Gears of War: E-Day review for PC, Xbox Series X

It’s approaching midnight on November 6th, 2008. Fellow Gaming Age editor Austen Canupp and I are standing in line at GameStop waiting for Gears of War 2 to be released. We had a pallet of Dr. Pepper waiting at his house, as well as all the Little Caesars pizza we could eat. The game released, his Mom drove us back to his house, and we proceeded to stay up all night playing through the entire game together in split-screen co-op. We were supposed to only play for a few hours, then get some sleep to go play paintball the next day, but we ended up playing straight through the night and never made it out to the field. This stands today as one of my all-time favorite video game related memories from my youth. This is partly because of the decades of friendship that Austen and I have shared, and partly due to just how incredible that original Gears of War 2 campaign was. I tell you this to partially illustrate just how long my fandom for this series has run, and just how important that original trilogy was to me growing up, so when I say that Gears of War: E-Day is the best that this series has been since 2008, you know that means something.

Gears of War: E-Day takes place on the titular Emergence Day (E-Day) and puts the players back into the familiar boots of Marcus Fenix and Dominic “Dom” Santiago. This is a welcome change from the new protagonists introduced in Gears of War 4 and 5, who were never quite able to fill those boots themselves. I have always likened Gears of War to the other console exclusive “of War” – God of War. I think God of War lives and dies with its protagonist, Kratos (although with the imminent release of God of War: Laufey, I may be proven wrong about that one), and that Gears of War only really works when Marcus Fenix and Dom are in the mix. Having old-man Marcus show up in 4 and 5 was a nice touch, but JD and Kait were just never enough to elevate those titles to the same heights the original trilogy was able to reach. Couple that with what I felt to be a subpar story and a push into more of an open-world style of game, and I felt like Gears was ready for a soft reboot and a return to its roots. E-Day offers exactly that.

In addition to Marcus and Dom, you will squad up with Mags, a former Gear who holds no love for the COG but finds herself thrust back into the fight alongside you, and Lucas, a green-behind-the-ears Cadet who specializes in communication. These new squadmates are well written, well acted, and fully fleshed out by the time you reach the end of the campaign. Having a complete squad of meaningful characters who all fit together within the story is something else that has been missing in recent entries, and this return to form is a welcome one.

I could go on all day about the improvements to the story and writing in E-Day, but at the end of the day, a successful Gears of War game is going to rely on its combat. E-Day is a perfect blend of old-school mechanics and new-school sensibilities, bringing a surprisingly robust customization system to the run-and-gun cover shooter mechanics that Gears of War was built on. The minute-to-minute gunplay feels like an updated version of the original games, with smoother cover mechanics and bounding, while the customization offered through discoverable mods for each weapon brings the franchise up to date with modern shooters in a way that doesn’t tarnish the experience in the slightest.

As you play through the campaign, you will uncover “hard cases” that contain various mods for each of the many weapons you will uncover throughout the game. These mods can do anything from granting you incendiary ammo for your Hammerburst upon a perfect reload, to a new scope for your Breechshot that allows you to toggle the zoom when you are aiming. There are also mods for your Tactical Gear and armor, which have various effects, like giving you an automatic perfect reload when you get a close-range kill, or increasing your defense while in cover. These mods can all be swapped at will at each of the supply caches that are found all throughout the story.

In addition to the upgrades that the combat system receives, the visuals here are better than ever before. The cityscapes of Kalona during the initial siege and destruction feel so much more lived-in and thought out than some of the other larger areas in the previous games, the attention to detail and craftsmanship shines through in each level. I was constantly blown away as we transitioned from the bright daylight of the city to the nightmarish midnight of the forest to the pitch-black tunnels underneath it, lit only with red flares that stand out in stark contrast to the darkness. Time and time again, the breadth and spectacle of E-Day impressed me and reminded me of why I love this franchise.

While the majority of my time with E-Day so far has been spent in the campaign, the new Horde Siege and Versus modes offer more than enough to keep you chainsawing long after the story ends. Horde Siege is a fresh take on the classic mode, throwing three separate four-man squads into the same map and leaving them to work together to survive the horde. While the traditional 50-wave Horde mode is gone, in favor of this more streamlined mode with an ultimate goal and eventual extraction, I think everyone can find something to love in Horde Siege. The Versus mode was described by the studio as “Classic recipe, new ingredients” and I think that sums it up perfectly. The tight 4v4 multiplayer mode lends itself to relatively quick matches with a great ability to pick up and play for however long you have and have a great time doing it.

Gears of War: E-Day is a bold new step forward for the franchise, while looking backward to the core of what made this franchise so great. Tight cover-shooter gunplay, a surprisingly emotional story, relatively seamless co-op both couch and online, and the always fitting Marcus Fenix one-liners come together to make the best Gears of War game in almost two decades. If this is the direction that The Coalition is going to continue taking the series, I think we are in very good hands.

Note: Xbox Game Studios provided us with a Gears of War: E-Day PC code for review purposes.

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