Gears of War E-Day Review: The Coalition's Near-Masterpiece

The Coalition has crafted a near-masterpiece in E-Day.

The Gears of War series once served as a promotional vehicle for Epic Games' Unreal Engine ever since the first entry welcomed players to a true "next gen" experience way back in the Xbox 360 era. Despite the fact Epic Games hasn't made a Gears game in over a decade, Gears of War: E-Day is perhaps the best advertisement for the Unreal Engine that they could have ever asked for.

The super-detailed and expansive environments, the incredible lighting effects, the damage and destruction rendered so smoothly in real-time, the particle effects; E-Day would easily capture every award possible for its graphics if it wasn't launching just a month before GTA 6, which has a budget at least 3-4 times more than what The Coalition had to work with.

The fact that it's all rendered at a silky smooth 60 FPS (something that even GTA 6 won't be accomplishing) on the Series X, which is now 6 years old, is quite the technical marvel.

And despite the massive environments and battles unfolding in real time, even the lowly Series S is able to present a smooth (from what I've heard, I only have the Series X to test on) product, something that required The Coalition to pull off some SSD sorcery in order to facilitate (and really highlights how Microsoft's decision for a lower SKU hamstrings the potential for many games as they have to make it work for the lower-end system).

To complement the eye-watering visuals is of course best-in-class audio design in terms of effects, score, and voice acting, which has always been a strong point for the studio and continues to be in E-Day.

The addition of heavier metal-infused tracks during its more chaotic action is a great choice, as is the inclusion of Metallica's For Whom the Bell Tolls which fits Gears like a glove, and is even a selectable option for the main menu music. This heavy focus contrasts the more horror-infused and somber tracks that accompany its darker moments, showing the studio is more than capable of a range in tone and atmosphere.

While Gears 4 and 5 were great games in their own right, their stories just didn't quite resonate with players in the same way that the original trilogy did.

A return to the heart and soul of the franchise was in order, and E-Day is thus led by the iconic duo of Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago.

Players follow the beloved duo from the very beginning of Emergence Day, the event which is constantly referenced in the Gears universe yet has never been explored in a game until now. Emergence Day is of course the day that the Locust unleashed their bloodthirsty hordes from deep underground and began a genocidal war against all of humanity on the planet of Sera.

Joining the young, yet still veteran warfighters are Lucas Reyes and Mags Carter, who just happen to have been at the same place as Marcus and Dom when shit hit the fan.

Lucas (along with his brothers) has been heavily referenced to in the earlier games as well as the excellent Gears of War novels by Karen Traviss, who is also a writer on E-Day, and fulfills the role of naive "noobie" on the newly formed squad, while Mags is a hardened vet who was medically discharged from the service but is forced back into the fray when the Locust invasion hits.

Marcus and Dom do the heavy lifting here and while Lucas is a solid addition, The Coalition has invited controversy here with the lone truly "new" character they introduced ticking all the "DEI" boxes - Mags is a butch "woman of color" who is blind in one eye, has rustlung (kind of like severe asthma, an illness in the Gears universe caused by exposure to Imulsion, which is the main fuel source on the planet) yet is portrayed as the most badass and competent soldier one can find.

She's of course also a lesbian, which thankfully doesn't actually get said or focused on in the story and is only "confirmed" by a glance at a picture of her with a girlfriend in one cutscene, but it clearly speaks to an agenda that the studio felt compelled in forcing into the story.

Mags in several scenes stealing the "leadership" role from the actual squad leader Marcus, and the story's attempt to make sure everyone knows she's very important (she was the one who discovered lobbing frag grenades collapses emergence holes for instance, because of course) can induce eye-rolling, especially early in the story.

On its own, it wouldn't be worthy of much attention, but combined with the presence of other "woke" writing tropes - such as Colonel Trench being an irredeemable, evil white old man who is in charge over women and "people of color" who are all portrayed as level-headed symbols of competence to act as his foil - it brings down what would otherwise be an amazing storyline and simply alienates far more of the Gears audience than it "includes".

Fortunately, aside from a handful of scenes, this agenda doesn't drag the 15+ hour story down too far and the narrative still does Marcus and Dom justice, along with the return of fan-favourite Tai Kaliso, plus some worthy new additions like the hilarious bickering Kemara twins, Mako and Manu.

With roughly 7 years passing since the last game in the franchise, it was hard to predict whether E-Day would be a triumphant return or a mismanaged disaster (see Halo Infinite's launch woes), but luckily for Gears fans, it seems (almost) uniformly to be the former.

The lengthy campaign is easily up there with any of the original trilogy's stories and is the most fun I've had in a shooter's campaign in years.

It truly feels like an extension of the first Gears of War - fast, furious, foul-mouthed and gory combined with a dark horror vibe, its environments oozing atmosphere and its hulking characters badassery.

The brutality of the Locust is also ramped up to 11 here.

More recent entries had kind of lost that sense of barbarity amongst humanity's foes, yet E-Day hammers home that for the characters in this story, it isn't just a war for resources or ideologies, but a struggle for the very survival of the human race itself against an enemy that seeks nothing but its total annihilation.

E-Day's far more expansive levels showcase various sections of the city of Kalona, which is the central location for the entire story, and do an amazing job of not only giving players an immense sense of scale for a traditionally linear game, but really make you feel like you are in a real city desperately fighting for survival against an overwhelming threat.

Despite taking place in one city, the environments are varied and diverse and tell just as much of the story as the dialog does, whether you're exploring a crumbling street filled with shops and demolished vehicles, an old COG military scrapyard found in the middle of a dark and gloomy forest on the outskirts of town, or red flare-soaked catacombs dug by the Locust that weave into the old subway system under the city.

Returning to certain sections of the city a day or two later (in the game world's time) really highlights the swift severity of the invasion that you find yourself in, with formerly intact areas sporting extensive damage or demolished entirely and littered with bodies, some even strung up by the Locust to instill fear amongst all who remain.

Perhaps most importantly, the classic Gears of War gameplay is smoother and more satisfying than ever before thanks to a new mobility system which adds more options to a player's reportoire while also opening up its environments.

The added verticality and seemingly simple yet surprisingly game-expanding jump functionality really open up more possibilities and gameplay opportunities than one may think, and I have to admit flanking an enemy just to knee-slide into a Gnasher instagib is ridiculously satisfying.

For veterans the changes may take a bit to get used to, and I'd highly suggest changing two settings before they get going - one, make sprint a toggle instead of having to hold it down as its now mapped to the left stick rather than a face button, and two change the position of the active reload animation to the top right rather than the centre of the screen (why they thought it worked better there I have no idea).

Gunplay is as great as ever and the new additions to the arsenal (as well as the series' already impressive roster of enemy types) not only fit with the franchise, but are great in and of themselves - and its signature "bro" humor is alive and well, if you couldn't tell by the introduction of an enemy lovingly referred to as a "floating ballsack" by Bravo Squad.

There are a few classic Gears weapons missing (at least for now, as future seasons may add new weapons) like the Boltok Pistol, but the main staples are all there and just as good if not better than ever (like the Torque Bow which has a menacing new sound).

It may be a prequel, but it wouldn't be a proper shooter if it didn't include some new weapons to play with, and E-Day brings some particularly brutal new tools of death to the Gears arsenal, like the diabolical Gorehook which fires a massive hook on a chain that slices through an opponent then rips them apart when its chain retracts, the absurdly heavy Ripper double-barreled machinegun, and the face-melting (literally) Incinerator Shotgun which dissolves your foes in acid.

The addition of weapon and armor modifications is a nice touch that can provide quite meaningful changes to your tools of war, from selecting different scopes to damage and fire rate changes to increased health and ammo carrying capacity to mods that can even enable a Gnasher to fire in full-auto or let you fire two Longshot rounds before having to reload.

The armor abilities, such as injecting an adrenaline shot to buff yourself and recover health or sending out a drone to highlight nearby enemies, may not be anything unique in the gaming scene but they are all implemented well and inspire teamwork without straying into "hero shooter" territory.

There are a few minor gripes - enemies can occasionally be a bit too "bullet-spongey" (looking at you, "floating ballsacks") and hits with a Gorehook being an instant-down can be infuriating when they trap you in a small space with a Flayer, which is another one of those spongey enemies - but these are relatively minor balance issues.

The lone sore spot for some players when it comes to the Gears sandbox may be the absence of a few regular mechanics from past Gears' games - namely picking up downed foes to use as "meat shields", chainsaw duels (both introduced in Gears 2) and grenade tagging (a staple since the 2006 OG).

The Coalition has already hinted that these mechanics may be added in future updates (I personally have never cared much for the gimmicky chainsaw duels and could take or leave the meat shields), however the most peculiar absence is grenade tagging.

I can certainly understand removing wall/floor tagging as there are now defensive mines available in the campaign/Horde to take that functionality, and frankly the proximity mine function was just annoying in versus play, but digging the spikes of one of Gears' iconic frag grenades into an opponent's flesh then high-tailing it to escape the ensuing blast has been a staple since the first game and it feels odd that it's missing.

Plus, who didn't love tagging an enemy with a smoke grenade purely as a demoralizing power move?

Seeing the scale of some of the set pieces in E-Day, the size of some of its more open areas, the incredibly detailed environments, and given UE5's notoriety, one couldn't help but expect some performance issues, yet thankfully the campaign has been a remarkably smooth ride on the Series X (I can't attest to the PC version, as accounts of its optimization there seem to vary wildly).

I've experienced a few minor glitches on occasion, mostly just cosmetic stuff like model clipping which is virtually unavoidable in a videogame, with only one glitch requiring me to restart my game (the damage indicator stopped working for me during one objective, only showing the direction of incoming fire and just restarting from a checkpoint didn't fix it).

The trademark stuttering of UE5 isn't completely absent, as it does rear its head when sprinting around the game's larger areas on occasion, but I never saw any noticeable framerate dips or stuttering during combat itself (at least on performance mode which is what I play on) no matter how chaotic it got, making it really a non-issue.

The Coalition's work (along with others, but this is now the gold standard) really proves the problems prevalent in UE5-developed games come down more to implementation than anything as in the right hands, one can really achieve remarkable things in Epic Games' famous engine.

Unforced errors in allowing virtue signaling to work its way into the game, and a bit of an underwhelming final boss fight, are really the only things holding back E-Day's meaty campaign from being a true masterpiece - yet despite this, it still manages to rise above that self-inflicted wound and stands on its own as an incredible work of art.

For the Horde (Siege)

Gears of War 2 changed the gaming world when it introduced its wave-based Horde mode back in 2008.

Dropping a squad of players into its multiplayer maps against increasingly difficult waves of enemy combatants which required team work and strategy alongside skill in order to survive proved to be a winning formula and similar PvE modes have become the norm for many games to this day.

The mode has gone through various iterations over the years, from Judgement's choice to let players take control of Locust units in an attempt to kill the COG forces to The Coalition's increasing use of tower defense-style fortifications, but with E-Day, Horde has been completely revamped to make better use of its more fast-paced, fluid combat system.

Rather than plopping players into the same PvP arenas, the newly titled Horde Siege mode takes three of the more sprawling, expansive sections of E-Day's campaign and unleashes three squads of players into the mix for a 12-player experience.

Each squad (which is deployed separately and often at completely different times, so you may see more than 12 players across one match as squads extract and new ones enter) are tasked with a series of objectives randomly selected from a pool of them, and can also tackle side objectives and retrieve random supply drops as they progress through their missions.

As your squad progresses, your journey will often naturally overlap with other squads', with players optionally able to help other squads mop up grubs, save them should they be struggling during an objective, or tackle special Invasion events together.

These Invasions feature massive bosses (like a Brumak or a Corpser) in a larger-scale battle that all-but requires more than one squad's participation to complete and grants more rewards for doing so, as one would expect from such events.

Invasions also add a modifier when they spawn into the map to make things more difficult for all squads during the match, such as disabling perfect reload buffs. That modifier stays active until the Invasion's boss is defeated or the event times out (and its rewards with it), providing extra incentive for players to get in on the boss fight while it's available.

The one drawback is that if your squad is fighting for their lives during an invasion, those enemies do not scale for how many people are fighting it, which basically requires at least one other squad to join you to have a hope in hell of being able to take it down within the time limit. While usually other squads do join in, sometimes if you get unlucky and other squads are already in the middle of lengthier objectives of their own or are extracting, you may be left to fend for yourselves and end up getting nothing for your efforts as the Invasion event's time expires and you miss out on any rewards.

While Horde Siege's performance is admirable on the Series X and it looks gorgeous just as its campaign does, it does suffer from the occasional bit of stuttering and frame drops, typically when running around its open areas or when there's a shitload of enemies engaging with multiple squads in a small area.

It very rarely had any impact on gameplay and was more of a visual hiccup, with enemy animations also suffering from increased glitchiness when too much chaos is going on at once; luckily it didn't detract from the fun, but it did serve as a reminder that the game was straining a 5-year-old console to its absolute limits.

The friendly AI is also often broken - while in the campaign your allies do a good job of fighting alongside you and coming to your aid when you're downed, if you're unfortunate enough to have teammates quit out on you in a Horde Siege match, they are replaced by bots, and those bots are very hit and miss - sometimes they'll stick near you and be helpful, other times they'll get caught up somewhere and leave you on your own entirely.

The game also can't do anything about retarded teammates - if you don't have a full squad of buddies to play with, be aware that there's a chance you'll be matched with someone that may not be so inclined to revive their teammates or will prompt main objectives when you're trying to complete side objectives and make you lose out on extra loot and experience.

All three of the Siege maps available at launch offer sprawling sections of Kalona to fight in (including a night-time one) - when additional maps are added, hopefully they make use of some of the more visually diverse areas of the campaign and not just the core of the city, such as its wilderness or underground areas.

There are four classes to choose from in Horde Siege, with each having their own tactical gear (like a medic's stim field that revives and heals players in a small radius, or a device that temporarily stuns enemies), with mods for their gear and armor being unlocked by leveling up that class which comes simply through playing as that class.

Alongside unlocking different weapons, equipment, and mods for your Horde Siege loadout by leveling up, players earn Weapon Parts by completing side objectives, Invasions, or picking up random supply drops in matches. These can be spent on unlocking additional modification slots on your weapons as well as obtaining different mods to use for said weapons.

Every 10 levels for your class (up to level 30, the max) adds additional buffs to your character in order for you to be able to take on missions at higher difficulties, which also grant you more rewards for completing.

The system works well and the mods and abilities give players worthwhile progression as they level up their gear and take on bigger challenges.

Horde Siege comes in three flavours - Blitz, which is a shorter version that can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on side objectives and the like, the full Siege mode which is more of a 30-60 minute endeavor, and a classic Horde mode which has you defending one area for ten consecutive waves more akin to the past Gears games.

There's also a limited-time mode which beefs up some of the enemies you encounter and includes E-Day's main boss as well, which I assume will be rotated with similar events as time goes on.

Unfortunately the classic Horde version doesn't really play like the prior Gears as it still uses the more open Siege setup, and basically just extends the short 3-round waves of some Siege objectives to ten.

While Gears' combat loop doesn't get old for most players, the same stream of tedious mission objectives can, such as a few of the side missions (like the bomb defusing one which takes an eternally long time as you watch your character flipping switches and pushing buttons, or the transport missions which have you carry a power core to a location but you never seem to encounter any enemies so it's effectively just a jog to completion).

It'd be nice if The Coalition added a more traditional version of Horde on its Versus maps for players that want that to hunker down and miss the old Horde's more static base defense emphasis, but as it is, Siege is a welcome change of pace with plenty of stuff to do and upgrades to unlock that should add plenty of replayability to its PvE component.

Multiplayer Mayhem

With such an impressive campaign and a clear focus on its revamped Horde mode, Gears' classic PvP Versus mode has unfortunately been left a little behind.

E-Day returns the series to its original 4 vs. 4 format rather than the 5 on 5 that was introduced in Gears 2, and for players that jump straight into the multiplayer arena the revamped movement system will certainly take a few games for most Gears vets to get used to.

Once you get past that initial learning curve however, its smoother, cleaner gameplay comes into its own and provides some of the best action in the series to date.

After playing the Beta in August, the biggest concern I had was performance given that there was very noticeable lag and hit registration issues in Versus (and in Horde despite being against AI enemies), but given that I had unusually high ping in every match, whether it was an issue with the servers or the game itself was unknown.

Luckily, those issues are virtually non-existent in the full release.

Not only has my ping been in a normal range every match, but versus plays as smoothly as one would hope for, maintaining a buttery-smooth framerate and featuring gorgeous maps.

There are some minor balancing issues with certain weapons and downed players seem to take a tad too much damage to finish off, but such balancing tweaks are a given for a multiplayer game at launch and just like with the beta, The Coalition will be tweaking these values as time goes on.

One setting I strongly recommend turning on for multiplayer is to enable allied name tags in the Interface tab; by default, allies are only outlined when out of view and simply have a small chevron above their head when in your line of sight. Traditionally that would be enough as Gears normally had pretty distinctive visual styles to differentiate the COG and Locust teams, but given some of the game's more visually diverse skins, it can often be difficult to identify friend and foe especially in the thick of close-quarters battles.

Adding the name tags above your allies heads pretty much solves this issue as you know to simply shoot at anything a name over their head.

As any proper arena shooter should, E-Day's Versus mode keeps players on a completely level playing field - no custom loadouts (besides your character and weapon skins), no mods or tactical abilities, just eight players with the exact same starting weapons as they fight for control of power weapons on the map.

There are four modes to choose from: Team Deathmatch, Conquest (basically Gears of War's version of King of the Hill), Demolition which is a new mode where each side fights to pick up a bomb and plant it at one of the enemy's zones then defend it until its timer hits zero, and Crucible which has teams fighting for a power core pickup which must be in a specified, moving zone in order to score.

TDM and Conquest are typical Gears fare, while both new modes are also fun additions that mix things up without being a large deviation from the norm.

There's also currently a seasonal mode which is effectively King of the Hill but with the hill moving along a set path when a team has control over it, and is another similar but fun addition - with only four other modes though, I sincerely hope they don't rotate it out at the end of the season.

The bigger problem is that at launch there are just six maps.

Granted, each one is unsurprisingly beautiful and detailed just like you'd expect given the game's other modes. All six are also well-designed and very fun to play with none standing out (at least to me) as being a dud, with its maps making use of E-Day's added vertical movement to expand the strategic options available to players as well.

At launch, there's only a Social playlist with persistent lobbies where players can vote on which mode and map to play next, with traditional Ranked playlists opening up on October 13 to give players a chance to get more familiar with the mechanics before jumping into ranked play.

The problem here is that with only four modes (five if you include the seasonal one) and just six maps, they're going to need to add post-launch content quickly to keep Versus going, as that simply isn't enough variety to keep players coming back for long, no matter how good the gameplay is.

The lack of any single-life-per-round modes is the most disappointing aspect of E-Day's offering, especially since the original's Warzone and Execution game types made Gears so popular in the first place and made it stand out from the crowd.

The lack of private matches or any leaderboards are also notable, as both are staples of any competitive multiplayer shooter.

These may have omitted due to low overall player engagement, but for very simple features that aren't difficult to add when the game already has extensive stat tracking and even allows for playing against bots (but only on their hosted servers), they are a very odd omission that hurts the more competitive crowd (which also tend to be a crowd willing to spend more money on what they like).

The Coalition has promised new maps and modes will be added post-launch and has stated those missing features may come in future updates, but nothing has been said on how long players will have to wait for anything other than cosmetics - if they don't add content quickly, they risk having their versus multiplayer base rapidly dwindle just like Halo Infinite's did 5 years ago.

Dressed for Success

What The Coalition did far better than the aforementioned Halo game is their implementation of customization and microtransactions, partly due to Gears not attempting to go the free-to-play route that 343 Industries took.

There are plenty of character skins you can choose from for both the COG and Locust teams, alongside a slew of weapon skins which you can equip separately depending on which team you find yourself on to make sure your gear suits your chosen character aesthetic.

Alongside those are various banners (including a whopping 20 "Pride" banners that offer various sexualities/genders that most sane people have never heard of), emblems, taglines, and poses to customize your player profile as has become the norm for games today.

Unlike many other games however, The Coalition has promised that virtually everything in the store can be earned simply by playing the game, with the only exceptions being the Premium Edition content and collaborations which understandably require revenue (such as the awesome Metallica weapon skins or a larger pack of content with proceeds that go to their Never Fight Alone suicide prevention foundation).

Most importantly, E-Day has included various customization options that can *only* be unlocked by accomplishing specific tasks, including seasonal challenges as well as things like completing the campaign 100% on Insane or snagging this game's customary Seriously achievement (which is as retardedly grinding as ever - 25,000 Versus kills? Be reasonable).

In fact, every achievement in the game comes with some sort of reward in-game to go along with your Gamerscore, which is a nice touch as well that other studios should incorporate.

With The Coalition planning at least five seasons of content drops and already having plenty to choose from, players looking for that type of customization, as well as those that miss the days where players had to actually earn prized unlocks rather than simply shelling out extra cash for a game they already paid for, should be plenty pleased with E-Day's offerings.

While some unlocks are specific to certain modes, the skins and profile customization as well as the standard leveling system applies across both Horde Siege and Versus modes, with players able to pick which character and weapon skins they have equipped for Horde and Versus separately.

Overall, E-Day's multiplayer offers a stellar new rendition of Horde mode with plenty of progression and replayability, alongside excellent foundations for its Versus mode, though the focus on Horde seems to have left its PvP offerings a bit slimmer than most would like.

This combines with a campaign that ranks amongst the best in the franchise to create a superb package that, aside from a few small omissions and some silly inclusions in its story, comes together as one of the best shooters in years.

E-Day came with lofty expectations after such a lengthy hiatus, yet has still managed to blow away my expectations in nearly every regard.

It nails the feel of the original Gears of War in so many ways while refining the series' formula, adding in smart additions and changes alongside dialing up the gore, spectacle, and scale to 11.

The Coalition really took Cliffy B's mantra from his Gears of War 2 sales pitch to heart when designing this game: they took the iconic original and made it "bigger, better, and more badass".

Pros:

+A technical marvel with superb visuals and smooth performance

+Impeccable audio design & a great score

+Great movement system and maintains the series renowned gunplay

+Epic set pieces and a meaty campaign true to the classic Gears games

+Amazing sense of atmosphere and inclusion of the original's horror tone

+Excellent maps and new modes

+Top-tier weapon sandbox and a solid upgrade system for campaign/Horde

+Plenty of customization options and unlockables, with virtually everything earnable through play

Cons:

-Insertion of woke agenda in its writing that detracts from the otherwise great story

-Minor balancing issues, some visual hiccups mostly in Horde

-Focus on campaign/Horde has left Versus a bit behind (no single-life modes, only six maps)

The Final Verdict: 9.5 / 10