Gears of War: E-Day Review: A Strong Return, Not a Reinvention
The Coalition's prequel is the best-received Gears in fifteen years, with combat almost everyone praises and a formula almost nobody says has changed. A confident comeback that plays it safe. Score: 8/10.
Luka Perić
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
What it is
Gears of War: E-Day is The Coalition's prequel to the whole series, out on October 6, 2026 for Xbox Series X|S and PC (Microsoft Store and Steam), and on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass from day one. It goes back to Emergence Day, the moment the Locust Horde breaks through the surface, and puts a young Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago in the middle of it. It runs on Unreal Engine 5 and targets 4K at up to 60 FPS.
A note on method: this verdict weighs the launch reviews and the official spec sheet against each other. Where critics disagree, I say so.
How it plays, by most accounts
The agreement on combat is striking. Pure Xbox calls it the best the series has felt in twenty years, GamingBolt praises the tightest combat and some of the best pacing in the franchise, and IGN gave it a 9. The official pitch is the classic cover shooter with modernised movement and a darker, horror-leaning tone, and that seems to be exactly what shipped.
The campaign is over 14 hours according to The Coalition, its longest yet, playable solo, in two-player split-screen on console, or with up to four players online. Split-screen in 2026 deserves applause on its own.
The highs
- Gunplay and encounter design are praised almost universally. - Visually it is a showcase - Windows Central's reviewer called it the most stunning game they had seen. - A full package: campaign, 4v4 Versus and Horde Siege, a larger PvE mode for three squads of four. - No traditional battle pass, although an optional premium currency (Iron) exists.
The lows
This is where the scores split. GameSpot's 7 describes a good game propped up by combat that has barely changed in two decades. VGC thinks the story underuses the Marcus and Dom relationship, which is odd for a prequel built around those two. Gamekult went as low as 5 and complained about filler and a series on autopilot. Melee has also been called janky.
I think those complaints are fair without being fatal. An aggregate of 87-88 on Metacritic makes this the highest-rated Gears since Gears of War 3, yet it still sits below the entire original trilogy. That tells you what E-Day is: a very good Gears, not a new idea.
PC and price
PC players need 130 GB of SSD space. The recommended spec lists 16 GB of RAM and an RTX 3060 Ti or RX 6700 XT; the minimum starts at an RTX 2060 or RX 6600. Not outrageous, but that install size hurts at current SSD prices.
The Standard Edition is $69.99 in the US and the Premium Edition $99.99, which mostly bought five days of early access. Check your local store for the euro price. In our region, where a full-price game is a bigger bite out of a salary, a month of Game Pass is the obvious way to play the campaign. Note that Ranked Versus only arrives on October 13.
Verdict
If you want cover-based shooting done about as well as it can be done, with co-op that actually includes the couch, E-Day delivers. If you hoped the prequel would rethink Gears, it does not. Play it on Game Pass without hesitation; pay full price if co-op and multiplayer will keep you around after the credits.
Score: 8/10
Image: Kyu3a / CC BY-SA 4.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xbox_Series_X%E3%81%A8Series_S.jpg