Gears of War E-Day's Horde Siege shines when squads collide in its dense city, but sags when they're apart

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!

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