Gears of War: E-Day

Gameplay

Third-person shooting is built on cover combat, with reworked movement: sprinting, sliding, jumping and climbing. Pure Xbox calls it the best combat in the series, and Meristation finds the action more vertical and dynamic. MyGamer likes movement that feels more fluid while keeping the series' weight. Metro GameCentral, by contrast, finds the gunplay unremarkable and the formula barely changed since 2006.

Content

Fourteen years before the original game, Marcus and Dom face the Locust during the invasion of Kalona. The campaign supports solo and co-op play; Horde Siege brings twelve players together in three squads of four, and Versus offers competitive matches. Xbox specifies that two-player split screen is console-only. Pure Xbox puts the campaign at roughly 16 hours on Hardcore. Meristation and Metro GameCentral feel the open areas hurt the pacing; Metro finds solo play a chore and repetitive towards the end.

Platforms

Released on 6 October 2026 for PC and Xbox Series X|S, the game is developed by The Coalition and published by Xbox Game Studios. The Premium Edition offered access from 1 October. On 11 November 2026, the Standard Edition costs €69.99 on Steam and the Xbox Store, and the Premium Edition €99.99 on Steam; the Xbox listing also shows it included in Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass and Game Pass for console. Steam lists English and French interface, audio and subtitles.

Who is it for?

For fans of cover shooters and cooperative play. Metro GameCentral finds it far more enjoyable with others than alone. Steam flags violence and gore; PC minimum requirements include an SSD and a ray-tracing-capable GPU.

Conclusion

Pure Xbox, Meristation and MyGamer praise the combat, the new movement system and the presentation. Meristation and Metro GameCentral have reservations about the pacing of the open areas, and Metro criticises a lack of new ideas. This is not a hands-on review.

Press average

The rating block above shows the press average calculated from original reviews of the Xbox Series X|S version, checked on 11 November 2026: Pure Xbox 10/10, Meristation 9/10, MyGamer 9/10 and Metro GameCentral 7/10. Pure Xbox scored the game mainly on its campaign, and MyGamer scored it before finishing the campaign. Each score is converted to /20 and averaged with equal weight. This sourced overview is not a hands-on review.