Xbox’s flagship Gears of War series has had a bit of an identity crisis over the last decade. After Epic Games capped off a pretty incredible trilogy on Xbox 360, the subsequent sequels developed by The Coalition failed to really capture that same spark. That’s why the developer decided to take a step back and return to the series’ roots with Gears of War: E-Day, a prequel set over a decade before the first game during the notorious Emergence Day. Whether this back to basics approach works for everyone remains to be seen but as an attempt to course-correct the franchise, it’s one hell of an effort.

Note: This review is spoiler-free and based on the campaign. Thoughts on multiplayer to follow in another article.

Gears of War: E-Day follows Marcus Fenix in his early years - specifically 14 years before the events of the first game. Shortly after the Pendulum Wars, the planet Sera is still picking up the pieces of its ruined state until the sudden arrival of the Locusts, a swarm of slumbering BOWs, rise from the planet’s core and begin causing havoc. Marcus, along with a handful of fellow COG soldiers, must face the onslaught head-on.



As a prequel, E-Day lays the groundwork for The Coalition to delve very deep into its rich lore and for the most part, that’s what they accomplish. In fact, these formed my favourite parts of the story - initially, the Locusts are menacing, mysterious, and incredibly dangerous adversaries that Marcus and company react to fittingly; out of fear, concern, and confusion. We get those day one boots-on-the-ground moments of panic in E-Day as the city of Kalona is overrun by the Locusts. The best thing Gears of War: E-Day does with its setting is make the Locust Horde truly scary again and I loved that, coming in all shapes and sizes with a decent amount of variety in their bold designs.

As a prequel, E-Day lays the groundwork for The Coalition to delve very deep into its rich lore and for the most part, that’s what they accomplish.

The writing is unfortunately a bit of a mixed bag in Gears of War: E-Day. There are scenes that take big emotional swings and not all of them land - Apart from Marcus and Dom who are the emotional backbone of the game, it’s hard to really start caring about side characters that you know will ultimately be canned meat before the end of the campaign. Nonetheless, when the story is at its strongest, it delivers surprisingly emotional weight that I didn't expect, or rather haven't seen in the Gears series in many, many years.



On that note, it just feels great to step into Marcus’ shoes again. He’s not the battle-hardened grump we saw him evolve into throughout the series; this is a Marcus who is certainly skilled as a younger soldier, but wholly unprepared for the nightmare that erupts on Emergence Day. It’s great to see how he and other characters initially start dealing with the hordes without a decade of prior combat experience behind them. The set pieces are spectacular and fittingly big-budget for AAA games. They’ll surely deliver those blockbuster moments and grand action sequences you’ve come to expect from the Gears series.

The gameplay department is where I think players will either love getting back to the basics of the franchise or dislike how dated it might seem. When they said it’s going back to its roots, it also meant returning to some of the old-school design that were signs of the early times. Again, how much you like it is entirely dependent on what you expect out of a return to form for Gears, because the game design, at its core, is largely unchanged with improvements where it matters. Most missions consist of you fending off waves of Locust hordes with the tried-and-tested cover-based shooting that’s punchy, brutal, and weighty. Executions are gruesome and you punish enemies with the power of a bulldozer on legs.



The core gameplay in Gears of War: E-Day is fantastic, visceral and immensely satisfying. It’s like The Coalition found the ideal balance of heavy, hulking movement and snappy, responsive controls that don’t feel like they’re magnetizing you to cover points anymore. Sure, you can still snap off of walls if you want hilariously broken agility, but I think The Coalition finally understands how fun that is. Even when the story isn’t grabbing your attention, the moment-to-moment gameplay is so entertaining that it makes up for those missteps. Again, the only way I can describe it is “punchy.” It’s something Epic Games pulled off magnificently in the original trilogy, and The Coalition finally accomplishes (or should I say successfully replicates) that feeling with E-Day.

He’s not the battle-hardened grump we saw him evolve into throughout the series; this is a Marcus who is certainly skilled as a younger soldier, but wholly unprepared for the nightmare that erupts on Emergence Day.

To make the city of Kalona come alive, Gears of War: E-Day literally opens up its level design to create larger sandbox areas to explore. With bigger areas, you now have opportunities to venture off the beaten path, find collectables (of which there is a surprising amount), and plot alternate routes to your next objective. The levels don’t necessarily feel guardrailed or like they’re forcing you in any specific directions, at least most of the time. By opening up the world, E-Day strips away linearity in favour of sandbox-style maps with verticality that lets you reposition and get the jump on hordes. It might get tiring for some players who just want a cozy, linear experience like the older games and that’s completely understandable too.



Where tedium does kind of set in is when the game asks players to revisit locations that you’ve probably already been through and thoroughly scoured. Thankfully, it doesn’t do this a lot but when it happens, it feels a little padded out. Going off the main path, you’ll also eventually run into repeated horde exterminations as side objectives. They don’t necessarily change in design or challenge, so they can become repetitive if you’re actively exploring each section of the map. Luckily, the gameplay is good enough to keep you ploughing through these more tiring sections so it does balance itself out in a way.

The core gameplay in Gears of War: E-Day is fantastic, visceral and immensely satisfying.

As for performance, I reviewed Gears of War: E-Day on PC with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060. While I did have to tinker my settings a bit to get the most optimal performance out of the game (with Frame Gen doing some heavy lifting), it ran well and I encountered only a few hiccups. Considering this is built in Unreal Engine 5 - which doesn’t have the best track record of great performance on PC, to be fair - it didn’t give me much issues outside of the odd framerate dips in busy action sections. Overall, Gears of War: E-Day is a great-looking game, boasting possibly the best visuals in the series to date, with the gore effects especially standing out. The sound design is also especially crunchy, with audio effects as gloriously brutal as the violence on-screen.



Gears of War: E-Day isn’t going to reinvent the wheel for the franchise but it does deliver a satisfying prequel story with fan-service moments players will definitely appreciate. Its shortcomings, including some repetitive mission structures and story moments that may not land as hard as The Coalition hoped, can mostly be forgiven on account of its excellent, refined cover-based gameplay. If I’m being completely honest, this is the best shape that the Gears series has been in since Gears of War 3, and I sincerely hope The Coalition picks up all the right lessons for where the franchise should head next in the current timeline.

Review code provided by Xbox Game Studios | Gears of War: E-Day is available to order at Nexus Hub on Xbox Series X for R1,599