In 2019, The Coalition studio released its magnum opus Gears 5, which left players' expectations in limbo. A new monumental blockbuster took a long seven years to release. Is everything really that bad, or, on the contrary, perfect, as people have been saying online for the past three weeks? Opinions on the Internet are divided, and we will sort everything out for you.
E-Day
The main stumbling block of the new installment is its plot. Or, to be more precise, its almost complete absence. For newcomers, this will not be a problem, but long-time fans of Marcus Fenix's adventures and company will be bewildered by the local narrative. The Gears series, despite its reputation as an epic action game about cabinet-like fighters, always had a well-developed lore, spanning hundreds of years of the planet Sera's history. Each numbered installment delighted with the development of its characters: the relationships between the characters against the backdrop of a dying world were always at the forefront. The player might miss the details of the global conflict, but always understood how events changed the heroes and their attitudes towards each other.
E-Day acts in reverse. The event itself is brought to the forefront, while what happens to the characters during it remains undeveloped. To the great disappointment of fans, the characters, who were well-presented at the beginning, arrive at the finale almost unchanged. They do not evolve or grow, which makes their fate simply irrelevant. Here are Marcus, here is Dominic — public favorites. Next to them is a new duo — Lucas and Carter. Who are they? Why are they here? It doesn't matter. In E-Day, the characters are reduced to the level of extras.
The characters are so faceless that even the notorious 'agenda' is perceived only as much as you yourself want to see it: no one received a clear revelation. The heroine Megs was subjected to another wave of online discontent, but the problem with her is much deeper: change her voice to male, change her gender, appearance, or profession — absolutely nothing will change. She is an unremarkable figure who decides nothing, proves nothing to anyone, and shows no character.
This applies to almost all participants in the story, against whom the true main character — the city of Kalonna — plays its part. And with its presentation, the authors hit the bullseye. E-Day is a chronicle of the fall of one of the most fortified megacities of the Coalition of United Governments. A fall swift, inevitable, and crushing. Majestic architecture suddenly loses hope and future.
For the first time, the franchise demonstrates the epicenter of the nightmare and the primal force behind it, and it does so 'with all the bells and whistles.' You instantly forget about the authors' script helplessness: each of the five acts is strictly calibrated on the tension scale — from deceptive calm to a veritable apocalypse that makes your heart pound with delight. If the project is flawless in terms of direction, it is in demonstrating the scale of the tragedy of a dying civilization.
If you stop and look around, you are amazed by the meticulousness of The Coalition's artists: from newspaper headlines and street posters to armor textures and the nature of destruction — the environment literally breathes history.
The gameplay loop has also evolved: most of the time you will explore vast areas of Kalonna. Calling it an open world is wrong, because the main route is strictly fixed, and freedom is reduced to completing side quests, finding secrets, and modules. As in Gears 5, there is character progression through installing weapon modifications and passive armor skills. The closer to the finale, the richer the scope for experimenting with builds.
Splitscreen has always been the series' hallmark, and E-Day carefully honors the tradition on Xbox Series X/S consoles (including Horde mode). Teammates can individually adjust the field of view and difficulty to their liking, and the optimization of the split screen deserves the highest praise: the older console maintains 60 frames per second with only rare drops, and the quality mode at 30 FPS is as unshakeable as a rock — no drops were noticed. The picture does not fall apart even in moments of total chaos, when four fighters drown in machine gun fire, and fragments of buildings and Reaver rockets fly over their heads.
Two annoying problems threw a fly in the ointment: firstly, subtitles are somehow displayed only on the first player's screen, creating a mess during simultaneous lines from different characters; secondly, the game can suddenly crash to the console's main screen right in the middle of a cutscene or an intense battle near the evacuation helicopter. Both problems break immersion, and in particularly tense moments, they are downright irritating.
E-Day offers the most expensive, spectacular, and longest campaign in the franchise's history. Newcomers will get an excellent entry point and see the origins of the conflict, while devoted fans of the story will likely be disappointed by the superficial revelation of key personalities. On the other hand, the series' narrative takes a new start, and in such an event, there is too little room for telling the personal stories of heroes whom fans of the series have known for 20 years and know almost everything about.
Gnasher is the head. And the body. And the limbs.
The competitive online mode 'Skirmish' habitually offers 'four-on-four' battles in several modes across a good five maps.
The movement mechanics have undergone the biggest changes: the cabinet-like fighters have become faster, more obedient, and more maneuverable, shedding their former archaic nature. The main discipline among hardcore players — wallbouncing — has also been seriously adjusted: where a player could move between covers at high speed, taking reduced damage even from direct hits. The system of contextual animations now prevents endless ping-pong between walls: it is technically possible to perform the trick, but it no longer provides the former speed advantage.
The second key innovation is verticality: characters have learned to jump onto high covers with a single touch. Exhausting dances with Gnashers around a single crate are a thing of the past — now you can instantly climb an obstacle and hit an opponent in the face or fall down like a seasoned Batman, stunning a distracted enemy (this mechanic was successfully returned after tests, unlike the living shield and sticky grenades).
Multiplayer has noticeably changed due to the absence of familiar modes like 'Captains' or 'Arms Race,' offering instead reworked classics — point capture, bomb defusal, power core transfer, and the good old team deathmatch. The geometry of the arenas has also changed: instead of three-lane corridors, all maps feature open areas with a pronounced center and multiple approaches to it. The only disappointment is the starting set of six maps, and I would not advise expecting the return of old maps — E-Day's game designers and level designers have chosen a completely different style.
With the first update, a 'Competitive' mode was also launched — and it's the same old skill-dependent multiplayer, now even tougher and more dynamic. But the complete absence of split-screen in 'Skirmish,' at least on Xbox consoles, is disappointing — the technical compromise seems strange against the backdrop of stable split-screen performance in the massive story campaign and 'Horde' mode, where 12 people online can battle hordes of enemies.
Gears of War: E-Day, режим «Схватка»
Gears of War: E-Day, режим «Схватка»
For the Horde!
The main dish of the release is the updated 'Horde.' And it's surprising how a modest addition from the second part has evolved over time into a key attraction of the series.
The mode itself is divided into three formats: the fast-paced 'Blitz' for 15–20 minutes, the large-scale 'Siege' for an hour and a half of real time, and the classic ten-wave survival mode with a colossal risk of losing all loot at the end. While the latter is clear to series veterans, we will focus on the first two types of 'Horde.'
Essentially, the novelty has turned into a full-fledged extraction-PvE: a squad of four operatives lands on a vast map, completes a chain of contracts, and fights their way to the evacuation point to extract a valuable resource — weapon parts, which will help install modifications in weapons. If you die, you only keep the experience gained for your class and profile, losing materials for leveling up.
There are four classes to choose from, each with unique skill trees: Medic, Sniper, Assault, and Breacher. Weapon progression is universal for the entire arsenal, but access to specific weapons is tied to the rank of each individual archetype: playing as a sniper, at level 17 you will unlock access to the crossbow and start leveling it up; however, if you want to use the same weapon while playing as a medic, this opportunity only opens at level 25, albeit with all purchased mods.
The main discovery of the developers lies in socialization: the location is a living ecosystem where two other independent squads of players with their own tasks operate in parallel — and these 'fours' constantly change on the server when someone evacuates or loses in a battle with the Locust. Fortifications and turrets remain on the map even after the group that installed them leaves, and the built-in proximity chat allows you to call neighbors for help in the midst of a massacre.
The peak of team interaction comes with 'Invasions' — the appearance of world bosses like the colossal Corpser, Brumak, or flying Scorches, which impose harsh modifiers on the session. They can only be removed by defeating the gigantic monsters. In such moments, disparate squads are forced to unite into a single combat fist of twelve guns, fighting against an entire horde of invaders, creating situations that evoke genuine cinematic delight and drama.
When Squad Alpha comes to your aid from around the corner of a neighboring building, drawing the boss's attention to themselves so you can recover, buy equipment, and rush back into battle, and a minute or two later Squad Bishop arrives — and all together participate as if in the last battle for the freedom of humanity.
No matter how expensive the story campaign is, with its magnificent production, it cannot provide the same emotions that the updated 'Horde' will give.
Gears of War: E-Day, режим «Орда»
Gears of War: E-Day, режим «Орда»
The Coalition and taming UE5
Visually, Gears of War: E-Day is the most impressive technological flagship on Xbox. In places, the story campaign delivers such a crushing panorama of views even in 'Performance' mode that you involuntarily wonder: how does a six-year-old console manage to handle something like this without drops?
In story mode and 'Horde,' the console offers a choice between focusing on resolution, 60 FPS, or 40 frames mode for owners of screens with VRR. On powerful PCs, developers deploy the full arsenal of modern Unreal Engine graphics technologies: advanced ray tracing, Nanite in conjunction with level geometry, and an updated Lumen global illumination model. At the same time, optimization deserves praise — the frame counter behaves predictably and honestly reflects the capabilities of the installed hardware.
The sound design is traditionally impeccable: the monumental soundtrack perfectly matches the tone of what is happening, the character voice acting maintains a high standard, and the heavy rumble of weapons sounds extremely juicy. The only complaint concerns spatial audio in 'Horde': in moments of overloaded battles, the positioning of noise sources sometimes gives a noticeable malfunction.
The triumph of a new beginning for a forgotten series
Gears of War: E-Day is a monumental blockbuster and a strong contender for 'Game of the Year 2026,' largely thanks to the triumphant reinterpretation of 'Horde,' which will provide many years of development for the entire series. There is no doubt about it.
The project combines stunning audiovisual performance with a scattering of available modes, although it is not without annoying rough edges such as a superficial script and technical flaws. But The Coalition's main achievement is elsewhere: the game sparked heated online discussions, generated polarized opinions, and ultimately captivated and continues to captivate an audience that gave it a chance.
And when could such a controversial release from Microsoft's internal studios have achieved this? I haven't seen anything like it in a very long time.