I was able to get access to the Gears of War: E-Day Open Beta on my own and play Horde here at Lords of Gaming, but my hands-on time was limited to that mode. Now, Lord Cognito and Gaming Addict of the Iron Lords Podcast have played a portion of the campaign, giving us our first chance to compare what I experienced in Horde with what they saw in single-player. And there’s quite a bit of overlap, cuz, you know, great minds.
E-Day Preview – The War Begins
The Coalition is clearly modernizing how Gears of War moves and plays, but doesn’t seem to be abandoning what made the series work in the first place. The movement is more flexible, campaign spaces are opening up, and weapons can be customized. But the Locust are still dangerous, getting caught in the open can get you killed quickly, and cover still matters.
Gears of War: E-Day Makes You Respect Cover
Cog and Addict played two portions of Act 2 on Xbox Series X, beginning after the initial events of Emergence (E-)Day. Their preview was limited to single-player, so they weren’t able to test the campaign’s co-op.
One thing that immediately stood out during their playthrough was how aggressive the Locust could be.
Getting too close could cause enemies to leave cover and come after the player. Locust could flank, Boomers continued advancing, and snipers became threats that needed to be dealt with quickly. Trying to rush encounters with a shotgun eventually forced them to change tactics and fight more from mid-range.
That tracks with my experience playing Horde.
I generally think cover was one of the best innovations Gears of War brought to the genre, and E-Day made me enjoy using it again. Even Bethesda used it for Starfield. I couldn’t play as aggressively as I wanted. I had to respect the enemies and use cover strategically.
Horde was intense, too. Getting downed didn’t necessarily mean I could just sit there and wait for somebody to revive me. Smaller enemies could continue attacking while I tried to fight them off, while some of the bigger enemies could just finish me. In some cases, that meant grabbing my character and popping his head.
I haven’t played the campaign, so I can’t say every encounter carries that same intensity. But after spending a couple of hours with Horde, I can see how the enemy behavior ILP encountered translates into the campaign.
Movement Feels Like Gears, Just Modernized
The other big change is movement. And it’s for the better.
During my Horde preview in the Open Beta, E-Day introduced its movement through a little boot-camp-style section, and I felt comfortable pretty quickly.
The Gears still feel weighty. You can feel their weight as they run, and somehow that even comes through when they jump. The funny part is that they’re also much more athletic now. You can jump across some pretty substantial gaps, but you still feel the character weight as they go through it.
The traditional Roadie Run has changed, too. You don’t have that camera shaking around as you barrel forward anymore. Running works much more like the way sprint works in modern games: click the left stick, press forward, and keep moving. You don’t have to keep holding down the stick.
That’s probably going to work for some people and not for others. The Roadie Run is part of Gears of War’s identity. I liked the change.
The simplest way I can put it is that it still felt like the original movement, just a bit modernized with running and jumping.
Gears of War: E-Day Is Opening Up the Campaign
Movement isn’t the only place where The Coalition is changing things.
During the second portion of ILP’s preview, the campaign opened into what Cog and Addict described as a semi-open hub within the city. There were secondary objectives to find, including one where rescuing a family rewarded them with weapon mods.
Those mods can change things like damage, range, and accuracy, with different benefits and drawbacks depending on what you equip. Supply caches throughout the stages let you make those changes to your weapons.
Individual fights can open up a little more, too. ILP talked about a train-station encounter where they could approach enemies from different elevations. They initially considered going through the lower section before realizing they could take the higher ground instead.
There are also tactical abilities. An Adrenaline Injector can temporarily improve health and damage, while a Sonic Disruptor can stun enemies and interrupt attacks.
What we don’t know yet is how far E-Day takes any of this. ILP only played a portion of Act 2, and they came away asking the same question: How big do these areas eventually get?
Three Graphics Modes on Xbox Series X
The preview also gave us a better idea of what to expect technically on Xbox Series X.
ILP found three graphics modes in the work-in-progress build. Quality Mode targets 30 FPS, Performance Mode targets 60 FPS, and Balanced Mode targets 40 FPS on a compatible 120 Hz display.
The game also recognized display capabilities like refresh rate and VRR. Interestingly, there were separate graphical settings for campaign and Versus, even though Versus wasn’t available as part of this particular preview.
ILP also found accessibility settings for things like font size and colorblind options. One setting that stood out was Idle Timeout Power Usage, which reduces power consumption when the controller has been inactive.
E-Day Isn’t Just Going Backward
Putting Marcus and Dom back at the center of Gears of War and returning to Emergence Day was always going to get people’s attention. What I’m becoming more interested in is what The Coalition is building around that return.
My time with Horde showed me a version of Gears where the movement is more flexible, but the characters still have that weight I associate with the series. More importantly, it reminded me why the cover mechanics worked so well in the first place. I couldn’t just run around doing whatever I wanted. The enemies made me respect them.
Now, ILP’s campaign experience suggests that isn’t limited to Horde.
The campaign has bigger spaces, secondary objectives, weapon customization and more mobility, but the Locust can still force you back into cover if you get careless.
That’s where E-Day is starting to make sense to me. It doesn’t need to play exactly like Gears of War did in 2006 to feel like Gears of War.
Check out my review of GOW Reloaded here: Gears of War: Reloaded Looks and Runs Beautifully on the PlayStation 5 & PlayStation 5 Pro – Review – Lords of Gaming
