Gears of War E-Day Review

"Emerging, as to Say"

Campaign

October 4, 2026 at 9:54pm
By Jason Stettner

Forgoing a conclusion to the Gears of War franchise, The Coalition has opted to return to the darker roots of the series in a prequel. In doing so the game returns the franchise to four player online coop alongside a darker rooted experience.

It’s the very start of Emergence Day, when the Locust first came from the depths below. It’s an area of the lore that’s ripe for conflict and action. We get to see some younger appearances by the core characters Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago alongside two newcomers that get plenty of visibility.

The narrative follows the COG semi celebrating the conclusion of a war that’s lasted nearly eighty years. That’s when things start going bad and these monsters are appearing everywhere in the city and no one is really sure what’s happening. A great sense of panic and fear is present.

They come from below and show no mercy to anyone. It’s a mess of a situation and one that eventually spirales into the first entry in the franchise. This one leaves plenty of room to explore more if they so choose, but it did have a definitive narrative arch.

When linear the game is in its stride exploring a city where the situation is steadily getting worse to the point you’d ponder if the people of this society had any chance at all of handling this threat of the Locust. It paints a really grim image of what’s happening and allows you to really see the impact this has on regular people.

Hilariously when you shoot the Locust off citizens the people just fall over dying anyways. The linear portions of this elongated campaign are where the game is at its strongest. It feels as though it’s part of that original trilogy with good amounts of horror. Whether that’s a from visceral perspective or just emotional.

There are massive set pieces with extreme levels of chaos and that wow factor the series is known for. However, two hours in they throw you into this awful open world that just doesn’t work. They crusade you through areas filled with random side activities to take part in and collectibles to gather.

It’s a nightmare of its own. You can skip the true side stuff, but you see similar spots across the game. Clear out this enemy in the open world area and progress, then repeat. It’s weird, and the Warzone-ification on the franchise.

They clearly focused on this integrated multiplayer horde aspect and the campaign suffers from it as does the competitive multiplayer. I felt relief leaving sniper/marksman infested open world areas that felt like a slog. The chapter took forever and it was out of place. There’s also a certain level of repetition in the campaign, using the bridge segment three times over was just a tad much.

Still, there’s some charm to the more emotionally driven return to darkness. I would have preferred a conclusion to the franchise instead (as we may never get one now), but a prequel services the fans fine. It’s strength is in those linear areas with hard hitting moments, focusing on the citizens and causing chaos.

Multiplayer

The competitive multiplayer has suffered greatly within this entry for the Gears of War franchise. We’re down to only six multiplayer maps with some of them having the blandest visual aesthetic of the entire series. On Xbox Series X the characters and the areas often blend together in Xbox 360 era brown/grey/yellowish aesthetics that are awful to take in.

I often had issues differentiating enemies from teammates, as did my teammates where I watched people take multiple shots at me multiple times being confused as to why I wasn’t dying. Only to realize, we’re on the same team! The map flow is fine, but only having six multiplayer maps is straight up depressing.

They’ve got the microtransaction store flowing and a promise of maps on the way but it’s in a sad state. I’ve been playing multiplayer across every entry in the series since the very start and this just doesn’t work. You move around like it’s Call of Duty with a random slow reloading gnasher.

The heart of it is gone, and they did the bare minimum here. It doesn’t even have core game modes, there’s these new objective modes that have replaced all the classics. It’s just sad, not to mention a de-emphasis on power weapons and map control. I’ve just moved on from it sadly.

Horde Siege

The siege take on horde mode throws away anything you’re familiar with. Gone are defenses, traps and the fun of working to control a map against waves of enemies. You wander campaign cut open world sections in teams of four for twelve total shooting random miscellaneous enemies along the way whilst doing random mini missions.

You level up a class, you unlock weapons and you just wander. It’s really just four players together with others randomly out there doing their own thing. It feels strangely disconnected and somewhat soulless compared to its origins. Gone are the unique strategies, endless waves and creative switch-ups. Go over there and shoot a frog for a few minutes, then leave.

Gameplay

The movement is literally Call of Duty with a Gears of War aesthetic covered over it. You slide, bunny hop and clamber about awkwardly. It’s got some really sweet new cover based mechanics for partial bits and the destruction of that cover works well.

It’s just a shame that we’ve lost core mechanics such as frag tagging or chainsaw duels or meat shields or proper cover based execution prompts. It really takes a lot of the strategy out of combat and I felt out of place trying to do maneuvers against foes that used to exist.

The visual aesthetic of this game ranges from really detailed with a massive sense of scale and destruction to straight up bland. It’s weird, there’s more detail than ever before yet at the same time it feels like the original game in just have this gray look. The performance struggles greatly during open world segments and the visuals can be incredibly blurry.

It’s deriving from around 1080p across the modes on Xbox Series X and granting various frame rates depending on the performant mode you choose. I faced several crashes, but it wasn’t too bad there. More so in multiplayer for me, maybe just an aging Xbox Series X I suppose as well.

The Conclusion

Gears of War E-Day brings the series back its dark visceral roots with elevated levels of horror but everything outside of the campaign suffers. The competitive multiplayer is barebones to the max and feels hollowed out compared to The Coalition’s previous efforts. Horde Siege doesn’t hit for me and it’s a shame as I really enjoy playing regular Horde.

The open world segments were awful and you’re crusaded through them having to hear about citizens in a burger place needing help. At least in Gears 5 they were far off enough that I could pretend side quests or time wasters didn’t exist. Opening a map in Gears of War to see dozens of collectibles or activities was depressing, it wasn’t needed.

You can tell it sucked a lot of development time as well as multiplayer is so dry for content. At the end of it all the campaign is relatively great. It hits hard, it fleshes out its cast and it provides some memorable moments. The airfield segment was glorious. I really love this series and for me, it feels like too much of a step back in areas that are important for me.

The campaign is long, but it pads time in the open world and re-uses areas somewhat too often. Despite the impact of those revisits being neat at times. When it works it’s great and when you see what had to be cut in the process it’s disappointing. I hope it builds up for multiplayer but I’ve already moved on sadly.

Read our Gears 5 Review
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Gears of War E-Day Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Microsoft

Rating Overall: 7.5