping in as Marcus and Dom link up with the military, there are constant reminders that this warzone was a bustling city just hours ago. Fighting to reclaim an overrun bridge, the road is flush with abandoned cars, their drivers left to rot where they died. Train carriages are packed with dead passengers, gore streaked over windows. Across the river, a sports stadium has been converted into a military base – a gripe for one squaddie, who had tickets to the next game.

The Locust are aggressive, pushing over the bridge and flanking wherever they can, making it tricky to hunker down in one spot without being overwhelmed. Running through gunfire to evade one such flank, I try to latch Marcus onto a distant corner wall – the ol' reliable in cover shooters – and he instead dives prone behind a closer pile of knee-high rubble. It's not as effective, but keeps me in one piece long enough to regenerate health and sprint for more effective cover. I'm impressed: where the Gears of War-inspired Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 shook up the cover shooter formula by leaning further into melee action, Gears of War: E-Day's adaptive cover doubles down on shootouts – with more sporadic cover making for a much more dynamic and believable battlefield.

But if Space Marine 2's combat is to be torn through, E-Day's is to be endured. Marcus and co. are beefy, but so is the Locust. Taking one of their footsoldiers down requires standing exposed for long enough to fill it with lead, or trading gunfire in short bursts. Melee isn't as effective in the environments I played, with long sightlines and Locust snipers making it too risky to charge forwards, but it's a handy last resort. When we reach a cramped control room to raise the bridge, combat dissolves into hand-to-hand fighting.

There are times where I wish the Locust would be more dynamic, if only to match the thought that has gone into positioning and cover. More unique enemies (like skittering crawlers and chunky missile-firing brutes) don't really complement the broader Locust forces, throwing themselves at you but rarely presenting the same tactical threat as their more organized peers. Similarly, there are times when flanking falls flat due to unresponsive baddies who stand patiently while I unload a clip into their side, their peers also oblivious. I have a lot of fun across this demo, but in moments like these I worry whether the Locust will be a smart enough foe to keep E-Day fresh throughout its campaign.

Sad to the bone

Just two acts in, E-Day's cast all feel like mainstays – and while some characters' survival is guaranteed, as they appear in the main trilogy, there are others I would be gutted to lose.

There are traces of HBO's WW2 dramas Band of Brothers and The Pacific here – footsoldiers finding time to joke even as the world around them burns – and E-Day's cast has the charisma to pull it off. After a battle that leaves a control room awash with body parts, a nervous rookie calls command to confirm their success – only to hang up and be relentlessly mocked for his formality. Later, Dom relishes telling an embarrassing war story involving Marcus, less-than-choice cuts of pig, and cataclysmic diarrhea.

Without these lighter moments, E-Day's bleak setting could prove overwhelming. I'm drawn to cover shooters to switch my brain off and pump dopamine, but the shadow of real-world horror sits over Kalana. The well-documented devastation of Gaza and Mariupol are never far from thought when gaudy car dealerships and once-bustling train stations are transformed into scenes of desperation.

Given how effectively The Coalition has turned Kalana into a waking nightmare, I do hope to see the cost of civilian violence explored in the broader campaign. Throughout Gears' ultraviolence and tongue-in-cheek machismo, it's always shown war through a very human lens – and as much as I enjoy Dom sparing no detail in embarrassing Marcus, there's still room to lean into the heaviness of E-Day's setting.

I hope it does. Gears of War: E-Day is a chance to revitalize the series for modern generations. Its single-city setting shows The Coalition isn't tied to past iterations of Gears, while adaptive cover suggests an ambition to be ahead of the curve in modern-day shooters.

Gears of War: E-Day multiplayer takes a big swing with Horde Siege mode, which shines when squads collide in its dense city

Anyone who's tried to get into Gears of War's PvP multiplayer recently knows it can be absolutely brutal. Hunky soldiers zip from cover to cover and back again in the blink of an eye, but one of the series' co-creators says its wallbouncing mechanic was never supposed to dominate the competitive meta for decades. It's as accidental as his cult classic platformer turning fans into furries, he reckons. Hold on.

For anyone who hasn't been shotgunned into bits faster than you can say the word gnasher, wallbouncing in Gears of War refers to how players use the game's snappy, almost magnetic cover system to zip around maps. Quite literally, it looks like they're bouncing off the walls. Paired with the close-range gnasher shotgun, there's basically no playstyle that's even half as viable as learning to wallbounce - a meta that's kept more casual players away from Gears' Versus mode.

Original Gears of War co-creator and former series lead Cliff Bleszinski (AKA CliffyB) has now compared the mechanic to, well... here's what he had to say in a recent tweet. "Wallbouncing in Gears is like Jazz fans becoming furries," he tweets. "It wasn't the intended nor desired effect, yet here we are."

Bleszinski likely isn't referring to actual jazz music fans here - the famed game dev cut his teeth as a designer on Epic Games' oft-forgotten platforming series, Jazz Jackrabbit, which apparently served as a gateway into the furry community, at least somewhat.

Furries aside, his point is that Gears of War's snappy cover system wasn't meant to lead to an inescapable wallbouncing meta in the same way that Jazz Jackrabbit wasn't created with furries in mind.

Over in a different post, Bleszinski explained that anyone who masters wallbouncing becomes "unstoppable" and "this is not the way the game was meant to be played." He's quick to note that wallbouncing isn't strictly a bad thing - it's really fun to watch and pull off, in fact - but it was never supposed to become the entire game, as it has nowadays.

"It breaks the game for anyone else trying to play it in any other way," he adds, which is a shame considering Gears of War's damn fun sandbox of weapons. Thankfully, it's a problem that Gears of War: E-Day is looking to solve when it comes to PC and Xbox Series X|S in October.

Gears of War: E-Day's Steam player count has once again blown past the series all-time peak thanks to the beta's second week

The Gears of War: E-Day open beta has re-emerged for its second go, and once again, the shooter has set another series record on Steam.

Last week, the Gears of War: E-Day beta went live exclusively for pre-orderers and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, but that didn't stop the taste test from beating every other game in the series when it came to concurrent Steam player numbers. Now that the beta is finally open to everyone on PC and Xbox Series X|S, the chainsaw-gunning prequel has pulled off the trick for a second week in a row.

About eight hours ago, the open beta managed to horde together 22,084 Steam players at the same time. The first leg of the beta pulled a crowd of 18,000 concurrent players on Steam, which was already bigger than every other game in the series that's released on the platform, including Gears of War: Reloaded (just under 5,000), Gears Tactics (7,351 players), and Gears 5 (over 10,000).

Of course, those numbers don't include the Xbox Series X|S and Xbox PC players who roadie ran into the fray. According to Rhys Elliott, head of market research at Alinea Analytics, about 1.2 million Xbox console players tried out the first stretch of the beta last week. That crowd will no doubt get much larger as more people gain entry.

Should you be interested in shotgunning bug monsters into meat chunk confetti, the E-Day open beta is live until August 17. The early look includes a tutorial, the PvP Versus mode, and the massive PvE Horde Siege mode that has three different squads tackling side objectives and fending off waves of enemies in crumbling city streets.

Burying EA, Gears of War: E-Day devs say there's no "pride and accomplishment" grind, just "old-school" unlocks from playing the game

The first leg of Gears of War: E-Day's beta has only just clawed its way out of the ground, and it's putting up some strong Steam numbers already.

The Gears of War: E-Day open beta's first portion runs from August 6 (yesterday) to August 10 on Xbox Series X|S consoles and PC, and it seems to be doing quite well right out of the gate.

According to SteamDB, the beta managed to get 14,331 players chainsaw-gunning and wall-hopping at the same time, and we haven't even reached its first weekend where multiplayer games usually balloon.

Mind you, that's already the best Steam concurrent player peak the series has ever seen. Last year's re-remastered Gears of War Reloaded reached just under 5,000 concurrent Steam players, strategy gem Gears Tactics hoarded 7,351 players together, and the previous record holder Gears 5 peaked with a little over 10,000 people.

It's also worth noting that the Gears of War: E-Day beta is currently in early access, meaning it's only available to players who have pre-ordered the game or Game Pass Ultimate subscribers (who wouldn't have access to the Steam version, anyway). Putting up the series' best numbers before the general public's had a chance to shotgun chunks of meat off subterranean alien bugs is a very good sign for the prequel's prospects.

The full E-Day open beta goes live for everyone from August 13 to August 17. Both betas let folks try out Gears of War's PvP Versus mode and its sprawling 12-player Horde mode that throws waves of increasingly bloodthirsty enemies into wide open maps.

Gears of War: E-Day comes out in full on October 6 on Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Game Pass Ultimate.

Burying EA, Gears of War: E-Day devs say there's no "pride and accomplishment" grind, just "old-school" unlocks from playing the game.

The Gears of War E-Day multiplayer beta gives you a chance to try out the upcoming game for free while allowing the dev team at The Coalition a chance to see how it handles under stress. I'd call that a win-win.

If you want to join in and check out the multiplayer aspect of the upcoming game, here's how to gain access to the latest Gears of War beta, including the dates and times the server is open to all.

Gears of War E-Day beta dates

The Gears of War: E-Day Multiplayer Beta goes live across two weekends: August 6 - 10, and August 13 - 17, 2026. The first is for players with early access, while the second weekend is open for everyone.

The beta is focussed solely on the multiplayer aspect of the new Gears of War game, including the brand-new Horde Siege mode, which is "an Evolution of Gears' Iconic PvE Mode", featuring 12 players split into smaller squads, each playing cooperatively against the harsh and demanding environment.

You'll be able to try this and of course PvP in both weekends of the beta, so if you want to know how to get involved, read on.

How to join the Gears of War E-Day beta

To get early access to the Gears of War E-Day beta, you must pre-order the game or have an active Game Pass Ultimate or PC subscription. This does mean that there is technically a cost to playing early, but if you already have Game Pass Ultimate, you're in.

Unfortunately, this does mean that those on Game Pass Premium or Essential won't get early access, but you can upgrade your subscription level if you so wish. You can do this or purchase the game any time before the early access beta ends on August 10 to get in.

If you'd rather not make the commitment to the game or Game Pass Ultimate or PC just yet, then you can still participate in the beta during the second weekend, simply by downloading the beta on Xbox or PC nearer the time.

If you're not on PC or Xbox and are wondering about those Gears of War PS5 rumors, we've got a separate article for you.

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Will Gears of War E-Day be on PS5 at launch, and if not, is that liable to change any time in the future? The new Gears of War prequel has captured attention since it was announced, but right now Xbox-owned games and their ports have a somewhat on-and-off relation with PlayStation 5, making it hard to know off-hand. Below I'll lay out the details and explain what you can play E-Day on.

Will Gears of War E-Day be on PS5?

No, there will NOT be a PS5 port of Gears of War E-Day, according to current information given to us by Microsoft.

The current plan is for E-Day to be an Xbox exclusive, playable only on the Series X/S and PC. While at some point in the past it appeared as though Microsoft was considering a PlayStation port, that appears to have changed in the wake of variously changing business strategies at Xbox.

This might come as a surprise to some, as recent Xbox games have had a habit of making it to PlayStation sooner or later, with recent years giving us PS5 ports of Starfield, Sea of Thieves, and the upcoming Fable game still planned for simultaneous releases on both consoles. However, Xbox appears to be reconsidering which games it makes ports of, at least when it comes to launch day.

It's possible that we may see a later port of E-Day to PS5 in the future, but there's no guarantee of that, and it certainly won't be at launch day according to current information. If you're determined to see the historic moment where a chainsaw was duct-taped to a machine gun as soon as possible, you'll need access to an Xbox or Gaming PC.

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Gears of War: E-Day remembers the golden years of multiplayer shooters that didn't double as undercover cosmetic storefronts, and it's promising a throwback experience where almost every piece of customization will be earnable by playing online matches. What an idea! But don't worry about grinding endlessly for in-game currency, the devs apparently aren't going down EA's "pride and accomplishment" route.

The Coalition today dived deep into Gears of War: E-Day's multiplayer portions – the Horde mode that pits 12 players against waves of subterranean beasties and the Versus mode that includes sweaty 4v4 PvP matches. While the multiplayer looked great, what really got my chainsaw-guns revved up was the talk of how The Coalition is ditching the seedier parts of modern online shooters.

"Remember the good ol' days when you bought a game and you could unlock all the customization items just by playing because you already bought the game? Us too! So, when it comes to growing your own collection of customization items in E-Day, we've taken a more old-school inspired approach," the devs write in a lengthy new blog post.

"Nearly every single item in Gears of War: E-Day can be earned by simply playing the game. That means no battle pass, no tour of duty, no gimmicks, no bullshit. Whether it's a Legendary Character Skin, an Epic Weapon Skin Set or a Rare Pose, almost all of it can be earned through gameplay," it adds.

According to the studio, the only exceptions to this rule are items included in the Premium Edition of the game, pay-only bundles that raise money for charity, and collaboration content like an incoming weapon skin set inspired by Metallica. That aside, you'll be able to earn in-game coins after online matches, by levelling up, or by "unlocking many of the medals from our Gears 3-inspired medal system."

The Coalition seems keen to avoid a Star Wars: Battlefront 2 type of disaster, though: "Now to address the Brumak in the room, earning coins is not intended to be painstaking or provide the player with a sense of pride and accomplishment. Earning Coins shouldn't be an arduous grind. Chasing your favorite skin and unlocking new items should be fun. As such, we've carefully tuned the rate you earn Coins with this principle in-mind and we'll pay close attention to player feedback to adjust as necessary in post-launch."

In case you've forgotten about the almost decade-old controversy, EA found itself in hot water when Star Wars Battlefront 2 fans complained about how unlocking certain characters could take upwards of 40 hours. EA's response? They wanted to give folks a "sense of pride and accomplishment" in having spent literal days to play as Darth Vader. It's still Reddit's most downvoted comment.

Here's hoping The Coalition's promises land true when Gears of War: E-Day comes to PC and Xbox Series X|S on October 6. A multiplayer open beta kicks off for pre-orderers and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers between August 6-10, before opening up to everyone between August 13-17.

In the meantime, check out the best co-op games to play right now.

Even the best online multiplayer games aren't firing on all cylinders all the time. In fact, I'd argue that's what makes their best moments standout – the clutch sniper nest you establish to help your team make a comeback in Black Ops 7, finally clawing back some rounds in Tekken 8 from a random player who for that evening has become your absolute nemesis, the (for some of us) rare, glittering Victory Royale in Fortnite.

The same holds true for Gears of War: E-Day's newest mode – Horde Siege – which I've been playing in early access, which at times feels like Gears as you've never played it before. At others, the same old. But, the attempt to craft these moments across large-scale player-versus-environment co-operative play is ambitious enough to be worth a respectful hat tip. Three squads of four players battle locusts across a stonking massive district of Kalona City while clearing a checklist of activities before battling to safely extract.

City boy

Gears of War E-Day's Horde Siege vision comes together when these squads collide, interacting across their different objectives to make it really feel like the city has burst into war. A few of your squad's goals may have you circling the edge of the district, before all at once lines moving through the city intersect with those of other players, bullets fly, and hulking groups of locusts all converge as well.

Kalona City, even as it's being reduced to rubble, is gorgeous – bringing to life the mix of brutalism and futurism that so characterizes what remains of civilization in the Gears games set after this prequel (E-Day, 'Emergence Day', is when the world is rocked by a locust invasion from beneath the earth). Gears of War: E-Day's single-player campaign is set entirely within Kalona City, aiming to ground this disastrous first incursion with a real sense of place. The same seems to be true of Horde Siege, maps centering on districts so large it's easy to barely see players not in your squad during large chunks of play. (There's one district in my hands-on, but there will be three maps at launch).

All this is to say that the map design is incredibly open, and the unpredictable nature of how other squads are moving through it means battle lines can feel like they emerge anywhere. If the match was only catering for to squad, you'd have a good idea of how to move through, say, a courtyard, while making effective use of cover. But when another squad is coming from a different direction with the same idea, things can get messy. Yet, thanks to the overall co-operative nature, alliances come naturally, firefights ebbing and flowing between units all driven by the same goal to wipe out locusts and get out of there intact in order to do it all over again.

Gears of War: E-Day marks a rare case where I'm more curious about the multiplayer than the campaign. I remain a bit grumpy about fleshing out the titular E-Day, as I think the still-incredible first Gears of War handles its gritty, sci-fi worldbuilding almost immaculately.

But, I'm not so cold-hearted that the prospect of a back-to-fundamentals approach to Gears doesn't appeal (I vastly prefer the original trilogy to the later games), and I can rock more with the idea of E-Day being a backdrop to multiplayer scenarios than I really need to have my 'Solo explaining Han Solo's name' moment with Marcus Fenix and the iconic lancer chainsaw rifle.

Which doesn't mean Gears of War E-Day's Horde Siege multiplayer is without flaw (for clarity, I only played this mode – not Versus). For all the moments where Kalona City comes alive with converging squads, there are many more when it doesn't, and I'm left with just my squad defending a point from oncoming Locusts, and the action doesn't feel all that evolved from my recent replay of Gears of War Reloaded.

Shifting gears

Gunplay, once meaty, feels sedate in these more modest encounters, with bullets glancing off enemies like they don't feel it as they plod directly for cover, almost ignoring I'm there. (Executions, though, are delightfully brutal). I'm not sure if this is a consequence of Horde Siege's sheer scale – combat looked more tactile in the campaign footage I've seen. After all, even when two other squads are duking it out on the other side of the map to me, they're still there.

Some of this is also the case in Reloaded, but there I can excuse it because it's a remaster of a game from 2006, and constant splurges of gore to cap off kills are frequent. Here, draining whole clips into locusts, I'm conscious of the fact I'm not seeing the chunks of them flying I'd like to see. Perhaps, also, I'm spoiled by the excellent Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, where co-op encounters felt considerably meatier – though I understand that Space Marine 2's encounters are more tightly crafted than the sprawling scale of E-Day's Horde Siege. Whatever the case, it's true that Gears has more meathead gore-blasting competition now than it did back in the day.

I'm not sure what the solution is other than to see how Gears of War E-Day's Horde Siege mode performs once it's out in the wild. There's a chance squads run into each other more frequently than in my experience, and it feels more electric as a result. As it stands, those moments where Horde Siege shine are few and far between, and rather than feeling like exemplar moments that make the build-up worth it, I'm left soaking enemies with whole clips while I wish it was happening more often.

There's definitely solid craft within what I've played of Gears of War E-Day so far, but I'm struggling to really get a sense of overall intention. Did I mention you can jump at any point now? No, I didn't, because it seems – at least here – relatively pointless. You can slide constantly now as well, which I can see getting annoying much as it did in Modern Warfare 3. The variable cover size is a nice touch, the tutorial having me crawl along small bits of rubble on my back. But, in what I play in Horde Siege, it's still all waist high cover still rules the day.

Alongside Halo: Campaign Evolved, Gears of War: E-Day is yearning for the past, much as I'm sure Xbox is as it enacts thousands of lay-offs across some of its best-in-class development studios, has become the target of boycotts, and is staring down the barrel of massively inflated hardware prices thanks to the component crisis. But, I'm not yet convinced E-Day or Xbox fully understand what made its historic moments work. The same old can never be entirely new, and while Horde Siege can feel special, too much of the time I'm left grasping for reasons to play another match, especially when Versus mode is right there.

But what about you? Looking forwards to returning to Gears' online offerings when E-Day launches? Let us know in the comments!

Take a look at our best co-op games ranking for more!

It's been 15 years since a mainline installment to the Gears of War series supported four-player campaign co-op. Developer Epic Games introduced the experiment back in Gears of War 3, the game which chronicled the desperate last stand of Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. It's fitting then that four-player co-op returns as The Coalition prepares to chronicle the origin of the most beloved bromance in video game history.

Gears of War: E-Day is set to launch on October 6, 2026, for PC and Xbox Series X. Players across both platforms will be able to explore the emergence of the Locust together, in either four-player online or two-player split-screen configurations. Creative director Matt Searcy tells me that taking E-Day in this direction wasn't without its technical challenges, but he believes it's the right move for what is undoubtedly the studio's most ambitious entry during its decade-long stewardship of the series.

"I'm not gonna lie, it's a huge investment," says Searcy. "We made the decision to support four player co-op to reflect an aspect of how the core Gears DNA feels. Our stories are almost always about a four-person squad, right?" He's not wrong, and yet it is exceptionally rare for Gears to look all that far beyond the perspective of the Fenix family. That's going to change in E-Day.

"We set a goal from the very beginning of development that we wanted you to be able to play as every single character. So in our campaign, you can pick any of the characters from the story – the story will be told entirely from that perspective, and you'll never leave their side." The characters Searcy is referring to here are, of course, the returning Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago, COG veterans of the Pendulum Wars, alongside the world-weary Mags Carter and rookie Lucas Reyes.

Together they form Bravo Squad, fighting to survive as the city of Kalona crumbles beneath the Locus Horde. "It's a very intimate approach to following a larger world event," Searcy adds. "And it's kind of like Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan, where you're following this group and they aren't always going to be in the right place at the right time."

For Gears of War: E-Day, which has a campaign set entirely in a single city location, making a game that can support up to four players has pushed The Coalition to rethink how it builds environments. "We have had modes that have supported four-player co-op in them in the past and clearly they work, so this was all about building the right spaces at the right sizes. You know, we build to make sure the game plays great in single-player, in two-player co-op, and then in three- and four-player co-op as well."

"We love single-player games, and Gears is built so that you can play it that way and have an amazing time. Our mechanics are designed in single-player, you'll have the squad there with you, and the game will play great if you're on your own. But we really believe in the co-op experience too, as you get to try different tactics and experiment with multiple things at once in our larger combat arenas – it's a lot of fun," says Searcy.

We'll see how the return to four-player co-op campaign works for ourselves come October 6, 2026. Although PlayStation owners won't be able to get in on the action, as Gears of War: E-Day is now an Xbox console exclusive – meaning you'll need a PC, Xbox Series X, or an active Game Pass subscription to be there for the day that Sera changed forever.

Gears of War: E-Day is now a console exclusive, making it one of the most anticipated upcoming Xbox Series X games of 2026.

Gears of War: E-Day is renovating the 20-year-old foundations that the franchise was built upon. The Coalition made the decision to start from scratch as it faced the daunting task of transitioning to Unreal Engine 5, opting to recreate every single system, mechanic, and art asset anew as it sought to tell the story of Emergence Day – the day that Sera crumbled, as the Locust emerged from beneath the ground and brought a civilization to its knees.

This means that big changes are coming to Gears of War: E-Day. While it's still going to be a heavy-footed, cover-based shooter made in the mold of the games that have come before it, The Coalition is pushing for greater mobility, more verticality, and slicker movement mechanics to bring a greater sense of urgency and anticipation to the gory combat. One unexpected change comes in how Active Reload is being handled.

"Active Reload has always been a massive part of Gears, it's an iconic feature," says creative director Matt Searcy. For those of you who need a refresh, the act of swapping a clip in Gears of War actually kickstarts a small minigame whereby hitting different spots of the reloading mechanism can change the speed in which you're able to get back into combat. "For E-Day, we've moved the Active Reload bar to the middle of the screen by default."

For players who have been with the series for two years, this is no doubt going to be one of those changes that sounds small but has the potential to have a seismic impact on the way that you play – especially if your brain has now been rewired to naturally draw your eyes to the top-right position of the screen when dealing with reloads. The Coalition is aware that some may not appreciate the change.

"You can change the Active Reload position to the top right if that's what you prefer," says Searcy, but explains that this change is borne out of internal playtesting. "We've noticed through our testing that the bar being in the middle of the screen is where people actually use Active Reload the most. It becomes part of their shooting experience."

That isn't the only change The Coalition is making. While prior Gears games would typically have three Active Reload states – regular, perfect, and failed; each with their own positives and pitfalls – E-Day will give certain weapons their own unique Active Reload effects. Searcy points to everybody's favorite shotgun as a great example: "Some weapons will have additional Active Reload mechanics. The Gnasher is back, and you can actually see every single shell being loaded into it. If you want to at any time, you can pull a trigger to stop your reload, keep the two or three shells that you loaded, and then use them on the enemy that's right in front of you – if you're willing to give up your Active bonus."

It's a fascinating change, and one that reflects The Coalition's willingness to rip up the rulebook as it attempts to create a Gears of War game that captures the vibe of the 2006 original whilst making an experience that feels ready for action in 2026. You'll be able to try the Active Reload changes for yourself come October 6, where Gears of War: E-Day lands on PC, Game Pass, and Xbox Series X.

Gears of War: E-Day is now a console exclusive, making it one of the most anticipated upcoming Xbox Series X games of 2026.

Here's a truth about Gears of War that has persisted since 2006: The folks that love the series' particular style of skittish multiplayer really love it, and everyone else thinks it's a sweaty killing field. I was there for the Xbox Live outages on day one, and have played every instalment since – it's exceptionally rare to find a player who resides on neutral ground. The Marmite effect that Gears multiplayer has is a direct result of design decisions that were cemented into the foundations of the franchise; there has been no solution to the chaotic combination of overpowered shotguns and manipulated cover mechanics.

I suspect that The Coalition is looking to change all that with Gears of War: E-Day. The studio hasn't been afraid to signal that it's making massive alterations to core elements of the series, shifting the position of the Active Reload bar is just the tip of a blood-stained iceberg.

When The Coalition began production of E-Day in Unreal Engine 5, it made the unusual decision to start from an "empty harddrive", as creative director Matt Searcy puts it. Every animation, asset, mechanic, and system has been rebuilt from scratch – giving the studio the excuse it needed to modernize Gears' movement.

"Gears plays best in a city, and Kalona is the ultimate battlefield. Its density, tight streets, mixed with more open spaces let us rethink how a Gear moves through the world. And it created a greater stage for more scale and verticality in combat. Our soldiers are basically giant tanks in armor, they slam into cars while weaving through hails of bullets. We wanted to keep that heaviness but add more fluidity with how you move through the battlefield," says Matt Searcy, creative director.

These changes operate at different scales. Searcy tells me that a subtle change is that "the sprint camera no longer pushes in when you're on a run", with a wider view "helping with the player's ability to move through the world and use a lot more of the entire battlefield." It's easy to understand how having improved readability of combat spaces will impact PvP multiplayer – which Searcy says will comprise "a collection of 4v4 modes and all-new maps set in locations in and around the worn-torn city of Kalona."

The studio has largely demonstrated these changes to core systems and mechanics through the lens of the campaign, a prequel that charts Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago's budding bromance on the days following the first emergence of the Locust Horde.

You're now able to jump and slide, opening up new opportunities to escape enemies and discover flanking routes; new cover mechanics are designed to increase your mobility and lethality in equal measure. It's exceptionally likely that these additions and alterations will be present and accounted for in multiplayer – and that means change is coming to the upcoming Xbox Series X game.

Change Is Good

"We've completely rebuilt our cover and movement systems. There are smoother transitions with a bigger range of cover heights and shapes, including new low-ground cover," he continues. "From sprint you can now slide, which lets you quickly get under objects, slide around corners, and transition more smoothly into cover from a run."

The increased fluidity and mobility at the heart of Gears of War: E-Day's movement has the potential to fundamentally reshape the way we play multiplayer, particularly as Searcy confirms that you won't be able to wall cancel and bounce "the way you've done it in the past."

The creative director is keen to stress that "your relationship with cover, and how you move between it, is still the most important thing to us – cover is life in Gears of War" but it's clear that heightened fluidity will fundamentally alter familiar multiplayer rhythms. The ability to hit low cover and high mantle around more vertical spaces will open more tactical flanking routes, while the ability to more quickly slide under objects and around corners could increase the pace of combat dramatically.

There's also increased destruction, "more than we've ever put into a Gears game" which sees hiding points chip away more dynamically while under concentrated fire. Again, it's unclear if this will transition to multiplayer, but if it does we should be battling in more organic and shifting playspaces.

And then there's the addition of jump, a mechanic introduced to "make the battlefields feel like they have more options and ways to get to a flanking route," Searcy says. "Think of all of this as us taking that classic Gears formula and adding new layers of strategy and traversal to it."

The Coalition is yet to reveal its plans for Gears of War: E-Day multiplayer beyond stressing that Versus will remain "sweaty squad-based PvP" and that the studio plans to support a "seasonal roadmap of killer combat, most of which you can just earn by playing the game – completing in-game challenges, events, and achievements."

All of that sounds great, but it's the way these enhanced movement mechanics intersect with the classic Gears multiplayer experience that has gotten me truly excited. We won't need to wait all that much longer to find out for certain, as Xbox has confirmed that Gears of War: E-Day will run a multiplayer beta split across two weekends, starting on August 6.

Have Your Say: How are you feeling about Gears of War: E-Day now that Xbox Game Studios has announced that it'll be a console exclusive? Vote in our poll, and let us know what you think about the biggest Gears changes in the comments section below.

Gears of War: E-Day is the video game I have been waiting 10 years for The Coalition to create. It's hard to believe that the series has already been under the stewardship of this studio for a decade, following Epic Games' decision to sell the intellectual property to Xbox in 2014. But you know what they say, time flies when you're dragging a Chainsaw Bayonet through mutating flesh and malfunctioning circuitry.

In that time The Coalition has become a technical powerhouse, has led the Xbox Game Studios transition to Unreal Engine 5, and delivered some pretty entertaining third-person shooters too. Gears of War 4 was a faithful continuation, and Gears 5 a pretty bold experiment in stretching solid foundations across more open-ended environments. I'm a fan, but there have been missteps.

The Swarm never clicked as a forbiddable force that could rival the Locust, and the DeeBees exposed Gears of War's need for ultra-violence to truly sing. Naturally, the introduction of exploration, wider playspaces, and RPG-lite systems in Gears 5 divided the playerbase. And so The Coalition is doing what I always hoped it would – channeling its reverence for the franchise into making the familiar feel fresh again, all while taking us back to the earliest adventures of Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago.

That's what we're getting in Gears of War: E-Day. It's a shooter that wants to honor the legacy of what Gears of War achieved in 2006, all while developing an experience that feels fighting fit as a new game for 2026. Did it take the divisive nature of Gears 5 to push The Coalition in the direction it should arguably have taken right from the outset? The studio has a different perspective.

"We didn't make E-Day as a reaction to Gears 5," says Nicole Fawcette, with the studio brand director stressing she doesn't agree with commentary that suggests The Coalition strayed too far from the Gears formula in 2019. "We're making E-Day because we had an opportunity to make what we wanted to make. We wanted to take on Emergence Day, and to have players rediscover Marcus and Dom, as we made the pivot to a new engine. That's what we wanted to do, and it's exactly what we have done."

Back to the Beginning

Creative director Matt Searcy tells me that "E-day is a return to Gears of War's roots" and an attempt to recapture the vibes of the original trilogy. "The best way we could think to do that was to go back to Sera at its darkest hour: the day the Locust came out of the ground." Emergence Day is an untold story that's long been at the heart of the Gears of War universe, where a populace already beaten down by the Pendulum Wars is brought to its knees as cities crumble and civilization collapses. Searcy adds: "It's such a great place to reimagine the tone of what we think makes Gears great."

Vicious monsters, unbridled brutality, towering architecture, and layered playspaces littered with waist-high debris. Gears of War: E-Day is set entirely in the city of Kalona, following Bravo Squad across three days as it attempts to battle the Locust Horde back to hell. "We put you right into the chaos of E-Day – in the beginning there's no soldiers around, only people getting torn apart by Wretches. You'll experience the moment Marcus and Dom first pick up guns, pulling Snubs out of the trunk of an abandoned police car, before setting off into the city where all hell is breaking loose," says Searcy.

"We believe that Gears plays best in a city," adds art director Aryan Hanbeck, "and that Kalona is the ultimate battlefield." Hanbeck points to the more linear structure and consistent playspace as a big point of difference between E-Day and its predecessor. "Gears 5 was more of a globetrotting adventure, you went from desert to forest and so on. A big way that E-Day differs from Gears 5 (and other Gears games) is that this entire game is set in one location."

"This isn't an open-world game," says Searcy. "Something we learned from Gears 5 is that going out on vehicles doesn't mesh perfectly with Gears, and that the freedom to choose your mission and what you're doing doesn't vibe with Gears either." Searcy tells me that The Coalition is pushing for a tighter alignment between claustrophobic missions and larger combat arenas. "We have very classic mission design – especially on that first night, where you're fighting back-and-forth in the streets – and there are parts of the game where you get these larger arenas, where multiple city blocks open up to you."

These larger missions are described to me as being akin to Black Hawk Dawn. Where "you're on a single mission, you know where your objective is, but how you get there is up to you," says Searcy, who notes that you'll have opportunities to delve deeper into the carnage of the day by assisting civilians and other soldiers if you want to. That's all a part of The Coalition's attempt to channel more player choice into E-Day, something the studio wanted to retain from Gears 5.

"One thing that we learned from Gears 5 is that if we want to give players more choice, and to still feel natural to what Gears is, then we need to do it differently to just giving you a vehicle in an open world. I think Gears 5 was really cool, but if we wanted to hit that core Gears DNA we had to increase the density. We had to make every street corner a combat opportunity," he says.

I've seen more of Gears of War: E-Day than what was shown in the Xbox Games Showcase, and I'm mesmerised by what The Coalition is delivering here. The visual fidelity is out of this world, with E-Day positioning itself as a true late-gen system showcase for the Xbox Series X; Kalona seeming like the perfect playground for Gears' heavy combat, with more fluid movement and vertical playspaces only helping to advance the idea that The Coalition has higher aspirations than ever before.

Starting From Scratch

Putting The Matrix Awakens tech demo and Gears Reloaded remastering experiment to one side, Gears of War: E-Day is the first title from The Coalition to be built natively in Unreal Engine 5. This has given the studio cover to do what it should have done in 2014: rip up the foundations of the franchise in an effort to refine and innovate the mechanics and systems so central to the way that Gears plays.

"We started with an empty hard drive," says Searcy. There are no ported assets in E-Day. Every animation, sound, mechanic, and system has been rebuilt from scratch. We have built a game that feels like Gears but plays like new. Many of us have worked on Gears for over a decade; we know how the cover system works intimately, we understand the importance of it and have built the game around the same pillars that defined the original trilogy, but we approached E-Day like a new game built for 2026."

If there was any fear that Gears of War: E-Day would be a continuation of Gears 5 – albeit with a tighter focus – this dedication to starting afresh should put them to bed. E-Days will play quite unlike any Gears of War game before it, as The Coalition makes some much needed quality-of-life improvements to the way that you shift your weight around these utterly gorgeous combat arenas. "Kalona – with its dense, tight streets and more open spaces – let us rethink how a Gear moves through the world," says Searcy.

"We've completely rebuilt our cover and movement systems, with smoother transitions and a bigger range of cover heights and shapes," he adds. "Our soldiers are basically giant tanks in armor, they slam into cars while weaving through hails of bullets. We wanted to keep that heaviness, but add more fluidity with how you move through the battlefield." Gears of War: E-Day is making fundamental changes as it introduces denser playspaces. You can now dive into low cover and mantle into more vertical positions, introducing more tactical variety to play; the sprint camera no longer pulls into your shoulder, giving more awareness of the world around you, and E-Day will finally let you slide under and into cover for more fluid, kinetic encounters.

The Coalition isn't making changes on the margins for Gears of War: E-Day. It's engineering a series revival that can channel the spirit of the first adventure and still push for genuine evolution of the systems that defined a genre for 20 years. That's why E-Day has been chosen by Xbox Game Studios to lead the return to console exclusivity – a statement of intent that can remind the world of why Xbox was a platform that shouldn't, couldn't be ignored. "We couldn't be more excited to be an Xbox exclusive," Searcy tells me. "Gears and Xbox have been tied so tightly for 20 years now, and it's an honor and a privilege to be seen as a flagship title in this way."

Gears of War: E-Day is coming to PC and Xbox Series X on October 6, 2026. The latest game from The Coalition is one of the key upcoming Xbox games and we'll have more insights to share as part of our Summer Games Preview this week.

The biggest drought in series history is finally ending when Gears of War: E-Day launches later this year, and developer The Coalition is making up for the seven-year gap between new games with the franchise's longest campaign so far.

After Gears 5 fizzled out with an excruciatingly tense cliffhanger in 2019, the franchise somewhat slipped into the shadows. We got a surprisingly great strategy spin-off in Gears Tactics, a beefy expansion in Hivebusters, and a so-so remaster of the very first game, sure, but little did we know that a new mainline entry wouldn't come for years.

Enter Gears of War: E-Day, a prequel that's rewinding the clock to show us how the subterranean hordes of bug-demon-monsters revealed themselves to humanity. Spoilers: they did it with bloodshed and explosions in the longest Gears of War game yet, according to creative director Matt Searcy.

The Gears of War: E-Day lead tells IGN the game is "longer than any campaign [The Coalition has] built" and clocks in at over 14 hours. Looking at HowLongToBeat's estimates, straight playthroughs of the first five games in the series take roughly 10 hours or fewer to complete, while Gears 5 is about 11-hours-long, thanks to some open-world-ish fluff.

The upcoming Xbox Series X|S game isn't stretched out with wide open areas, though. Searcy says there's more to find, collectibles included, this time around. And while missions are mostly linear, there are apparently larger areas to explore that let players choose how they want to tackle encounters.

The Gears of War: E-Day Direct showed off some of that freedom, too. Squads can split up to flank foes or take the higher ground instead of running in with your chainsaws roaring, and you might even stumble across trapped civilians or other COG soldiers in need of help if you go off-route.

Gears 5's open areas proved to be controversial, for sure – they didn't always meet the non-stop-action criteria these games live or die by – but it sounds like E-Day's taking a smarter approach to player freedom this time around by weaving optional exploration into the game's city streets.

Hopefully it sticks the landing like Marcus Fenix sticks to cover when the game launches on October 6 for PC and Xbox Series X|S.

Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution "are not timed exclusives," Xbox says, but everything "already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan."

As Halo: Campaign Evolved and Fable bring those respective series to PlayStation 5 between this year and next, the big hold-out for Xbox exclusives remains Gears of War: E-Day. But apparently, even that almost made the jump before a recent decision prevented the COG soldiers from joining Sony's stable.

So recently, a significant amount of work was already done on a port before plans were changed, according to a report from The Verge. As part of Xbox's offerings at Summer Game Fest 2026, it was revealed that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution represent the exclusives on the green console family.

These are first-party projects, and as E-Day comes out this year and Clockwork next year, they're clearly being positioned as lynchpins of a renewed push towards putting out more Xbox-only games. But going by this report, that's a relatively fresh strategic outlook.

Xbox has undergone some upheaval over the last six months. Longtime boss and face of the brand Phil Spencer retired from his position in February, with Asha Sharma taking over in his stead. Since then, the "This is an Xbox" publicity campaign's been quietly shelved amid acknowledgment that there's a need for course correction due to flagging sales.

During SGF, Xbox CCO Matt Booty went on record about the purview of what'll get ported and what won't. Everything live-service is still going to PlayStation 5, likely due to how difficult it is to make these releases sustainable or profitable long-term, whereas more single-player-centric experiences are decided "case-by-case."

Sony shares some of this mentality, since Bungie's Marathon launched on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, despite the team being acquired back in 2022. But you don't see the likes of God of War or Insomniac's Spider-Man heading to Xbox in the same way the opposite is true.

We'll see what the future has in store for Marcus and Dom. But for now, you'll need a modern equivalent of a Duke in your hands to enjoy guiding them through E-Day.

Bungie vet says OG Halo beats Campaign Evolved and its "modern, AAA, fancy Unreal graphics" because "the constraints actually make it a stronger game"

This is the year Master Chief heads to PlayStation 5 as part of Halo: Campaign Evolved, raising questions about the future of Xbox exclusives on a wider scale. Rest assured, they're still happening, but on a more particular cadence, while multiplayer releases will remain multi-platform for the time-being.

Gamertag Radio asked Matt Booty, the executive vice president and chief content officer at Xbox, about what the strategy here is during Summer Game Fest 2026. "[We] want people to have a reason to get on board with Xbox," he starts.

"We want them to have a reason to buy an Xbox, [a] reason to be an Xbox fan. At the same time, we want to reward all our players that have been with us for a long time," he continues. "We know exclusives are important, that's why we've got [Gears of War: E-Day] coming in 2026, [Clockwork Revolution] in 2027."

Games that aren't as single-player-centric, however, are a different story. "We also want to be clear: our big multiplayer games, live-service games, are going to continue to be multi-platform," he says. "If we've promised something to players already, we're going to honor that promise."

Booty reiterates Xbox's philosophy of, "when we announce a date, we want to announce the platforms." As such, if something is heading over to Sony's system, it's "going to be case-by-case."

One such case is the long-awaited Fable, which will be the first installment of the series to be on PlayStation. The list of releases genuinely particular to Xbox on home consoles is getting leaner and leaner, but given the number of publishers Microsoft now owns, there's scope for more IP to join or rejoin the ranks in the years to come.

That said, don't expect a U-turn on the live-service projects given the investment needed. But if you want to experience E-Day from the frontline, an Xbox Series X/S should be among your hardware.

Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution "are not timed exclusives," Xbox says, but everything "already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan."

You'd never notice in the frantic new Gears of War: E-Day footage, but hiding under all that dirt and sweat on young Marcus Fenix's face are eyelashes his older self wishes he still had.

In the Gears of War: E-Day Direct that followed the Xbox Games Showcase, we were graced with a close-up look at Marcus Fenix's high-definition mug. While describing the improvements to the character's facial animations (three times more joints!), it was revealed that "Marcus has more detail in his eyelashes than his entire character model did in the original Gears of War on Xbox 360."

It's pitched as an evolution of emotional storytelling in the series, but I think we all know it's really a sign of what was lost when Emergence Day doomed Marcus Fenix's world. The man suddenly had more things to worry about than his killer eyelash game. Years of fighting Locust and scavenging for supplies wore all those extra polygons away, leaving him a sad husk of his former, beautiful self.

That's surely half the reason Microsoft knew it was time to look into the series' past and tell a story of a younger, sexier Marcus Fenix, one with his luscious and detailed eyelashes still intact. The Xbox 360 couldn't handle him at his best, but the Xbox Series X absolutely can.

Honestly, it's going to be hard to look at him the same way again once Gears of War: E-Day is out on October 6. Sure, Microsoft touched up the Gears of War trilogy not that long ago, but after you see what Marcus was working with at his prime it won't be the same. We're going to have to wait another five years for Microsoft to inevitably remake them all—and gift some extra polygons to poor old Marcus Fenix—in a The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered fashion.

Gears of War 6 was considered before The Coalition decided on E-Day, JD Fenix actor says as he pitches a bonkers sequel about Marcus fighting his zombie son

Xbox has announced that Gears of War: E-Day will be releasing on October 6, 2026, and that it'll be an Xbox console exclusive.

Despite a Gears of War: E-Day Direct being the deep dive at the end of this month's Xbox Games Showcase, Microsoft's show opened up with gameplay from the upcoming prequel, showing Marcus, Dom, and some new faces as they traverse the streets of Kalona as the Locust begin to emerge.

It showed off some pretty standard Gears shooting, but this time around Marcus seems a bit more nimble as the squad now has the ability to slide (despite how bulky all that armor is). I'm sure we'll see a bit more of it in the Gears of War: E-Day Direct, but from what we've seen so far it's looking like some good old Gears.

The trailer ends with news that Gears of War: E-Day will also be plunging into that crowded September/October mosh pit, with an October 6, 2026 release date confirmed. And on top of that, it's confirmed that the game will be an Xbox console exclusive, with no PS5 release is on the way.

Given that the game was rated for Xbox, PS5, and PC earlier this week, it definitely feels like a PS5 version of the next Gears game was planned (especially with the remaster arriving on PS5 last year to welcome PlayStation players to the franchise). Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb said this was the case, but now the PS5 version is no longer happening as new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma makes changes to go – as she puts it – "back to Xbox."

Gears of War 6 was considered before The Coalition decided on E-Day, JD Fenix actor says as he pitches a bonkers sequel about Marcus fighting his zombie son.

We're just weeks away from chainsaw-gunning through Gears of War: E-Day and taking a look at what's inside, but a new hint at its potential release window comes from the unlikeliest of places.

Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide and WWE today announced that its pro wrestling mega-event, Triplemania 2026, will take place over two full days for the first time ever on September 11, at an unannounced location, and September 13 in Mexico City. The event's sponsor? Gears of War: E-Day.

A WWE sponsorship is by no means concrete confirmation that Gears of War: E-Day is definitely coming out in September, but I think it's safe to say marketing will have properly ramped up by then if the flagship Xbox game is going to be plastered across one of the biggest wrestling events of the year.

Xbox Game Studios hasn't said much of anything about the game's release date outside of the fact that, yes, it's coming out in 2026. A dedicated Gears of War: E-Day Direct will also immediately follow up the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7, promising a deep dive on "new details, gameplay and insights." It's possible we learn more about the prequel's launch plans then.

A September launch isn't out of the question, either, however. That gives the iconic series' return enough time to breathe before GTA 6 crashes the party with all the enthusiasm of a meteor greeting the dinosaurs. Xbox also has to juggle Marcus Fenix's origin story alongside release dates for Halo: Campaign Evolved, the Fable reboot, and whatever the next Call of Duty is.

Gears of War 6 was considered before The Coalition decided on E-Day, JD Fenix actor says as he pitches a bonkers sequel about Marcus fighting his zombie son

Gears of War 6 was apparently considered to be a possibility for developer The Coalition before the studio decided to rewind the clocks for Gears of War: E-Day, according to the actor who plays JD Fenix in the chainsaw-gun-swinging action series.

Liam J. McIntyre might be preparing to put on Logan's claws in Marvel's Wolverine later this year, but the actor recently took the time to look back on the Gears of War games he starred in over on social media.

"We did gears 4 and 5, and there was a suggestion that maybe there would be a gears 6," McIntyre tweets. "But the team wanted to try something new as I understand it. And honestly, it looks great. Can't wait to play."

For context, Gears 5 left the series' ongoing story hanging on a hugely dramatic cliffhanger almost seven years ago. With The Coalition now going back in time with its upcoming prequel, the question on every fans' mind is... are we ever going to find out who lived and who died? That was supposedly the plan at the studio until it landed on the idea of a throwback romp, that is.

"I hope they [The Coalition] go back to it, but I love those guys and just want them to make a game they feel nails the Gears experience everyone loves," McIntyre adds. "That'd be awesome. And hey, if that leads back to the trilogy, happy days."

Spoilers for Gears 5 ahead.

McIntyre also uses the opportunity to pitch his idea for Gears of War 6 and how he would go about resolving the last game's final decision that saw players choose between saving bestie Del or JD. The actor hopes Del is the one who canonically survives, prompting main man Marcus Fenix to lose his mind and go rogue after the death of his only child. Marcus' mourning doesn't last long in McIntyre's version of the story, however: "You learn JD has kind of been revived and controlled by swarm, his dad has to fight him. But somehow you save him. Not sure how yet. Or if it matters lol."

It might surprise you to learn that Marcus Fenix fighting his zombified son is only the second most bonkers sequel idea pitched by someone who's worked on the series. Former franchise boss Rod Fergusson said his idea for Gears of War 6 would've taken players to space, of all places, though the team "weren't going to start Mass Effect-ing this."

The Coalition did somewhat write itself into a corner with the decision between Del and JD. Would a theoretical sequel ignore half the player base's decisions and pick a canon ending? Could the studio make two varying versions of the same campaign, potentially splitting the timeline from here on out? There's no easy solution, so throwing things back in E-Day seems like a good stopgap while the devs work everything out.

We'll finally see Gears of War: E-Day in action straight after the Xbox Games Showcase in June.

Diablo boss and Gears veteran reckons now is the "perfect time" for Gears of War: E-Day because the team couldn't "do it justice" on Xbox 360

Gears of War: E-Day is a prequel that's taking us back to where it all started - Emergence Day, when the subterranean alien critters known as the Locust erupted from the ground and kickstarted a saga that's lasted almost two decades. But despite rewinding the clocks for this year's shooter, developers at The Coalition still hope to create something that "plays like new."

Creative director Matt Searcy says as much in an exclusive chat with GamesRadar+ dedicated entirely to the upcoming prequel story due out on PC and Xbox Series X|S sometime this year, which is maybe not coincidentally both the series' 20th anniversary and publisher Xbox's 25th anniversary.

When asked how Gears of War: E-Day reflects on that often bloody, always iconic two-decade roadie run, Searcy says the team "can't think of a bigger way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Gears than with the release of Gears of War: E-Day," which is apparently The Coalition's "most ambitious game yet, entirely built from scratch in Unreal Engine 5."

He explains: "Even though this is a return to our roots with Marcus and Dom facing the Locust for the first time, we wanted to build a game that feels like Gears but plays like new. E-Day is a celebration of both the past and what's to come in the future for a franchise that's meant so much to us and our fans."

Series mainstay Marcus Fenix and wartime bestie Dominic Santiago are back in the limelight this time around, with both of their original actors returning too. I'm glad The Coalition is planning to do more than just retread ground covered in the first Gears of War game, though – we'll just need to wait a while more before seeing how it all shakes out, chainsaw rifles and all, since Gears of War: E-Day isn't scheduled to appear in today's Xbox Developer Direct.

Gears of War: E-Day is part of our extensive Big in 2026 hub, taking exclusive looks at the year's most exciting releases from Halo: Campaign Evolved to Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis.

Gears of War: E-Day's creative director, Matt Searcy, has confirmed that the story of the game will take place in a single city.

Rather than follow up on Gears 5, The Coalition surprised us with the news that the next Gears of War will instead be a prequel focusing on Emergence Day from the perspective of Marcus and Dom.

In an exclusive interview with GamesRadar+, Searcy spoke about the decision to make E-Day a far more intimate affair than the open-ended Gears 5. He explains, "The story of Emergence Day is really about what happened to the people of Sera. It was a massive, worldwide event, and we wanted players to feel the impact, so we set the whole game in a single city called Kalona."

The decision to set it here was based on its importance to the COG's, Searcy explains, as it's named after one of its founders, Roman Kalona. "Our story is set over consecutive days, so players can become intimate with the city," he says, adding, "We want them to feel the loss of what was here: the history, the people and the lives they were living."

Searcy says Kalona is "a rich environment to tell a great story," but on top of that, a city is great for the gameplay too, as "it's the best gameplay playground for an intense cover-based shooter like Gears."

We haven't seen much of Gears of War: E-Day since its announcement, but it's still scheduled to release sometime in 2026 on Xbox and PC, so hopefully we'll see something soon.

Gears of War: E-Day is part of our Big in 2026 series, check out our Big in 2026 hub for coverage of 50 of the year's biggest games including the likes of Halo: Campaign Evolved and Resident Evil Requiem.

Emergence Day is when the world changed. The planet of Sera besieged by a strange, subterranean threat – the Locust Horde eradicating pockets of civilization within hours, leaving those left beneath the rubble grasping for what little remains of their humanity. This is the ground Gears of War: E-Day will cover, a long-awaited prequel that charts the most important event in the franchise's history.

"We can't think of a bigger way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Gears," says Matt Searcy, creative director at The Coalition, speaking exclusively with GamesRadar+. "This is our most ambitious game yet, entirely built from scratch in Unreal Engine 5. Even though this is a return to our roots, with Marcus and Dom facing the Locust for the first time, we wanted to build a game that feels like Gears but plays like new. E-Day is a celebration of both the past and what's to come in the future."

Welcome To Hell

Gears of War has never been afraid of leaping around its historical timeline. Epic Games' original trilogy tracked the final three years of the Locust War, with The Coalition spotlighting the 25-year aftermath in Gears 4 and its sequel. People Can Fly was given free reign to explore the six weeks of carnage that followed E-Day, and Splash Damage delved into the year that followed in Tactics. But no studio has dared to entertain an expedition into the blood, guts, and ruin of this day of reckoning. Until now.

"This is the story we were excited to tell and so the process has been super energizing. There are touchpoints in the lore for us to build from, but enough room that we get to bring new elements and ideas in. Getting to go back to the tone and vibes of the original games, exploring the details of Emergence, and imagining what would happen to a city (and the soldiers protecting it) as monsters poured out from the ground was a great starting point to reintroduce the Locust and these characters," says Searcy.

That reintroduction kicked off in earnest last August, as Gears of War: Reloaded sought to remind Delta Squad veterans of how potent Gears' action can be in more confined spaces. Unlike 2019's Gears 5, with its open-borders approach to world design, this adventure is far more focused. "The story of Emergence Day is really about what happened to the people of Sera. It was a massive, worldwide event, and we wanted players to feel the impact – so we decided to set this game in a single city."

We know of the city of Kalona by reputation alone. It's infamous for being one of the first cities to crumble beneath the might of the Locust – its loss propelling the nation of Tyrus ever closer to collapse. Gears of War: E-Day will document this tragedy, one harrowing encounter at a time. "Our story is set over consecutive days so that players can become intimate with the city," says Searcy. "We want them to feel the loss of what was here: the history, the people, and the lives they were living."

The implicit promise is that Gears of War: E-Day will be a more intimate experience than Gears 5, the conflict set in the days before anybody had the bright idea to attach a chainsaw bayonet to a standard issue Mark 1 Assault Rifle. "Kalona is a rich environment to tell a great story," he continues. "You'll get to visit downtown city streets, historical landmarks, military installments, industrial Imulsion refineries, and even forested outskirts. And as a battlefield, the game just plays great in a city! It's the best gameplay playground for an intense cover-based shooter like Gears."

E-Day will also look beyond the terror beset on Tyrus to document the budding bromance of Sergeant Marcus Fenix and Corporal Dominic Santiago. The Coalition isn't willing to go into too much detail on their early relationship just yet, although Searcy is quick to heighten expectations. "We think it has the potential to be one of the best stories in the Gears franchise, and certainly the most heart and emotion when you're looking at Marcus, Dom, and the origin of the brotherhood that they forge in this game."

The Coalition is yet to set a release date for Gears of War: E-Day, nor is it scheduled to appear during the upcoming Developer Direct on January 22. So while we wait for more information, you may want to gather some friends and dive back into Reloaded, which marked the series' debut on PlayStation last year. While it's unclear whether E-Day will follow suit with a multiplatform launch, the studio says the remaster was a key milestone on the road to its release.

"It's been so cool to see players come together without barriers for the first time in Gear's almost 20-year history," says Searcy. "For many of the team here at The Coalition, the 2006 original was the game that made us fall in love with this franchise, so it has a lot of meaning to be able to reconnect with Marcus, Dom, and the Locust. Seeing our community fight side by side with new players across platforms reaffirms and reminds us why we make Gears: because gaming brings us together."

With Xbox preparing for its biggest year of the console generation so far, we are exploring the publisher's most anticipated first-party games (and some key Game Pass releases) as part of our Big in 2026 Spotlight series. Join us every day this week for exclusive interviews, new previews, and fresh insights into all of the upcoming Xbox games you need to have on your radar.

Gears of War: E-Day is still on track to launch in 2026, despite the game's absence from The Game Awards 2025, developer The Coalition has confirmed.

Sometimes, when a big game that's due out the following year skips The Game Awards, it can signal turbulence behind the scenes and, even more occasionally, be a sign of an impending delay. But The Coalition apparently didn't want any misunderstandings about its silence on the Gears of War: E-Day last night. 2026 is still the release window, although we're still waiting for it to be narrowed down to a specific date, or hell, season.

"Emergence Begins. 2026," reads a tweet from the official Gears of War Twitter account, sent out smack dab in the middle of the awards show.

Never mind The Game Awards, The Coalition and Xbox have been fairly quiet in general about E-Day since it was announced, so it's encouraging to hear it's still due out in 2026.

The game takes place 14 years before the events of the original Gears of War and centers around younger versions of Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago, with original actor John DiMaggio and Carlos Ferro reprising their roles. The story is set during Emergence Day, in which the Locust Horde carries out a strategic planet-wide assault on Sera, kicking off the Locust War fans of the series are well-familiar with. It was announced in 2024 and was heavily rumored to release this year, but Xbox soon after confirmed the 2026 window, which has yet to change.

In the meantime, here are the best Xbox Series X games you can play right now.

There's a chunky sense of satisfaction to Gears 5. It's ludicrously over the top at times with blood and gore at a moment's notice. The complete antithesis of the likes of the Call of Duty franchise and its attempts at (very) loose realism, and a step away from the relatively sterile nature of the Halo franchise. The entire Gears of War series has been like that with every instalment – but nearly 20 years after the launch of the first game, it's Gears 5 that has aged the best.

It's not hard to play through the Gears franchise, whether through Xbox Game Pass, or physical copies (still easily found). I'm hanging onto the hope that the recently remastered Gears of War: Reloaded will lead to a full series of remasters. For now though, if you're new to the series, Gears 5 is the best place to start. It's a direct sequel to Gears of War 4 – I'm assuming the 'of War' moniker was lost in battle – but does a good job of helping newbies catch up with the story. Crucially, its game design is a ton more fun than the originals.

War machine

The original Gears of War games were very focused on tight areas where a wave of enemies would come at you, you'd kill them, run down a corridor, and move onto the next sequence. There are some notable exceptions but the basic structure remains the same throughout. Wrapped up in good-looking graphics for the time, satisfying gunplay, and none of us knowing any better, it didn't matter back then. It's noticeable now though. Times have changed and open-world games are a big deal.

Gears 5 doesn't go full open-world but it knows how to combine the original concept of set pieces with a wider sense of autonomy and openness. Growth is good. When it comes to finding collectibles, there's more variety in terms of where to look rather than being stuck poking around a narrow corridor. You can wander more and check out the surroundings. Some moments even provide a little more lore of what's going on. This isn't immediately apparent as the first act eases you in but it soon becomes a nice tweak to the usual format. Never fully open-world, it's just enough independence to ensure that Gears 5 is a lot of fun.

Besides that gentle tweak to the format, Gears 5 gets that women can be muscle-bound heroes too. Take a look at your favorite action movies. Remember how Arnie was the sole hero back in the day, or Sly? Gears 5 remembers that Ripley in Alien could be as much of a badass and this time, she's been working on those gains and consuming at least a cow's worth of protein a day. Enter Kait Diaz. She features in Gears of War 4 but in 5, she's the central character and it's refreshing to see. She's still as much of a gym bro turned gun bro, but with a modern take of 'shock horror, women can be like that as well'.

None of this would matter if it wasn't that Gears 5 is fun – but boy, is it fun. I replayed it recently following a 'first' playthrough of Gears of War: Reloaded and loved every second. It's 'switch your brain off' fun, just like those '80s action movies of days gone by. The first act eases you into the storyline and keeps fairly rigidly linear, but it gives you the chance to get into the groove. Each weapon is satisfying. There's seemingly no obvious weak point in your arsenal. Kill something with a headshot and their head explodes with a far too satisfyingly bleak squelch noise.

These creatures aren't human and are solely focused on your destruction so there's no moral dilemma here. It's just a good feeling to commit such potential atrocities. Similarly, fling a grenade and gore goes everywhere. Even your own character can end up covered in blood and gore. So, predictably, this isn't for the faint hearted but it does tap into that unrealistic and excessive vibe that action movies of old – think Robocop – did so well back in the day. Remember how fast things could escalate in The Expendables? This is what you get here, but without the iffy connotations of realizing other humans are dying because of such escalation.

It's somehow even more fun with a friend or two in tow. Everything is better with a friend, after all. You can team up against the Locust Horde and other enemies (no spoilers here!), and watch the blood fly. With the more open-world sequences, you can cover more ground together and come up with more strategies. Then team up again to slice, dice, and chainsaw your enemies (did I forget the chainsawing? Yes, you can chainsaw foes. Yes it feels horrifically awesome), before moving onto the next area of destruction and gore.

It's a curious mixture of old and new. Some games go too open-world and forget to fill that world up with stuff worth looking at, while others are far too tightly woven so you feel like you're on a fixed rollercoaster. Gears 5 juggles those ideas well – never going too far in one direction or the other. If a game makes you smile gleefully just thinking of a memorable moment then surely it's succeeded in everything you could want from such a game? That's Gears 5 all over. Well designed over the top machismo with a hint of a heart as needed.

Looking forward, here are all of the upcoming Xbox series X games we're looking forward to

Gears of War's original art director has recalled how strongly influenced the first game was by the horror genre, a style that was diluted over time in the sequels, as he compared them to the Alien franchise.

"If Gears 1 was Alien, the rest of the franchise was Aliens," art director Jerry O’Flaherty tells FRVR, speaking to how James Cameron's sequel was more of a guns-blazing action movie compared to Ridley Scott's tight, claustrophobic, straight-up horror original.

"It was a lot more, you know, there was a hiding of the bad guy, there was just the tension and the horror that you were pulling out of every location, and I loved that… I loved the horror aspect of what we did in the first one," he adds.

He then explains how the sequels "quickly became a monster game," which, in his view, isn't a problem because of how much fans love the following, much more colorful shooters.

The dulled-out yellow-ish-brown color palette was so overused during the Xbox 360 generation that it's hard to remember just how effective it was in the original Gears of War game. And, according to O'Flaherty, it was all intentional, of course. "It was horror. It was a horror game, and horror is going to be a reduced palette, it's going to be a lot of dark."

2006's Gears of War is still undoubtably an action game in how it plays - you're never really reserving ammo or avoiding encounters aside from a few scripted moments - but it wears its horror influence on its sleeve, for sure. At least, it's a lot more pronounced than the sequels' bombastic approach.

The Coalition is also promising that the upcoming prequel, Gears of War: E-Day, will return to those horror-tinted roots, as well as feature a return to Marcus Fenix and right-hand man Dom on center stage. Depending on who you ask, it's probably a more exciting direction than going to space, which was Rod Fergusson's initial plan for Gears of War 6.

Microsoft reportedly had Gears of War devs work on a project that was "Uncharted with spies" to rival Sony's PlayStation series, but it was scrapped for Gears of War 4

Gears of War studio The Coalition (formerly Black Tusk Studios, as it was called until 2015) teased a project during E3 2013 that apparently might have rivaled the best Uncharted games – a project that was scrapped in favor of Gears of War.

Neither Microsoft nor Xbox studio, The Coalition, has publicly spoken about the mysterious 30-second teaser shown during E3 over a decade ago, but a recent video from video game researcher Liam Robertson of DidYouKnowGaming finally lifts the veil on the previously unnamed project depicted's details. "Microsoft had recognized that the Xbox needed its answer to Sony's Uncharted series," Robertson explains.

"A briskly paced third-person shooter big on action set pieces," if you will. According to the content creator, "In short, the idea for this game was Uncharted with spies – an action-packed third-person shooter where the player controlled secret agents on high-octane espionage missions in various cities around the world." It sounds like a wild mashup of Hitman and Uncharted if you ask me, one that might've done well, but unfortunately, it never came to fruition.

Why? The cancellation came in favor of the team moving its focus to Gears of War 4. "According to studio manager Mike Crump, they reached a unanimous decision to shut down Project Ranger in favor of taking on Gears of War," as Robertson states. "The move proved divisive when it was disclosed to Black Tusk's wider team later that week. Whereas some relished the new opportunity ahead of them, others were dismayed over the project's termination."

Crump acknowledged this disappointment in an interview with Polygon, although he wasn't open about what the project was, saying, "I'd be lying if I said there weren't some people on the team who were disappointed when they found out the thing they'd been working on for so long was going to be shelved." According to Robertson, layoffs followed Project Ranger's end, with veteran Gears of War producer Rod Fergusson hired as the new studio head.

Fergusson would lead the team, which was fittingly renamed "The Coalition" in reference to Gears of War, in its production of Gears of War 4 – a well-received entry in the beloved series that went on to release in 2016, just two years after Project Ranger was axed. Interestingly enough, the Uncharted-style game was supposed to feature Xbox Kinect functionality… which opens up a whole other can of worms, if you ask me.

Robertson's video on Project Ranger certainly offers some unique insights into an otherwise obscure game's history, and it's worth a full watch for anyone looking to learn more about an underappreciated mid-2010s title that made waves following E3.

Searching for something to wishlist? Here are some of the biggest new games this year and beyond to keep an eye on.

The PC launch for Gears of War: Reloaded has stumbled like Marcus Fenix flubbing a reload, with many players criticizing a sudden lack of splitscreen co-op as well as abundant crashes.

At the time of writing, Gears of War: Reloaded sits at 49% positive user reviews on Steam. I played up to Act 3 of the game with an online co-op buddy last night, and the campaign looked and played just fine, but I did encounter some of the crashes that other players have reported.

Multiple Steam users say Gears of War: Reloaded began crashing on startup after they adjusted their graphics settings or linked their Microsoft accounts. The game prompts you to sign in via Microsoft after your first boot.

This step went just fine for me, but after linking my Microsoft account, subsequently disconnecting, and force quitting the game, I also found it impossible to boot Gears of War: Reloaded at all anymore. It crashed on startup multiple, multiple times even after restarts.

I ended up refunding it on Steam, renewing my Xbox Game Pass sub, and redownloading the game through the Xbox PC app. This version of the remaster has performed fine for me for a few hours now, suggesting there is genuinely something wrong with the Steam version.

Steam users have also skewered alleged "false advertising" after the removal of the "Shared/Splitscreen Co-op" tag from the game's Steam page and the lack of splitscreen co-op, a Gears staple, in-game.

Archived versions of the Steam page, as recent as July 8, show that this tag was indeed on the store, below "Online Co-op" and above "Cross-Platform Multiplayer."

A blurb in the page's description, under the subhead "Built for Brotherhood," has also been changed. It previously read (emphasis mine): "Campaign Co-Op: Crush the Locust threat together through campaign split-screen or online co-op. Fight on with your squad in Versus multiplayer running at up to 120fps with unmatched clarity and visual fidelity."

The live version of the Steam page reads: "Campaign Co-Op: Crush the Locust threat together through campaign online co-op. Fight on with your squad in Versus multiplayer running at up to 120fps with unmatched clarity and visual fidelity."

I've seen reports of botched ultrawide support and missing pre-order bonuses as well, but I can't personally confirm those. Suffice it to say, Gears of War: Reloaded has hit some snags on PC.

I am at last having fun with the game, and so is Oscar, who writes: I can finally share meat-tastic cover shooting bliss with my PS5 friends thanks to Gears of War Reloaded.

An extra layer of symbolism has been added to Gears of War Reloaded in its opening. 14 years after the apocalyptic 'Emergence Day', it sees imprisoned hunk of meat Marcus Fenix freed from confinement by his legendary bro Dom Santiago, and reinstated into the COG military (yes, that stands for Coalition of Ordered Governments, and yes, that's Gears' tone in a nutshell). Except this time around, Marcus Fenix has also been freed from the shackles of Xbox.

Within minutes, the PS5's DualSense controller is shaking in my hands as I unload steaming hot lead into hordes of locusts – the underground-lurking invasion force responsible for humanity's turmoil. Comms chatter about how to best squash these enemies comes out from the DualSense's speaker and, more delightfully, holding melee to spin up the lancer rifle's onboard chainsaw purrs from the device – it's like having an incredibly violent cat on my lap. It might just be the very first Gears of War that's leapt off of the Xbox and onto PS5 so far but no matter – Gears of War Reloaded is a reminder that this original outing is still the best.

Waist high

And sure, I'm well aware each of the sequels did bolt on improvements across both narrative scope and the mechanics of enacting brutal violence. But also, there's a simplicity in this first outing that still makes it a cover shooter masterpiece 19 years later. If anything, the smoothness of control in Gears of War Reloaded only drives that home.

The muscled bros that make up Marcus and his COG allies aren't just bulky for the sheer masculine pleasure of it, or to simply riff on a Warhammer 40k-style grimdarkness (chainsaw guns and all – Gears owes a lot to Emperor's Space Marines). As an early and definitive third-person cover shooter, their hulking frames are a design promise across both its campaign and multiplayer. These targets are not small: blast away and see the flesh fly. Get close enough, and allow the chainsaw-based splatter to commence.

In some games, you may think of heftiness as a negative – clunky controls, perhaps, or unresponsive slowness. Not so in Gears of War, which embraces the pleasure of heftiness with all the satisfaction of slapping a thick cut of steak directly onto a hot pan. There's nothing slow here, bullets spraying forth with abandon to ca-thunk into targets, heads exploding.

Every now and then there's a moment's breath for more deliberate violence, a bowls-esque fling and roll of a frag grenade to seal up an emergence hole from which the targets of your ire come; the quiet joy of lining up a headshot with a scoped rifle and seeing that head simply disappear, replaced with a gushing fountain of bliss; 'roadie running' to outflank locusts mounting turrets, the cover-to-cover dash bringing the camera low in order to shake back and forth – a clomping rhythm that feels like a drum-fill lead-in to the violence to come.

Even the act of reloading feels like a pause on the crest of a rollercoaster, a well-timed tap of the button rewarding Marcus with a quicker reload and damage enhanced bullets, genuinely turning the tide in some tense shootouts.

So many of the brutal pleasures in Gears of War are all about the simplicity with which you can enact your vengeance on the locust enemy. You rarely have to worry about ammo, or even care much about where your shots land as you paint pain – heavy brushstrokes across torsos in the direction of skulls, the gore a celebration as enemies turn piñata-like into chunks.

Still, the feedback of these rages is one area where Gears of War Reloaded could have used more blood-red polish. Often, enemies don't react all that much to gunfire, and even popping heads feels a bit cursory. Occasionally, enemies will flip-flop their AI behavior when they do come under attack like a switch has been flipped to jerk off on another route for seemingly no reason.

So too do some of the annoyances I had with Gears of War Ultimate Edition rear their head. Anecdotally it feels like in the solo campaign, squad AI in Gears of War Reloaded can still be a little iffy. That's a shame as, in the Xbox 360 original, it was really solid, and one area I really felt Ultimate Edition dropped the ball. Reloaded does feel a bit better than Ultimate Edition in this regard, but some rough moments persist. The less said about the finale of Act 1 the better, in which you have to bait a blind Berzerker through several doors while your CPU-controlled Dom insists on getting himself killed again and again, resulting in a Game Over.

Beyond that, though, it has to be said the Gears of War Reloaded feels like a huge leap from Ultimate Edition. Reloaded runs like a dream on PS5 Pro, and I think the way the higher fidelity visuals have been implemented do a much better job of capturing the weird modern gothic and industrial labyrinths that made the original compelling to look at – something that really left me cold in Ultimate.

Excellent day

I also still love Gears of War's storytelling. While I still find the culture-shattering trailer scored to Gary Jules' 'Mad World' cover a bit cringe (hey, I was a teenager when Gears hit – I was into metal, my friend), Gears of War does successfully manage to tell a deeper story than all the muscle flexing might have you think.

I love how Gears of War opens in media res, leaving you to learn what sort of conflict Marcus has been thrown into, why he was imprisoned, the relationships between him and his squadmates, and what the higher-ups in command are scheming. Through a combination of mid-mission dialogue and clever environment design, much about Marcus' background and E-Day become clear before an explosive finish. Though it ends with a sequel hook, I still think Gears of War is a tremendous sci-fi blaster in its own right, even outside of the rest of the series it spawned.

Gears of War's dedication to simple smart design across its satisfying shooting and storytelling mean it's aged incredibly gracefully – and is still top of the pile when it comes to the third-person cover shooter genre for me, even if some parts show its age even in Reloaded.

And yet, rather than get me hyped up for the impending Gears of War: E-Day, my enjoyable trip back to Gears of War also leaves me less excited to see more. Gears of War Reloaded emphasizes why the original works so well. Gears of War: Judgment felt weird as a bit of a prequel itself, and I definitely don't like the idea of retreading a past that's explored so well in the original. After all, playing it again, I'm reminded of why Gears of War felt so exciting in 2006 – it just felt so fresh and new in how it implemented the fundamentals. Years and years after the fact, yet another sequel in a series with diminishing returns is going to struggle to capture that.

Gears of Wars Reloaded was played on PS5 Pro, with a code provided by the publisher.

Itching to play something else? Check out our best games on Game Pass for Xbox and PC list to find your next target.

The Gears of War: Reloaded release time – the remastered version of the original 2006 shooter – is almost here, with it set to launch worldwide later today, August 26.

There's a lot for Gears of War fans to be excited about right now, with the prequel to the OG game, Gears of War: E-Day, set to launch at some point next year. With that in mind, there's pretty much no better time to refresh yourself on the series' origins, or get acquainted with it for the first time – no doubt something that Xbox and The Coalition had in mind when preparing Reloaded's launch.

Almost every platform will be able to get in on the action, too, with Gears of War: Reloaded coming to PS5 as well as PC and Xbox Series X|S. And now, there are mere hours to wait until we can dive in. Read on to see exactly when Gears of War: Reloaded launches in your region.

Gears of War: Reloaded release time

• August 26 at 8am PDT
• August 26 at 11am EDT
• August 26 at 4pm BST
• August 26 at 5pm CEST

Sometimes, game launch times can vary a bit depending on what platform you're planning to play on, but this doesn't appear to be the case here. So, you can expect a simultaneous release across PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S later today.

Hopefully, the remaster will do the OG version justice. Back in June, GamesRadar+'s editor-in-chief Josh West said during his Summer Game Fest preview that he was "impressed by the quality of remaster developer The Coalition (in partnership with studios Sumo Digital and Disbelief) has put together here," adding that " 4K assets, remastered textures, and HDR support underpin a transformed campaign experience which runs at an impossibly smooth 60fps on all platforms."

It may seem strange to some that Gears of War will be on PS5 this month, but the game's OG designer is "thrilled that more people are going to get to experience a big part of my legacy."

Gears of War: Reloaded is a remastered version of the Xbox classic games, and surprise surprise, it's coming to PS5, too. While it may seem strange to those of us who grew up in the height of the console wars, the series' original lead designer Cliff Bleszinski says he's "thrilled" and doesn't think it's weird at all.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Bleszinski says "It doesn't feel strange. I'm thrilled that more people are going to get to experience a big part of my legacy that I worked so hard on."

Bleszinski joined Epic Games in the early '90s. He worked on Unreal and Unreal Tournament, and was then the lead designer for the first three Gears of War games. His work has left an impact, to say the least.

Growing up, the only two games that made me want an Xbox were Gears of War and Halo. I was happy with Crash Bandicoot, Sly Cooper, and Resistance, but those Xbox flagships had an undeniable cool factor. I got the Gears of War 3 special edition Xbox 360 when my PS3 crapped out while playing Brink, but finally, on August 26, Sony ponies will be able to play as the chainsaw-gun wielding Marcus Fenix.

Even now, the original games are still a delight, but I wouldn't expect anyone to buy a whole new console just to play them, so I'm happy they're coming to PS5. For our hands-on Gears of War: Reloaded preview, Editor-in-Chief Josh West writes, "joining a friend who is on Xbox Series X for a cross-platform co-op session? Quite honestly, it's quietly revolutionary."

While we wait for it to launch, check out the best Xbox Series X games you can play today. If you've just got a PlayStation, then let's hope they cross the aisle soon.

Former Gears of War boss Cliff Bleszinski is in no rush to return to game development, it seems, and after 11 years is still very much pocketing memories of his defunct studio Boss Key Productions.

Boss Key, you may remember, released two games – and had some gorgeous concepts for others – before closing down. LawBreakers was a competitive FPS released in 2017 to fairly positive reviews, while Radical Heights was a battle royale shooter released in 2018 to noticeably less positive reviews.

"11 years ago I started Boss Key," Bleszinski reflected in a July 21 tweet. "Sigh. It was amazing at first and then, well, it broke me for a good long while. Still bitter about the internet finding it hilarious that my studio folded."

In replies to another user, Bleszinski affirmed that "I'm happy consulting at this point" rather than fully returning to gaming. It seems his thoughts have changed since 2020, when he expressed "a slight itch to scratch to maybe poke around and see about making a little game."

At the time, Bleszinski also reckoned that Boss Key "should have started with a small, indie game FIRST before trying to make the shooter we ultimately did." He also argued that "the marketing from our publisher was lackluster, and that's putting it mildly."

Boss Key legitimately had some FPS chops, but Radical Heights, in particular, felt like a victim of the trends of the games industry. The battle royale boom had come and, perhaps not gone, but certainly settled into a collective of genre-dominating giants that made it hard for new games to make any headway even when those games were excellent. And Radical Heights, to put it kindly, was less than excellent. Its now-buried Steam page has preserved its 9,788 reviews, averaging out to 62% positive.

Diving into Gears of War: Reloaded's chaotic multiplayer servers is like being wrapped in a warm blanket lined with sandpaper.

Gears of War: Reloaded's upcoming beta weekend will now be longer and include more maps and modes, seemingly in response to negative feedback from the last beta.

ICYMI: last weekend's Gears of War: Reloaded beta took some heat for technical issues, server instability, and in general, not being all that different from the 2015 remaster, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. (Yes, there was already a Gears of War remaster; Reloaded is supposed to be a remaster of that with added availability on PlayStation.)

On Xbox Series X and PS5, you can expect the coveted 4K/120 FPS, at least in multiplayer modes, and crossplay and cross-progression are enabled across all platforms. That said, it seems Xbox was careful not too touch the actual bones of the game, which is great, but it seems like players were expecting at least some refinements to pain points like hit detection, sponging, and general lack of polish.

GamesRadar's Josh West said playing the Gears of War: Reloaded beta was like "being wrapped in a warm blanket lined with sandpaper," noting the game's faithfulness to the 2006 original while also highlighting various things that make the remaster feel very 2006, for better or worse.

Anyway, this beta extension isn't likely to quell any of the above concerns, but it will let you play Gears of War: Reloaded for a little longer and experience more of what the full release will include on August 26.

"We heard you. More maps. More modes. More time," The Coalition said in a tweet. "This weekend’s Multiplayer Beta has been extended and Execution will now be playable along with KOTH."

This weekend's Gears of War: Reloaded beta will now run from Friday, June 20 at 12pm PDT to Sunday, June 22 at 9pm PDT, which is nine hours longer than the last beta. Maps available in Competitive KOTH and Execution will now include Canals in addition to Gridlock, Raven Down, Courtyard, and War Machine. For Social TDM, you'll have Gridlock, Gold Rush, Raven Down, Courtyard, and War Machine.

Again, The Coalition has yet to address the feedback around the core game itself, and with a little more than two months from launch it's unlikely there's a whole lot that can be done without a delay, but I suppose this is a harmless enough peace treaty.

Meanwhile, here's everything we know about Gears of War: E-Day.

Gears of War: Reloaded is no longer coming out in Japan for the PS5 due to "regional rating restrictions and platform policies," despite the Xbox and PC versions still being released on August 26.

Gears of War is getting its second remaster very soon, with the big gimmick this time around being that the game is finally making the jump away from Xbox and letting PlayStation players in on the fun (with a bunch of betas coming before it launches on August 26). However, in Japan – where PlayStation has always been significantly more popular – the game will only be releasing on Xbox and PC.

This was announced on a Xbox Wire Japan post (spotted and translated by Automaton, and verified using machine translation), in a post which explains the game won't be releasing on the platform due to "regional rating restrictions and platform policies."

While Japanese players are advised that they'll still be able to play the game at launch on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and Game Pass, an apology has been issued for anyone inconvenienced by the PS5 version not releasing.

While not as eager to ban games as some countries, Japan has previously banned games with copious amounts of gore like 2022's The Callisto Protocol and the Dead Space Remake. Plus Assassin's Creed Shadows was censored in the country, with the dismemberment toned down vastly (which seems to be a sticking point given that Dead Space is all about the dismemberment).

Automaton mentions that the original release of Gears of War in 2006 did in fact release in a censored state, with some scenes depicting severed limbs being affected.

The post doesn't specify why only the PS5 version is affected when the game is presumably the same across both platforms, so I'm assuming that the "platform policies" section is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here.

We saw some more of Gears of War: Reloaded at Summer Game Fest this year, making an appearance during the Xbox Games Showcase.

The Coalition has confirmed that Gears of War: E-Day will be released in 2026.

The news came following the Xbox Games Showcase in an Xbox Wire blog post, where the developer also gave a first look at Gears of War: Reloaded in action.

The pairing makes for a compelling anniversary celebration for the Gears of War franchise, which debuted back in 2006 on Xbox 360. Reloaded is set to launch on August 26, 2025, and marks the first time the series has landed on a PlayStation platform. It's shaping up to be a pretty dazzling remaster of the 2015 remake of the original game, and should be considered essential ahead of E-Day.

That's because Gears of War: E-Day is a prequel, tracking the events of the original Emergence Day – often referred to by characters in the series, but never properly detailed. E-Day is when the Locust initiated a planet-wide assault on the surface of Sera, and the 2026 prequel will let us experience the horrors firsthand. This origin story will delve into the early life of protagonist Marcus Fenix, detail the making of the Lancer, and reunite us with Marcus' bestie, Dom Santiago.

Xbox has yet to set a firm 2026 release date for Gears of War: E-Day, but we do know that it'll land on PC, Xbox Series X, and will be available on day one through Game Pass Ultimate. There is no word yet on whether E-Day will follow Reloaded onto the PS5, although it would be a safe bet to assume that it will eventually.

Xbox Games Showcase 2025 needs to build on Microsoft's momentum, but it may need to go beyond The Outer Worlds 2 to pull it off.

Gears of War: Reloaded is one of the key upcoming Xbox Series X games for 2025, a sprawling remaster of the exceptional 2015 remake of the 2006 original. Which is all to say, Gears' 20th anniversary celebration begins here. Reloaded also marks the first time that the series will be available on PS5 – and you won't have long to try it for yourselves either.

The Coalition was on hand at the Xbox Games Showcase with a new trailer, with an Xbox Wire blog post confirming that pre-orders are now open for Gears of War: Reloaded, and if you get yours locked in, you'll be able to access a couple of special multiplayer beta weekends towards the end of June (for players on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers). Existing owners of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition will also be able to access the beta, as they are being treated to a free Reloaded upgrade anyway this August.

Better still, the Gears of War will feature cross-platform multiplayer between all of these platforms for the very first time. Speaking with GamesRadar+, The Coalition's CVP Kate Rayner says that the beta "is a chance for us to really test at scale the cross-platform play experience. We're really excited for players to get their hands on it."

The Coalition's Studio Head Mike Crump adds: "This will be a great way to get people back in, and it gives us an opportunity to test everything before we launch in August – to make sure that the servers are ready for big numbers!"

Gears of War: Reloaded is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X on August 26, 2025. Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers will be able to access it from day one, and for the rest of you first-time adopters, it'll come in at a budget price of $39.99.

Xbox Games Showcase 2025 needs to build on Microsoft's momentum, but it may need to go beyond The Outer Worlds 2 to pull it off.

While there's still no release date for Gears of War: E-Day, series creator Cliff Bleszinski has decided now is the time to just let it all hang loose and reveal he kind of winged it with some of that Locust and Riftworm stuff. Recently on Twitter, Bleszinski shared that a major showdown in Gears of War 3 kind of... makes no sense.

In Gears of War, the Locust Horde are mutated humanoids, the result of genetic experiments, and develop their own governing society. This also included a religion known as the Trinity of Worms which worshipped the Riftworms, giant, 10-mile-long worms which created the Hollow, where the Locust reside. Despite the rich lore surrounding the Riftworms and their relation to the Locust, it turns out some stuff was left blank.

During Gears of War 3, one Locust known as Ketor Skorge, awoke a Riftworm to be used as a weapon of mass destruction in their war against the humans. There's just a tiny detail missing from the fact that Skorge was able to command the Riftworm at will: Bleszinski has no idea how he did it.

According to his tweet, Bleszinski has no explanation for how the Locust "got control of the Riftworm in the first place, and two: how they guided it to their desired target."

While sharing his retrospection, Bleszinski defends his lack of explanation with a simple idea that some gamers can get behind, while others will demand answers for: "Sometimes ya just put stuff in a game you think is cool. You don't have to fully explain everything; let 'em wonder."

The only issue now is that regardless of how much Gears of War fans "wonder," they'll know in their heart of hearts that even the creator doesn't have a clue.

REPO and Schedule 1 receive the highest honor an indie game can possibly get outside 2 seconds in a Nintendo sizzle reel: Geoff Keighley telling the world they're outselling some genuine AAA juggernauts