After a seven-year wait, the main Gears of War series is finally returning, and The Coalition is rewinding the clock to take the story back to its horror themes and classic protagonists. However, this isn't meant to be a nostalgia trip. The studio has built the game from the ground up on Unreal Engine 5 while fundamentally changing how this entry plays and feels.
From the overhauled movement systems to the fresh multiplayer offerings, here are the ways Gears of War: E-Day is evolving the long-running franchise.
Combat and gunplay
Gears of War's weaponry has always felt powerful and overbuilt, as if each bullet could take down a tank. While keeping that punchy impact, the studio has upgraded several other elements for E-Day. Gone are the days of hitscan weapons, with projectile ballistics coming in that actually follow the tracers that tear across the air. Shooting outside the weapon's range? Better lead your targets.
On top of that, you can finally shoulder-swap your view now, removing that annoying blind spot that has been with the series since its inception.
Fresh movement
Gears of War has always had a great relationship with the A button on the Xbox controller. Want to crouch and sprint? Slam into cover? Do a roll? Leap over cover? Say hello to the trusty A. But Gears of War: E-Day is breaking up the party by assigning some of those actions to other just as capable buttons (by default at least).
The iconic heavy and momentum-filled movement of the armor-clad Gears is not going away, but they are much more capable when it comes to movement in E-Day. There is a jump button for quickly crossing gaps or for scaling up low walls, while the new slide mechanic lets you reach those tight spaces or low cover with more precision. You can shoot while sliding for extra style points too.
New type of cover
While on the subject of cover, that's also an iconic area Gears of War: E-Day is expanding upon. On top of standing and crouching cover mechanics, now there is a low ground system that lets you hug the ground to make use of those tiny pieces of remaining cover.
This is especially impressive when the new environmental destruction system slowly chips away soft cover from enemy fire. This can make your gear dynamically go lower to the ground to make use of any cover they still have remaining.
Horde Siege
Gears of War is almost synonymous with horde, and it's what defined Xbox 360 multiplayer. E-Day is expanding its scope massively with Horde Siege. Your squad of four players remains intact (down from five), but the mode puts you together with two other squads in a massive map with interconnected city districts.
Dynamic objectives, hordes of Locusts, and boss fights pop up as the round goes on, making the squads split up and group up depending on the threat level for much more adaptable matches than with any other Gears co-op experience in the past.
Single-city setting
The Gears of War series tends to send its squads across the world of Sera in the campaign, exploring different biomes or faraway facilities taken over by the Locust horde. E-Day is keeping things tight with a story that only tells the events of the city of Kalona and its residents as they go through the first invasion over a three-day period.
Going along for the ride are the iconic duo Marcus and Dom, as well as their new squad mates Mags Carter and Lucas Reyes, forming the four-player co-op action. On top of that, players will experience this first encounter as part of the longest campaign that The Coalition has ever built (approximately 14 hours).
Across its five mainline games and other spin-offs behind it, Gears of War is a series that has delivered tremendous squad gameplay and renowned storylines across three console generations. Seeing so many of the original game’s gameplay systems and squad formulas still being used all these years later is a testament to just how sturdy the franchise foundation truly is.
